owned by James Russell Lowell, con-
taining more than 700 volumes, and the collection will be
taken from Elmwood to the Harvard University Library,
where it will be known as the Lowell Memorial Library
of Romance Literature. The funds to purchase the
books were subscribed in answer to an appeal made last
February.
Few Americans of the elder generation will fail to
recall the song of “The Rain on the Roof,” one of the
most popular pieces of song-verse ever produced in this
country. Its author, Col. Coates Kinney, has recently
included this and other familiar pieces in a volume of
verse issued by Messrs. Rand, McNally & Co., under
the title “Mists of Fire.” Old readers as well as new
ones will be glad to have this tasteful souvenir of a
veteran and popular writer.
“A Guide to the Operas,” by Miss Esther Singleton
(Dodd), gives descriptions of twenty-nine works by
twelve composers. The descriptions are something more
than the meagre outlines of plot usually given in such
works as this, and embody many intelligent hints for


1900.] THE
DIAL 59
the musical comprehension of the works considered.
The selection is at least practical, for it keeps close to
the familiar Grau repertoire, and the illustrations are,
appropriately enough, costumed portraits of the singers
with whom the public is best acquainted.
“A Syllabus of Psychology,” by Dr. James H.
Hyslop, and “A Syllabus of an Introduction to Phil-
osophy,” by Dr. Walter T. Marvin, are recent publica-
tions of Columbia University. While prepared for the
use of college classes, these syllabi are of wider inter-
est, presenting, as they do, a conspectus of the two
subjects concerned in such a way as to prove helpful
to the general reader. This statement is particularly
true of Dr. Marvin's work, which is more than a sylla-
bus, strictly speaking, and has some of the character-
istics of a treatise upon its subject.
The latest addition to the “Temple Classics” offers
a new and welcome departure from what have hitherto
been the limitations of the series. It is a translation,
by Mrs. Muriel Press, of the “Laxdale Saga,” and other
sagas are promised if the success of this one shall war-
rant the undertaking. Since the death of William
Morris cut short the comprehensive “Saga Library”
upon which he was engaged, we trust that the work of
popularizing these Icelandic masterpieces may be car-
ried on by the editor of the present series. One has
only to acquire a taste for this sort of reading to want
as much of it as he can get.
We hardly think of Matthew Arnold as a poet espe-
cially in need of the services of the illustrator, but the
volume of “Poems by Matthew Arnold” (Lane) for
which Mr. Henry Ospovat has made a series of draw-
ings, and for which Mr. A. C. Benson has written a
critical introduction, is a pleasant book to have, and we
will not quarrel with its idea. The selection of poems
is such that a pictorial accompaniment is not forced,
although Arnold would doubtless experience a feeling
of mild surprise could he view the types of character
and imaginative construction that his poems have sug-
gested to the artist of the present volume.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
[The following list, containing 93 titles, includes books
received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
The Drama of Yesterday and To-Day. By Clement
:*s In 2 vols., illus., 8vo, gilt tops, uncut. Macmillan
. $8.
Salmon Portland Chase. By Albert Bushnell Hart. 16mo,
gilt top, pp. 465. “American Statesmen.” Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. $1.25.
Sir Walter Scott. By James Hay. With portrait, 12mo,
gilt top, uncut, pp. 312. A. S. §am. & Co. $1.50.
Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days. By James F.
Rusling, A.M. With portraits, 8vo, gilt top, pp. 411.
Eaton & Mains. $2.50.
Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of England: A Contribution
to the Religious, Political, and Intellectual History of the
Thirteenth Century. By Francis Seymour Stevenson, M.P.
Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 348. Macmillan Co. $4.
Rajah Brooke: The Englishman as Ruler of an Eastern
State. By Sir Spenser St. John, G.C.M.G. With por-
trait, 12mo, pp. 302. “Builders of Greater Britain.”
Longmans, Green, & Co. $1.50.
Elizabeth Pease Nichol. By Anna M. Stoddart. Illus.,
12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 314. “Saintly Lives.” E. P.
Dutton & Co. $2.
Personal Reminiscences of the Anti-Slavery and Other
Reforms and Reformers. By Aaron M. Powell. Illus.,
12mo, gilt top, pp. 279. Plainfield, N.J.: Anna Rice Powell.
Thomas Campbell. By J. Cuthbert Hadden. 12mo, pp. 158.
“Famous Scots.” Charles Scribner's Sons. 75 cts.
HISTORY.
A History of American Privateers. By Edgar Stanton
Maclay, A.M. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 519.
D. Appleton & Co. $3.50.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
Johnson Club Papers. By various hands. Illus. in pho-
togravure, etc., 12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 276. Charles
Scribner's Sons. $2.
The World's Orators: Comprising the Great Orations of
the World's History. Edited by Guy Carleton Lee, Ph.D.
Wol. I., Orators of Ancient Greece. With photogravure
portraits, large 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 366. P. Put-
nam's Sons. $3.50. (Sold only by subscription.)
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Rendering in English
Verse of One Hundred Quatrains. By Elizabeth Alden
Curtis; with Introduction by Richard Burton. 12mo,
uncut, pp. 72. Gouverneur, § Y.: Brothers of the Book.
Critical Confessions. By Neal Brown. 8vo, uncut, pp. 245.
Wausau, Wis.: The Philosopher Press. $1.50.
The Wider View: A Search for Truth. Collected and ed-
ited by John Monroe Dana. 12mo, gilt top, pp. 261. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
Publishing a Book: Being a Few Practical Hints to Authors.
By Charles Welsh. 18mo, uncut, pp. 45. D. C. Heath &
Co. Paper, 50cts. -
The Cipher in the Plays, and on the Tombstone. By Igna-
tius Donnelly. 12mo, pp. 372. Minneapolis: Verulam
Publishing Co.
Life. By John Rankin Rogers. With portrait, 16nuo, pp. 149.
San Francisco: Whitaker & Ray Co.
Of Making One's Self Beautiful. By William C. Gannett.
{..." gilt top, uncut, pp. 131. Boston: James H. West
o. 50 cts.
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
Works of Thomas Carlyle, “Centenary” edition. Con-
cluding volume: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. W.
With portraits, 8vo, uncut, pp. 386. Charles Scribner's
Sons. $1.25.
Cassell's National Library. New vols.: Browne's Religio
Medici, Dickens's A Christmas Carol and The Chimes,
Bunyan's Grace Abounding, Milton's Paradise Lost (2
vols.), Cowper's The Task and other poems, Milton's
Earlier Poems, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra,
Twelfth-Night, The Tempest, King Richard II., and
King Lear. Each 32mo, Cassell & Co., Ltd. Per vol., 10c.
BOOKS OF VERSE.
Moods, and Other Verses. By Edward Robeson Taylor.
Large 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 209. San Francisco: Elder
& Shepard. . $1.25.
Christus Victor: A Student's Reverie. By Henry Nehemiah
Dodge. 24mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 186. G. #. Putnam's
Sons. $1.25.
Old_Hollyhocks, and Other Poems and Recitations. By
Horace G. Williamson. 16mo, pp. 57. Cincinnati: George
C. Shaw. $1.
Swarthmore Idylls. By John Russell Hayes. Illus., 8vo,
pp. 59. Wilmington, Del.: John M. Rogers Press. 75 cts.
Some Homely Little Songs. By Alfred James Waterhouse.
12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 176. San Francisco: Whitaker
ay Uo.
Beauty on Ice. By John Erb. 12mo, pp. 125. J. S. Ogilvie
Pub’g Co. Paper, 25 cts.
FICTION.
The Knights of the Cross. By Henryk Sienkiewicz; au-
thorized and unabridged translation from the Polish by
Jeremiah Curtin. First half; 12mo, pp. 412. Little,
Brown, o. $1.
The White Terror: A Romance of the French Revolution
and After. By Félix Gras; trans, from the Provençal by
Catharine A. Janvier. 16mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 437.
D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.
Idylls of the Lawn: Stories by Undergraduates of the Uni-
versity of Virginia. Illus. in photogravure, etc., by Dun-
can Smith, M.A.; with Preface by Charles W. Kent, Ph.D.
18mo, uncut, pp. 130. Roanoke, Va.; Stone Printing &
Mfg. Co. $1.60.


60 THE DIAL
[Jan. 16,
Sir Patrick: The Puddock. By L. B. Walford. 12mo,
pp. 312, Longmans, Green, & Co. $1.50.
The Bond of Black. By William Le Queux. 12mo, gilt top,
pp. 282. G. W. Dillingham Co. $1.50.
Jack Crews. By Martha Frye Boggs, 12mo, gilt top,
pp. 273. G. W. Dillingham Co. $1.50.
Daughter of the Elm: A Tale of Western Virginia before
the War. By Granville Davisson Hall. 16mo, pp. 326.
Chicago: Mayer & Miller.
TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
In Dwarf Land and Cannibal Country: A Record of
Travel and Discovery in Central Africa. By A. B. Lloyd;
with Introduction by the Rt. Hon. Sir John H. Kennaway,
Bart. Illus., large 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 385. Charles
Scribner's Sons. $5.
By-Gone Tourist Days: Letters of Travel. By Laura G.
Collins. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 326. Robert
Clarke Co. $2.
Mexican Vistas Seen from Highways and Byways of Travel.
By Harriott Wight Sherratt. Illus., 12mo, gilt top, pp.285.
Rand, McNally & Co. $1.50.
Kansas: Its Interior and Exterior Life. By Sara T. D.
Robinson. Revised edition; illus., 12mo, Journal Pub-
lishing Co.
Hawaii and its People: The Land of Rainbow and Palm.
By Alexander S. Twombly. Illus., 12mo, pp. 384. Silver,
Burdett & Co. $1.
SOUTH AFRICA AND THE WAR.
Side Lights on South Africa. By Roy Devereux. With
map, 12mo, uncut, pp. 273. Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.75.
Briton and Boer: Both Sides of the South African Question.
By James Bryce, M.P., Sydney Brooks, and others.
#. 12mo, pp. 251. Harper & Brothers. $1.25.
The History of the Great Boer Trek and the Origin of the
South African Republics. By the late Hon. Henry Cloete,
LL.D.; edited by his grandson, W. Broderick-Cloete, M.A.
12mo, pp. 196. Charles Scribner's Sons. 75 cts.
RELIGION.
The Bible in Court: The Method of Legal Inquiry. Applied
to the Study of the Scriptures. By Joseph Evans Sagebeer,
Ph.D. 16mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 201. J. B. Lippincott
Co. $1.25.
The Catholic and Apostolic Church: Letters to his Son by
Roundell, First Earl of Selborne. 16mo, uncut, pp. 144.
Macmillan Co. $1.
The Method of Jesus: An Interpretation of Personal Reli-
gion. By Alfred Williams Anthony. 12mo, gilt top,
pp. 264. Silver, Burdett, & Co.
SCIENCE AND NATURE.
Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for the
Year Ending June 30, 1897. Part I., Report of the Na-
tional Museum. Illus., large 8vo, pp. 1021. Government
Printing Office.
Steam-Engine Theory and Practice. By William Ripper.
Illus., 8vo, pp. 398. Longmans, Green, & Co. $2.50.
The Birds of Eastern North America. By Charles B.
Cory. In 2 parts, illus., 8vo, pp. 387. Chicago: Field
Columbian Museum.
Minnesota Plant Life. By Conway MacMillan. Illus, in
hotogravure, etc., large 8vo, pp. 568. St. Paul: Pub-
ished by the author.
The Five Windows of the Soul; or, Thoughts on Perceiv-
ing. By E. H. Aitken. 12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 257.
E. P. Dutton & Co. $2.
The Iron Star and What It Saw on Its Journey through the
Ages. By John Preston True. Illus., 12mo, pp. 146.
Little, Brown, & Co. $1.50.
Statistical Methods. With special reference to Biological
Variation. By C. B. Davenport, Ph.D. Illus., 16mo,
gilt edges, pp. 150. John Wiley & Sons. $1.25.
Chemistry: Its Evolution and Achievements. By Ferdinand
G. Wiechmann, Ph.D. 16mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 176.
Wm. R. Jenkins. $1.
Our Native Birds: How to Protect Them and Attract Them
to our Homes. By D. Lange. Illus., 12mo, pp. 162.
Macmillan Co. $1.
The Story of Ice in the Present and Past. By William A.
Brend, B.A. Illus., 18mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 228. M. F
Mansfield & A. Wessels. 75 cts.
Ways of Wood Folk. By William J. Long. First Series.
Illus., 12mo, pp. 205. Ginn & Co. 65 cts.
The Family of the Sun: Conversations with a Child. By
Edward S. Holden, LL.D. Illus., 12mo, pp. 252. “Home
Reading Books.” D. Appleton & Co. 50cts.
ART AND ARCHLEOLOGY.
Pompeii: Its Life and Art. By August Mau; trans. by
Francis W. Kelsey. Illus, in photogravure, etc., large 8vo,
gilt top, uncut, pp. 509. Macmillan Co. $6. net.
Byzantine Constantinople: The Walls of the City and
Adjoining Historical Sites. By Alexander Van Millingen,
M.A. Illus., large 8vo, uncut, pp. 361. Charles Scribner's
Sons. $7.50.
A Manual of Historic Ornament. Prepared for the use of
students and craftsmen. By Richard Glazier. Illus.,
large 8vo. pp. 139. Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.50.
American Art Annual, Supplement for 1899. Edited by
Florence N. Levy. Large 8vo, pp. 90. New York: Art
Interchange Co. Paper.
EDUCATION.— BOOKS FOR SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year
1897-98. Volume I., containing Part I. Illus., 8vo, pp. 1280.
Government Printing Office.
Elementary Astronomy: A Beginner's Text-Book. By
Edward S. Holden, M.A. Illus., 12mo, pp. 446. “Amer-
ican Science Series.” Henry Holt & Co. $1.25.
Materials for German Prose Composition. By Max Poll,
Ph.D. Vol. II., Narrative and Descriptive. 12mo, pp. 168.
Henry Holt & Co. 90 cts.
History of the United States. By Alma Holman Burton.
Illus., 8vo, pp. 423. Chicago: Eaton & Company.
Goethe's Poems. Selected and edited by Charles Harris.
With portrait, 12mo, pp. 286. D. C. Heath & Co. 90 cts.
Heidi: A Story for Children and Those That Love Children.
By Frau Johanna Spyri; trans. from the German by Helen
B. Dole. Illus., 12mo, pp. 363. Ginn & Co. 75 cts.
A Primer of French Verse for Upper Forms. Edited by
Fºlºis Spencer, M.A. 16mo, pp. 260. Macmillan Co.
5 cts.
Letters from Queer and Other Folk. For boys and girls
to answer. By Helen M. Cleveland. Book I., For Lower
Grammar Grades, 30 cts.; Book II., For Higher Grades,
35 cts.; Manual for Teachers, 60 cts. Each 12mo. Mac-
millan Co.
Friends and Helpers. Compiled by Sarah J. Eddy. Illus.,
12mo, pp. 231. Ginn & Co. 70 cts.
French Reading for Beginners. With Notes and Vocabulary
by Oscar Kuhns. 16mo, pp. 310. Henry Holt & Co. 70cts.
Our Country in Poem and Prose. By Eleanor A. Persons.
Illus., 12mo, pp. 204. American Book Co. 50 cts.
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Edited by Ella Boyce
Kirk, 12mo, pp. 304. American Book Co. 50 cts.
Illustrations of Logic. By Paul T. Lafleur, M.A. 12mo,
pp. 97. Ginn & Co. 45 cts.
Milton's Shorter Poems and Sonnets. Arranged and
edited by Frederick Day Nichols, A.B. 12mo, pp. 153.
D. Appleton & Co. 40 cts.
La Tulipe Noire. Par Alexandre Dumas; abridged and
annotated by Edgar Ewing Brandon, A.M. 12mo, pp. 156.
American Book Co. 40 cts.
The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from “TheSpectator.”
Edited by Franklin T. Baker, A.M., and Richard Jones,
Ph.D. With portrait, 12mo, pp. 217. D. Appleton & Co.
40 cts.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Little Folks of Many Lands. By Louise Jordan Miln.
Illus., 8vo, gilt top, pp. 383. Charles Scribner's Sons. $4.
The History of Trade between the United Kingdom and
the United States. With special reference to the effect of
tariffs. By Sidney J. Chapman. 12mo, uncut, pp. 118.
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.
Music and the Comrade Arts: Their Relation. By H. A.
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& Co. 75 cts.
The 20th Century Handy Cyclopedia Britannica. By
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Sir Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry. Drawings in
colors, etc., by Pamela Colman Smith; text by É.
Stoker. Folio. Doubleday & McClure Co. Paper, 75cts.


THE
DIAL
A $emi-ſāonthlg 3ournal of 3Literarg Criticism, HBigtuggion, amb Information.
THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of
each month. TERMs of SUBscBIPTION, 82.00 a year in advance, postage
prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; in other countries
comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must
be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the
current number. REMITTANCEs should be by draft, or by express or
postal order, payable to THE DIAL. SpecIAL RATEs to CLUBs and
for subscriptions with other publications will be sent on application;
and SAMPLE Copy on receipt of 10 cents. AdvKRTIsING RATEs furnished
on application. All communications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
No. 327. FEB. 1, 1900. Vol. XX VIII.
CONTENTS.
page
JOHN RUSKIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
COMMUNICATIONS . . . 76
On French and English Poetry. Rudolph Schwill.
University “Spelling Reform.” Wallace Rice.
Mr. Godkin and “The Evening Post.” W. H.
Johnson.
PLAYHOUSE RECOLLECTIONS. E. G. J. . . . .78
THE REMINISCENCES OF MBS. HOWE. Sara
A. Hubbard . - - - - - - - - - - -
THE WERNACULAR LITERATURE OF SCOT-
LAND. Mary Augusta Scott - - - 82
RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne . . . 84
Crawford's Via Crucis. – Gibson's My Lady and
Allan Darke.—Brady's For the Freedom of the Sea.
—Barrett and Barron's In Old New York.-Luther's
The Favor of Princes.— Farmer's The Grand Made-
moiselle.— Besant's The Orange Girl. — Roberts's
The Colossus. – Watson's The Princess Xenia. —
Capes's Our Lady of Darkness.-Swift's Siren City.
— Hamilton's The Perils of Josephine. — Crockett's
Ione March. — Keightley's Heronford.-Oxenham's
Rising Fortunes. – Boothby's Love Made Manifest.
— Quiller-Couch's The Ship of Stars.-Mason's The
Watchers.-Miss McChesney's Rupert, by the Grace
of God —. — Mrs. Macquoid's A Ward of the King.
—Bret Harte's Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation.—
Smith's The Other Fellow.— Perry's The Powers at
Play.—Waldstein's The Surface of Things.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS - - - - - -
Contemporary European history. — Mr. Archer's
notes on America. — More chapters in the story of
the Royal Navy. — Dark pictures of Yankee sailing
ships and officers. — The technical processes of the
old masters. — The story of Oliver Goldsmith.-
Great names of Augustan literature. — The true
William Penn.-Glimpses of bygone stage celebrities.
—Men and events of the Lutheran Church.- Biog-
raphy in miniature.—Old-time naval yarns.— From
Franklin to Mr. Dooley.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS . . . . . 94
LIST OF NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . 95
79
88
JOHN RUSKIN.
Within a few days of the completion of his
eighty-first year, death has crowned the labors
of John Ruskin, and he has entered the com-
pany of the immortals. There is no English-
man of his intellectual and moral stature left
alive; his peers have all gone before him, and
now the last of the great spirits who have
shaped for our Victorian age its ethical and
aesthetical ideals has been gathered to his rest.
“As he willed, he worked:
And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure.
Triumph his whole life through, submitting work
To work's right judges, never to the wrong,
To competency, not ineptitude.”
His life was so complete, so filled with mani-
fold serviceable activities, so rich in the garner
of life's best fruits, that we cannot deplore his
death, however sincere our mourning, but must
rather be touched with a deep solemnity at the
thought of what he did and what he was, min-
gled with a deep gratitude for the example of
his consecrated days. His work for mankind
was ended a full decade ago, and the peaceful
hours that were given him after his pen had
been laid aside removed him so entirely from
any sort of contact with the active world that
his continued bodily presence among men has
been difficult to realize.
“The soul that's tutelary now
Till time end, o'er the world to teach and bless”
has seemed to us hardly more than a disem-
bodied spirit since the year when those “Prae-
terita” which we were reading with such eager
interest met with their final interruption, and
became themselves things of that past with
which they were concerned.
John Ruskin was born at Herne Hill, a Lon-
don suburb, on the eighth of February, 1819.
He died January 20, 1900, at his Lake Coun-
try home, Brantwood, in Coniston, where some-
thing like the last score of his years were spent.
His intellectual activity covers a period of
nearly sixty years, for his precocity was marked,
and he wrote creditable verses at the age of
ten or thereabouts. At fifteen we find him
contributing to a periodical of popular science
papers with such titles as “Enquiries on the
Causes of the Color of the Water of the Rhine”
and “Facts and Considerations on the Strata


74 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
of Mont Blanc.” From this time until his
physical breakdown at the age of seventy, there
is no year that does not add its title or titles
to the bibliography of his writings, the mere
list of which, without comment, would nearly,
if not quite, fill up all the space here at our
command. And what memories these titles
evoke in the minds of men and women to whom
the message of Ruskin has come as a veritable
new gospel of beauty and the conduct of life!
They think of “Modern Painters,” “The
Stones of Venice,” “The Seven Lamps of
Architecture,” and recall the quickened vision,
the new appreciation, the deepened insight,
which the reading of these books has brought
them when viewing the cities and the galleries
of Europe. They think of “Sesame and
Lilies" and “The Queen of the Air,” and re-
call the stimulus and the fresh inspiration that
these books have brought to the study of liter-
ature. They think of “The Crown of Wild
Olive ’’ and “The Ethics of the Dust,” and
recall their realization of the unity of truth
and goodness and beauty, their first sense of
the fashion in which the cultivated intelligence
apprehends the most diverse of phenomena as
related to the same central set of ideals, in
thought welding beauty to utility, and art to
the practical conduct of life. They think of
“Munera Pulveris’” and “Unto This Last,”
and recall the heightened sense of social solid-
arity which they derived from these books, the
view of human intercourse as a complex of mu-
tual obligations, the doctrine of duties applied
as a corrective to the doctrine of rights. Finally,
they think of “Fors Clavigera” and “Prae-
terita,” and recall the unselfish character and
single-hearted devotion to the service of human-
ity which these books so unconsciously portray,
while love and reverence for the writer become
blended into one emotion of thankfulness for all
of his gifts to mankind, the most precious of
them all being the gift of himself.
Mr. Ruskin's career has two well-defined
periods. During the first, he was essentially
a teacher of art; during the second, he was
essentially a teacher of ethics. The year 1860
marks the grand climacteric of his life, for it saw
the completion of “Modern Painters” and the
inauguration, with “Unto this Last,” of the long
series of the writings which are concerned with
men in their social relations. When the turn-
ing-point was reached, he was about forty years
of age, he had become the foremost writer of
his time upon the subject of the fine arts, he
had forced an unwilling public to recognize the
genius of the great landscape painter of En-
gland, he had become the interpreter of Giotto,
and Tintoretto, and many other great artists
hitherto imperfectly appreciated or not at all,
he had espoused the cause of the Pre-Raphael.
ites, given effective aid to their propaganda,
and had befriended them individually when
help was most grateful, he had made himself
one of the greatest masters of English prose,
thereby increasing tenfold his influence as a
critic of art, he had, finally, been called upon to
bear his portion of the private grief which is the
common lot of men, and the brief chapter of
his domestic happiness had come to an end.
His work done in the field of art criticism has
called forth an enormous amount of discussion,
in the form of both approval and dissent. At
first, his opinions excited violent antagonism;
then, for a period, the force of his eloquence
seemed to carry everything before it; then,
again, a marked reaction set in, and a deliber-
ate effort was made to belittle his achievements
and minimise his influence. We do not think
that the two parties to this controversy have
ever joined issue fairly and squarely. We may
allow the justice of much that has been said
by his hostile critics — by Mr. Stillman, for
example, and Dr. Waldstein—yet admit almost
to the full what has been claimed for him by
the most earnest of his champions. Both par-
ties are right, in some sense. For the attack,
we may say that his specific judgments were
often wrong, that his bestowal of praise was
exaggerated beyond all reason, that his ad-
vice to painters was frequently impracticable,
and that his influence upon contemporary ar-
tists was slight. But for the defence we must
also say something. We must say, for example,
that he made the general English public think
more seriously about art than it had ever done
before. We must say that his writings opened
eyes by the thousands that had hitherto been
blind, and, if those eyes did not see just what
he would have had them see, they were at least
opened to some kind of truth that would not
have been revealed to them at all except for
his influence. We must say, also, that he gave
to the pursuit and study of art a dignity that
it had never known before, by virtue of his
constant insistence upon the relation of art to
morality, his unalterable determination to judge
of artistic work from other standpoints than the
narrow one of technique, and the prophetic
fervor with which he proclaimed the gospel,
not of art for art's sake, but of art for the sake
of man's temporal delight and eternal salvation.


1900.] THE
TXIAL 75
The change that came over the complexion
of Mr. Ruskin's thought in his early forties was
very marked. He had outgrown the narrow-
ness of his early beliefs, his sympathies had
broadened, he had learned that life was moré
than art, he had resolved to do what he might
to bring practical counsel and effective help to
his fellow-men. At first, and for ten years or
thereabouts, he confined himself for the most
part to his writings, which now acquire for
themselves a range that they had not known
before ; then, with the fortune which had come
to him upon the death of his father, and which
he felt that he was to hold in trust only, he set
about doing things, he began the publication
of the “Fors Clavigera,” and instituted the
Guild of St. George. In the first letter of
“Fors,” he thus stated his programme in gen-
eral terms:
“I am not an unselfish person, nor an Evangelical
one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither
do I dislike doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded
for it in another world. But I simply cannot paint, nor
read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything else that I
like, and the very light of the morning sky, when there
is any — which is seldom, now-a-days, near London —
has become hateful to me, because of the misery that I
know of, and see signs of, where I know it not, which
no imagination can interpret too bitterly. Therefore,
as I have said, I will endure it no longer quietly; but
henceforward, with any few or many who will help, do
my poor best to abate this misery.”
That so radical a programme as Mr. Ruskin
marked out for his declining years was fore-
doomed to failure, as far as practical outcome
was concerned, must have appeared manifest
to any temperate observer. He sought to re-
construct English society, to counteract the
combined forces of democratic impulse and
economic law, to restore to the nineteenth cen-
tury the ideals of the thirteenth. A few only
of the items in this programme may be speci-
fied. Railways were to be done away with,
and labor-saving machinery abandoned. The
taking of interest was to be held sinful, and the
régime of status was to replace the régime of
contract. Individual impulse was to be sup-
pressed by the weight of a restored social hier-
archy. The whole system of popular education
was to be made over upon essentially mediaeval
lines. These things, and many more like unto
them, were urged with all the ingenuity of ar-
gument and eloquence of appeal at the author's
command, and, as far as might be, he put these
things into practical effect in his own life, and
in the lives of those over whom he had any sort
of control.
No summary in the bare outline form just
attempted is really fair to Mr. Ruskin. The
stupendous wrongheadedness of such a pro-
gramme, so stated, merely repels, and we would
not repel a single possible reader from even
the most practically impossible of the books
wherein the parts of this programme are set
forth. The attitude of the sane intelligence
toward these teachings is expressed by Mr.
Frederic Harrison when he says: “In one sense,
no doubt, I stand at an opposite pole of ideas,
and in literal and direct words, I could hardly
adopt any one of the leading doctrines of his
creed. As to mine, he probably rejects every-
thing I hold sacred and true with violent
indignation and scorn.” Yet in spite of this
divergence of positive belief, Mr. Harrison has
made the author the subject of one of the most
glowing panegyrics ever penned, and he ex-
presses what we believe will remain the delib-
erate judgment of mankind when he goes on to
speak in the following strain:
“Some day, perhaps, a future generation will be able
to take up these outpourings of the spirit, not to criticise
and condemn what they find there to dispute or to laugh
at, but in the way in which sensible men read Plato's
“Republic,” or the book of Ezekiel, or Dante's “Vita
Nuova,” to enjoy the melody of the language, the inspir-
ing poetry, and their apocalyptic visions, without being
disturbed in the least by all that is mystical, fantastical,
impossible in the ideal of humanity they present.”
In a word, the balance of Mr. Ruskin's teach-
ings, whatever specific vagaries they may em-
body, will rest upon the side of progress, of
ethical inspiration, of worthy human activity,
of all that is desirable for the uplifting of the
race. In this belief, we would earnestly recom-
mend the most extreme of his books, even
“Unto this Last,” and the many volumes of the
“Fors Clavigera,” not indeed as the best food
for untrained minds, but as a helpful influ-
ence to the cultivated intelligence, as a needed
corrective for all that is unspiritual and mate-
rialistic in the thought of the age. Their
essential teaching is at one with that of the
great leaders of man's ethical and religious
thought, and their perversity of utterance no
more than an accident powerless to work last-
ing injury. The gift of communion with such
a spirit is one of the most precious that litera-
ture can offer, and a deep sense of gratitude,
of reverent affection, is what remains to us
unshaken, after all possible exceptions have
been taken, after all needful allowances have
been made, when we think of the great work
and the noble life that have ended in the clos-
ing year of the century to which they have
lent so imperishable a lustre.


76 THE
DIAL [Feb. 1,
COMMUNICATIONS.
ON FRENCE AND ENGLISH POETRY.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
The controversy which has been raging regarding the
relative merits of French and English poetry, and which
has lately been touched upon editorially in THE DIAL,
is replete with much interest to one whose love embraces
more than the poetry of his native tongue. It is need-
less to say that most of the unfriendly criticisms offered
in such comparison are not sufficiently cosmopolitan in
spirit, and give little more than an individual stand-
point. We here touch upon what has not been suffi-
ciently emphasized, and what seems to me to be the
essential test of the worth of any comparative study in
French and English verse. How far does racial antago-
nism or race-difference, which is the soul of idiom or
language-difference, act as a barrier even to the best-
trained minds in a just appreciation of the inmost spirit
of any foreign tongue? And how far is it only indi-
vidual taste, such as might lead one in one's own lan-
guage to prefer one poet to another? What factors are
to be reckoned with more carefully than these ?
Long before Tennyson's or Arnold's expressed indif-
ference to the Alexandrine verse, voices were loud in
England against French poetry. Keats, not without
bitterness, condemned the entire classical literature,
some of France's greatest names. They were
“closely wed
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
And compass vile; . . . they went about,
Holding a poor decrepit standard out
Marked with most flimsy mottoes, and in large
The name of one Boileau !”
Before Keats, Dryden (otherwise a great admirer and
follower of the French classics) severely criticized, in
his preface to “All for Love,” Racine's character-
drawing, especially the feebleness of his heroes.
England's criticism, however, never took the shape of
a polemic. That was reserved for Germany. I need
hardly refer to Lessing's hostile attitude, or the icono-
clastic spirit taken up by August Wilhelm Schlegel,
who decided that it was about time that the entire
classical dramatists, including Molière, were shelved.
Schiller was indifferent, and Goethe warmly enthusiastic
only for Molière, though he prized the tragedy of
Racine and Voltaire. When Jacob Grimm wrote to
Michelet that he could find no “poetic satisfaction” in
either Corneille, Racine, or Boileau, Sainte-Beuve sighed:
“Encore une fois—il y a malentendu, et du cóté de
l'Allemagne je crains que cene soit presque sans remède,
nous avons beau faire et beau dire, la-bas nous ne som-
mes pas prisau serieux poétiquement; le genie des races
s'y oppose.” And we ask, shall we ever clear these
barriers of racial misunderstanding 2 Will the master-
ing of the technicalities of a foreign language bring us
nearer to an unbiased judgment of its spirit? The most
hopeful reply is not assuring. Karl Hillebrand, who
spoke French as fluently as his native tongue, and who
loved the genius of France, asks whether it is likely
that she will ever produce the equal of Shakespeare,
Goethe, or Dante.
If we proceed to consider the relative values of sep-
arate words, adverse criticism, it seems to me, becomes
absurd. A French lady once asked me the English for
“belle fille,” and on my replying “beautiful girl,” she
was horrified, and distorting the pronunciation, ex-
claimed, “mais que c'est laid " " Can there be any
common standpoint from which to judge the relative
| values of any single words in two different languages 2
| The concepts being the same, the word or medium will
satisfy the race which has used it from time immemorial.
One may speak of words as apparently different in
| quality, but will not the French," for a that ” prefer
their disparaged “fille,” “amour,” “ciel,” to the “girl,”
| “love,” “sky,” of the “harsher" language across the
channel? If the Englishman finds “fille,” “amour,”
“ciel,” flat or paltry, is it too much to say that his
judgment is warped not only by an obtuseness for the
“finesses” of a foreign living language, but also by un-
justly associating with the French tongue the empty
shell of that which was not her parent-speech,- i.e., the
classical Latin, long dead? If one of the English writers
in this controversy speaks sneeringly of the Latin char-
acter of French, it is clear that his Virgil and his Cicero,
or the dead “filia,” “amor,” “caelum,” were barriers
that kept him from appreciating the living “fille,”
“amour,” and “ciel.”
The difficulty remains if we proceed from words to
phrases. We hear Mounet Sully in Hamlet (I should
say Sarah Bernhardt to be up to date): “Etre ou n'étre
pas, c'est là la question” (trans, by Dumas). What
Anglo-Saxon lover of Shakespeare can help smiling 2–
though he will not, if he be in Paris, offend his polished
host, by laughing in his face. Who would recognize
the original of many (or any) passage in that wholly
inadequate translation ? Many of the most poetical
passages,—as, for example, the sublime “absent thee
from felicity awhile,”—are altogether omitted. Be-
cause, adds the exultant English critic, the French lan-
guage is incapable of such poetic expression
Let us examine the other side of the question. Wol-
taire is horrified at the “not a mouse stirring” of the
soldier on the watch, and after translating the “undig-
nified” phrase to make its grotesqueness apparent, with
“je n'ai pas entendu une souris trotter,” he adds: “Voi-
la quiest naturel,-dans un corps de garde, mais non
pas dans une tragédie.” Jules Lemaitre, in comparing
a recent French translation of Macbeth with the orig-
inal, triumphantly holds it up as superior to the English
version. Can this be the judgment of one of the forty
immortals of the Academy 2 Is there, then, any com-
mon ground of criticism 2 No: le génie des races s'y
oppose.
A factor of an importance almost equal to racial an-
tagonism is that of individual temperament and taste.
We might distinguish two classes of critics: first, the
poet endowed with creative power, to whom we grant
strong antagonistic feelings against all that does not
harmonize with the dictates of his genius. But (sec-
ondly) those who are merely critics (étre critique ou, mon
Dieu, peu de chose), who only adjudge the crowns ac-
cording to the light they have, must judge in all mat-
ters of comparison, as between French and English
poetry, from a basis of mutual toleration. Where inher-
ited or racially opposed conceptions of poetry dominate,
the critic's vision cannot be clear.
To illustrate the point I wish to make, and partly
also for the mere delight of setting them down here,
I place side by side three poems of similar beauty in
conception, of equal poetic delicacy, simplicity, and
charm.
Victor Hugo:
“Soyez comme l'oiseau posé pour un instant
Sur des rameaux trop fréles;
Qui sent trembler la branche, mais qui chante pourtant,
Sachant qu'il a des ailes.”


1900.] THE
DIAL 77
Goethe:
"Ich singe wie der Vogel singt,
Der in den Zweigen wohnet,
Das Lied das aus der Kehle dringt,
Ist Lohn der reichlich lohnet.”
And Browning:
"Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dew-drops—at the bent spray’s edge-
That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture l’”
As I read each of these separately, I prefer it to the
others, and in the end can make no choice. Comparison
seems inadequate, for the pleasure each gives is perfect.
No individual verdict on their relative merits could be
final; while, if the racial feeling were to decide, French,
Germans, and English would each prefer their own. Let
us, then, not take any judgment passed on foreign verse
too seriously. In the realm of poetry there is room for
much that the critic would often deprive us of, and which
flourishes there none the less in undying beauty.
The plea I make is one for mutual toleration. The
critics on both sides of the channel have been most un-
fair. They take color from the spirit they comprehend,
which is only their own national spirit. The federation
of the world is no more a dream than absolute justice
in any judgment on a foreign literature. Apart from
the great human truths, the general truths, the abiding
truths, which are the same for all peoples, a nation's
individual traits must be seen with that nation's eyes.
It is easier to blame superficially, and in the spirit of
prejudice, than to praise judiciously, generously. Let us
at least be willing to recognize all that is beautiful and
abiding in the world of thought and art, and make it our
own as far as lies in our power: for there alone we shall
find that spirit of sweetness and repose, which, as Sainte-
Beuvehasexquisitely said, “nous réconcilie, nousenavous
souvent besoin, avec les hommes et avec nous-mêmes.”
- RUDolph Schwill.
Lewisburg, Pa., Jan. 20, 1900.
UNIVERSITY “SPELLING REFORM.”
(To the Editor of THE DIAL. )
At a time when the memory of the Prince of cacograph-
ical chauvinists is becoming less and less fragrant among
the better informed of his countrymen, the University of
Chicago takes occasion to cast its spadeful of mud into the
waters he has so disturbed. Equally without authority,
discretion, or taste in the premises, this institution of
learning lends its name to an exhibition of illiteracy at
which Webster himself would have revolted. Little
except this illiteracy of spelling now remains to us of
Webster's various antics. Under the benign influences
of his alma mater, we have seen disappear, successively,
his etymologies, his orthoëpics, and his definitions. Only
the cacography remains, a pitiful memorial of a time
when American hatred of British oppression could
find expression in doing a harm to English speech. The
unreasonable prejudices between the English-speaking
nations are disappearing in the light of a better under-
standing; more books are printed in America every
year in the only orthography current among all branches
of the English race; why, then, should this dying “pro-
vincialism of nationality” find support at an institution
supposedly devoted to the humaner letters? Or, rather,
why should such an institution commit itself to the exten-
sion of a national bad habit which, like tobacco-chewing,
the rest of us are steadily and surely overcoming?
- W -
Chicago, Jan. 18, 1900. WALLACE RICE
MR. GODKIN AND “THE EVENING POST.”
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
A monthly magazine in New York, which has peri-
odical attacks of uncontrollable brilliancy in its edi-
torial department, has made Mr. Godkin and “The
Evening Post” the subject of a number of statements
which require a protest. After saying, truly enough,
that the editor and the paper were thoroughly identified
in policy and spirit, he tells us that in his editorial ca-
pacity Mr. Godkin “not only felt that he himself could
do no wrong, but that men of other views could do no
right.” Again, he thinks it strange that a man so
highly cultivated “should never have been able to rec-
ognize anything that was good in those who were op-
posed to him, and that he could see nothing in their
policy and motives except folly, or malice, or baseness,
or incompetence.” Now, I have been a daily reader of
“The Evening Post” for some years, just because it is
not characterized by the qualities here ascribed to it
under Mr. Godkin's editorship. From the copies lying
on my shelves I will undertake to fill an entire number
of the magazine from which I have quoted with edi-
torials from “The Evening Post” in hearty commenda-
tion of specific acts of men to the general policy of
whom it is well known that Mr. Godkin has been stren-
uously in opposition. And, on the other hand, although
Mr. Godkin was in general an earnest supporter of
President Cleveland, he showed himself at the same
time a severe critic when occasion offered.
We are told again that he “would never frankly and
fairly and conspicuously admit an error.” Now I have
a pretty wide acquaintance with our more prominent
daily papers, and I can name no other among them that
allows its errors to be corrected in its columns with
anything approaching the freedom of “The Evening
Post.” No man can read it, even hastily, for a month,
without meeting instances of this; and that, too, though
its freedom from sensationalism gives it a much greater
freedom from errors of fact than is the case with the
average daily. It is also true that no other prominent
daily is so ready to allow its editorial opinions to be
questioned in its own columns. Its special correspond-
ents have full liberty to express opinions contrary to
its own (witness notably its Manila letters), and it
does not back up its opinions by the exclusion or garb-
ling of news matter apparently in conflict with those
opinions.
Indirectly, Mr. Godkin is also charged with “pessim-
ism.” How inevitable that charge is against any Amer-
ican who gets it into his head that the outlook for good
government is at least bright enough to make it worth
fighting for And Mr. Godkin was also “extremely
irritating.” Yes, there is no gainsaying that his edi-
torials were very irritating — to any reader to whom
the particular exhibition of incompetence, stupidity, or
corruption which he was just then flaying was not irri-
tating. If the editor from whom we have quoted has
carefully read the “Post” during the weeks since his
editorial was written, he has probably concluded by this
time that he was over-hasty in assuming that its sting
for such readers has been extracted by the withdrawal
of Mr. Godkin. And that that sting may never be ex-
tracted as long as there is any hope of irritating read-
ers into a consciousness that there are evils in society
and government which can be and ought to be eradi-
cated, should be the hope and prayer of us all.
W. H. Johnson.
Granville, Ohio, Jan. 23, 1900.


78 THE DIAL [Feb. 1,
Çbt #tto $ochs.
PLAYHOUSE RECOLLECTIONS.*
The reader interested in theatrical matters
may remember some unpleasant things said of
the stage a few years ago by Mr. George
Moore, and the tea-pot tempest that thereupon
raged in the press. Mr. Moore was of opinion
that if acting is to be considered an art at all
(which he doubted), it is certainly the very
lowest of the arts and the one making the slen-
derest demands on the intelligence of those
practising it. For what, Mr. Moore asked, in
effect, is the actor but the playwright's parrot
—“a vulgar parrot that speaks by rote and
screams before the footlights”? and what, sci-
entifically regarded, is his alleged art but the
developed form of a simian turn for mimicry
derived from caudate arboreal ancestors ? But
that which particularly angered Mr. Moore,
and, indeed, provoked his attack, was the fact
that the modern successors of the humble “poor
players” of the frankly disrespectable strollers
of Marlowe's and Jonson's time not only regard
themselves and are regarded as, technically,
ladies and gentlemen, but are actually come to
be, in too many cases, the recognized social lions
and drawing-room idols of the day. This social
vagary Mr. Moore styled “Mummer-Worship”;
and we are sorry to say that the impetus of his
onset against it carried him into some waspish
innuendoes as to the morals of the fairer divini-
ties of the cult, that did him no credit.
We have mentioned Mr. Moore and his
Histrio-mastia, as furnishing a convenient con-
trast to the veteran dramatic writer, Mr.
Clement Scott, and his two thick volumes of
rapturous stage memories, now before us. From
his youth up, Mr. Scott has been a “mummer-
worshipper” of the most ardent type, and his
present production fairly entitles him, we think,
to be called the Gronow of the Victorian stage.
But the title of the book is certainly misleading,
since it leads us to expect, what we assuredly
do not get, a continuous history of the modern
drama. At times, it is true, Mr. Scott seems
in a fair way of starting out conscientiously to
fulfil the implied promise of his title; but he
scarcely ever gets beyond a paragraph or so
of dramatic history proper when a good story
of “Johnny ” Toole, or Sothern, or Charles
Matthews, or some other notable maker or sub-
*THE DRAMA of YESTERDAY AND To-DAY. By Clement
Scott. In two volumes, illustrated. New York: The Mac-
millan Co.
ject of good stories, pops into his head, and
away he starts, with the bit in his teeth, and
never pulls up until the end of the chapter is
reached and it is too late to go on with the text
formally propounded at the outset. Mr. Scott's
stories are entertaining, and he clearly relishes
them so much himself that it is hard to grudge
him the pleasure of telling them. But it must
in candor be said that the reader who goes to
him for light and leading on the drama proper,
and not for the ana and gossip of the playhouse,
will generally be disappointed. The fact is, as
one of Mr. Scott's critics has already pointed
out, it is not so much the drama, broadly con-
sidered, as the playhouse, that attracts and
interests him. He has little patience with the
sort of people (with whom, we confess, we are
much in sympathy) who profess to find a higher
and completer satisfaction in reading a dra-
matic masterpiece than in seeing it acted. Mr.
Scott would probably think it pedantic and
affected to say that the best actor who ever trod
the boards must inevitably dwarf in his ren-
dering the poet's conception, say, of King Lear;
and, indeed, he frankly admits:
“I do not believe it is possible to be thoroughly
impressed with Shakespeare until you have seen his
plays acted. Long before I had witnessed the majority
of those masterpieces on the stage, I had studied Shake-
speare, I had read and re-read Shakespeare, I had
attended Shakespearean readings, Shakespearean dis-
courses, and Shakespearean lectures; but I never thor-
oughly understood “ the bard,' as he is called, until I
saw him acted in those always-to-be-remembered days
with Phelps at Sadler's Wells.”
Mr. Scott, with a degree of accuracy, de-
scribes his book as an attempt to blend the
outlines of the history of the stage with per-
sonal reminiscences. Into the narrative he has
woven a partial account of his career as a dra-
matic critic—in which capacity we are, as we
gather, to regard him as in some sort the
founder of a new school of writing. Before
Mr. Scott, the dramatic critic was, as it seems,
a sober and deliberate person, who took him-
self and his function pretty seriously, and was
given to postponing his written opinions upon a
new play or a new actor for several days. With
Mr. Scott came the new era. “I was,” he says,
“the first journalist who attempted to make the
account of a new play not so much a solemn
and serious criticism as a picturesque report.”
“Solemn and serious criticism" is not, we are
convinced, Mr. Scott's forte; and it was well
he realized the fact at the outset.
We think it fair to characterize Mr. Scott's
entertaining but incoherent and, we suspect,


1900.] THE
DIAL 79
hasty production as a sort of catalogue rai-
sonné of the more prominent players of the
period covered, enlivened with reminiscences
of the playhouses, and anecdotes, appreciations,
and biographical sketches of the players, and
rather liberally padded with extracts from the
critics—the author's own journalistic “pic-
turesque reports” being by no means neglected.
Among Mr. Scott's reminiscences is an amus-
ing one of the elder Dumas, upon whom he once
called at Paris, armed with a letter of introduc-
tion from Fechter.
“Alexandre Dumas lived with his daughter, a very
devout Catholic, in a fashionable quarter of Paris. The
daughter was evidently away, and when I left my card
and Fechter's letter I was ushered into a solemn room,
which looked like an oratory, being full of crucifixes,
relics, and sacred pictures. After waiting for some
time in astonishment, for the religious atmosphere did
not seem to coincide with my idea of the rollicking his-
torian, novelist, and prolific dramatist, the servant re-
turned to say that M. Dumas would see me. From the
oratory I was ushered into a kind of kitchen. The scene
had changed entirely. Behold the hero of hundreds of
dramatic successes, in his shirt sleeves, his negro skin
beaded with perspiration, his hair like an iron-gray
scrubbing brush reversed, sitting before the fire, with a
pretty girl on each knee, pretending to cook an omelette
or preside over a vol-au-vent Dumas, as everyone
knows, was an amateur cook, and he loved nothing bet-
ter than to design, arrange, and carry out a dinner of
his own invention. The girls pinched him, kissed him,
chaffed him, and called him “Papa.” He returned the
compliment. He asked me about Fechter and his suc-
cess, which interested him. He gave me some tickets
for the theatre, and I left the cheery old man, still in
his shirt sleeves before the stove, kissing the pretty
girls on either knee.”
While Mr. Scott's Thespian ambition has been
satisfied with the rôle of dramatic critic, he is, it
seems, not altogether a stranger to the boards.
“At the Bijou Theatre, Bayswater, I have enacted
Christopher Larkings in “Woodcock's Little Game,’ and
the boy Archie in “The Scrap of Paper.' I think I
rather fancied myself in a black velvet coat and knick-
erbockers, lent me by my old friend, Edmund Routledge,
and a pair of scarlet stockings suggested by myself.
This alarming costume secured me the honor of a scented
note left at the stage door. My companions in crime
still living are James M. Molloy, the gifted balladist
and composer, and W. S. Gilbert, who rejoiced in the
farce called ‘Number One Round the Corner'; but I
fancy this brilliant poet and dramatist was as bad an
actor as I was. He could not have been a worse one.”
The volumes are handsomely gotten up, and
contain many interesting portraits of players
and playwrights, managers and critics. While
of no great value as a contribution to the his-
tory of the drama, they are lively and amusing,
and should find favor with the members of the
profession to which Mr. Scott has devoted the
enthusiastic attention of a lifetime. E. G. J.
THE REMINISCENCES OF MIRS. HOWE.*
It is a rich treasury of facts, anecdotes, and
observations, relating to eminent persons and
events of the last eighty years of our century,
which Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has presented
us in the volume modestly entitled “Reminis-
cences.” It is a gift to the future historian
which he will not lightly value; while for the
reader who seeks entertainment chiefly, its
pages abound with matter of interest, amuse-
ment, and serious instruction.
Mrs. Howe has enjoyed through life a com-
manding opportunity for gaining insight into
the character of the personages and the prin-
ciples which have given distinction to the won-
derful years included in the closing century.
Most of the famous men and women of the
time were known to her, and in many of the
great movements that evolved in grand pro-
gression, one following rapidly upon another,
she was a living part. It is a memorable retro-
spect, leaving with the mind, as the most last-
ing impression, a sense of the dignity, the
sincerity, the high-mindedness of the writer.
Her judgments are marked by breadth and
graciousness, and her own career from first to
last was noble and generous.
Mrs. Howe was born in 1819, in the city of
New York, in a home of wealth and culture.
Her father, a banker of high standing, was not
only prominent in business affairs but in social
circles, and his children were surrounded by
every influence tending to nurture intelligence
and develop the moral qualities. He was a
Puritan of the Puritans, maintaining strict
discipline in his household and a vigilant
guardianship of the welfare of his daughters.
No expense was spared in their education. They
had the best masters in music, the languages,
drawing, dancing, all the accomplishments be-
fitting refined womanhood. But the social
arena in which their gifts might find free dis-
play was narrowly restricted. There was, nat-
urally, some restiveness and discontent under
such firm restraint, but the wisdom of it was
justified in the light of mature experience.
There was, however, no lack of genial life in
the Ward mansion. At quiet dinners and in
cheerful evenings in her own home and among
her intimate friends, Miss Ward enjoyed un-
usual opportunities for social cultivation. By
the marriage of her brother Samuel with the
1819–1899. By Julia Ward Howe.
Boston: Houghton,
* REMINISCENCEs.
With Portraits and other Illustrations.
Mifflin & Co.


80 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
eldest granddaughter of John Jacob Astor,
the friendly relations between the families
deepened into intimacy. We are accustomed
to think of the founder of the Astor house in
America as a rude fur-trader whose life was
spent in traffic with border Indians; but Mrs.
Howe represents him as a man of distinct lit-
erary tastes, who loved to draw men of letters
about him. At his hospitable board she fre-
quently met Washington Irving, who, as she
relates, “was silent in general company, and
usually fell asleep at the dinner-table. .
After a nap of some minutes he would open his
eyes and take part in the conversation, appar-
ently unconscious of having fallen asleep.”
The summer of 1841 was spent by Miss
Ward with girl friends in the neighborhood of
Boston. In company with Charles Sumner and
the poet Longfellow, they paid a visit one day
to Perkins Institute, where Laura Bridgman,
the marvellous deaf, dumb, and blind girl, was
receiving her education. Dr. Howe was ab-
sent at the arrival of his guests, but before
their leave “Mr. Sumner, looking out of a
window, said, ‘Oh, here comes Howe on his
black horse.’ I looked out also,” writes Mrs.
Howe, “and beheld a noble rider on a noble
horse.” It was the prelude to her life romance.
The doctor was her senior by nearly twenty
years, but he had not long to sue for the gift of
her hand. They were married in the spring of
1843, and their wedding journey was prolonged
a year amid the enticing scenes of Europe.
In London, as in New York, Mrs. Howe was
in contact with the distinguished men and
women who lent their fame to the English cap-
ital, for she was now the wife of one whom the
world recognized as a hero and a philanthropist.
With quick appreciation, Carlyle hastened to
pay his respects with an invitation for a return
visit from the estimable strangers. Mrs. Carlyle
was too ill to receive them, and in her absence,
writes Mrs. Howe,
“I was requested to pour tea. Our host partook of
it copiously, in all the strength of the teapot. As I
filled and refilled his cup, I thought that his chronic
dyspepsia was not to be wondered at. The repast was
a simple one. It consisted of a plate of toast and two
small dishes of stewed fruit, which he offered to us with
the words, “Perhaps ye can eat some of this. I never
eat these things myself.’”
Her visit to Wordsworth was a signal disap-
pointment. The poet's widowed daughter had
met with a heavy loss through some unfortunate
Americaninvestment, and the calamity had com-
pletely upset the family equilibrium. It was the
sole topic touched upon during the interview.
“The tea to which we had been bidden wäs simply a
cup of tea, served without a table. We bore the har-
assing conversation as long as we could. The only
remark of Wordsworth's which I brought away was
this: “The misfortune of Ireland is that it was only a
partially conquered country.”
On her return to Boston, Mrs. Howe found
the transcendental movement exciting general
observation. It was opposed to the traditions
in which she was bred, but gradually its aims
so won upon her she was able to accept it as
“the new interpretation of life which the truth
imperatively demanded.” She who was reared
in strict orthodoxy passed over to the church
of Theodore Parker, much to the displeasure of
her society friends. “What is Julia Howe
trying to find at Parker's meeting?” asked one
of these in her presence. “Atheism,” replied
the lady addressed. “Not atheism,” said Mrs.
Howe in quick defense, “but theism.” Else-
where she remarks:
“I can truly say that no rite of public worship, not
even the splendid Easter service in St. Peter's at Rome,
ever impressed me as deeply as did Theodore Parker's
prayers. . . . I cannot remember that the interest of
his services varied for me. It was all one intense de-
light. . . . His voice was like the archangel's trump,
summoning the wicked to repentance and bidding the
just take heart. It was hard to go out from his pres-
ence, all aglow with enthusiasm which he felt and
inspired, and hear him spoken of as a teacher of irre-
ligion, a pest to the community.”
It was a struggle for Mrs. Howe to overcome
her native prejudice against the reformers who
were stirring society in Boston and New En-
gland to moods of frenzy by their bold advo-
cacy of the rights of the black man or the white
woman to freedom and equality in the eye of
the law. “She does n’t like me, but I like her
poetry,” remarked Wendell Phillips, as he
bought a copy of her first volume of poems.
His amiable appreciation of her gifts as an au-
thor softened her feeling and she was ready to
engage with him in conversation and to listen
to his oratory. He had afterwards no firmer
friend than she, and she speaks of his ardent
and tireless services in behalf of humanity in
words of the warmest eulogy. Of Charles Sum-
ner she has much to say, although it is plain
her esteem for him was founded more upon his
moral worth than upon special graces of intel-
lect or charms of personal manner. In noting
the differences between Phillips and Sumner,
she observes:
“The two men, although workers in a common cause,
were very dissimilar in their natural endowments.
Phillips had a temperament of fire, while that of Sum-
ner was cold and sluggish. Phillips had a great gift
of simplicity, and always made a bee line for the cen-


1900.] THE
IXIAL 81
tral point of interest in the theme which he undertook
to present. Sumner was recondite in language and
elaborate in style. He was not much of a student, and
abounded in quotations. In his sensational days, I once
heard a satirical lady mention him as “the moral flum-
mery member from Massachusetts, quoting Tibullus !’”
Mr. Sumner had but little sense of humor,
and quite lacked the faculty for quick response
which puts one at ease in lively conversation.
As he could not comprehend the wit which en-
livens and sometimes idealizes the discourse in
general society, so he failed signally to grapple
with the intricacies of exact science. “I have
heard him say,” states Mrs. Howe, “that math-
ematics remained a sealed book to him ; and
that his professor at Harvard once exclaimed,
‘Sumner, I can't whittle a mathematical idea
small enough to get it into your brain.”
The value which Mr. Sumner placed upon
his personal dignity is indicated by the follow-
ing anecdote:
“I once invited Mr. Sumner to meet a distinguished
guest at my house. He replied, ‘I do not know that I
wish to meet your friend. I have outlived the interest
in individuals.” In my diary of the day I recorded the
somewhat ungracious utterance, with this comment:
i God, Almighty, by the latest accounts, has not got so
ar.
Mrs. Howe's record during the Civil War
begins with a visit from “old John Brown,”
who made upon her and her husband the im-
pression of a powerful personality. Of the
“noble war governor, John A. Andrew,” she
relates that when he learned of John Brown's
hapless state in a Southern prison, without
counsel or money, he “telegraphed to eminent
lawyers in Washington to engage them for the
defense of the prisoner, and made himself re-
sponsible for the legal expenses of the case,
amounting to thirteen hundred dollars.”
In the autumn of 1861, Mrs. Howe was in
Washington, inspecting camps and hospitals in
company with the Rev. James Freeman Clarke,
Governor Andrew, and Dr. Howe. At the close
of an interview with the President, Mr. Clarke
said of him :
“We have seen it in his face: hopeless honesty; that
is all. . . . None of us knew then how deeply God's
wisdom had touched and inspired that devout and pa-
tient soul. At the moment, few people praised or trusted
him. “Why did he not do this, or that, or the other?
He a President, indeed! Look at this war, dragging on
so slowly! Look at our many defeats and rare victories!”
Such was the talk that one constantly heard regarding
him. The most charitable held that he meant well.
Governor Andrew was one of the few whose faith in
him never wavered.”
It was during this eventful visit that Mrs.
Howe made her first attempt at public speaking,
in an unstudied talk to a company of soldiers
from Massachusetts, and also wrote, in a mo-
ment of inspiration, the “Battle Hymn of the
Republic.” Her party had been singing the
popular war songs of the day, concluding with
“John Brown's body,” when Mr. Clarke turned
to her with the question, “Mrs. Howe, why do
you not write some good words for that stirring
tune?” It had been in her mind to do so, but
as yet the motive had not come to her.
“I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, accord-
ing to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of
the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn,
the long lines of the desired poem began to twine them-
selves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas,
I said to myself, “I must get up and write these verses
down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.” So,
with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in
the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered
to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses
almost without looking at the paper. I had learned to
do this when, on previous occasions, attacks of versifi-
cation had visited me in the night, and I feared to have
recourse to a light lest I should wake the baby, who
slept near me. I was always obliged to decipher my
scrawl before another night should intervene, as it was
only legible while the matter was fresh in my mind. At
this time, having completed my writing, I returned to
bed and fell asleep, saying to myself, I like this better
than most things that I have written.”
The poem was published in the “Atlantic
Monthly,” without awakening special interest.
But it reached the soldiers' camps, and they
sang it in rousing chorus on the march and by
their evening fires. It penetrated the walls of
Libby Prison, and finally was rehearsed with
startling effect by a released captive who told,
in a public lecture in Washington, of the cheer
it brought to the hearts of his comrades immured
in that frightful death-pen in Virginia, and the
success of the poem was assured. It was thence-
forth the leading lyric of the war. “Mrs.
Howe ought to die now,” said one of her friends,
“for she has done the best that she will ever.”
Mrs. Howe was of no such opinion herself,
feeling still “full of good days’ works,” which
she has to the present time been diligently per-
forming. She was ever serious in her tastes
and bent upon intellectual pursuits. “Mrs.
Howe is not a great reader, but she always
studies,” was the remark of her husband, which
well characterized the thorough nature of her
mental attainments. As a member of the
Radical Club, that “high congress of souls”
which for years met monthly at the house of
the Rev. John T. Sargent, as an associate of
that noble band who strove long and painfully,
but with final triumph, for the right of woman
“to learn the alphabet” and share with man-


82 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
kind the privileges of self-ownership and oppor-
tunity, she records many impressive experiences.
One comes to a pause reluctantly in dealing
with a book touching upon so many of the stir-
ring events that have enriched the modern age.
Interspersed through the narrative are many
valuable illustrations, chiefly portraits of emi-
ment contemporaries of the author. From the
frontispiece her own face looks out at us, like
a Sibyl or a Fate. It is the aged and august
countenance of one who has for eighty years
watched with steadfast and solemn gaze the
unfolding of human history, eager to read its
portent and aid in its full and grand develop-
ment. SARA A. HUBBARD.
THE VERNACULAR LITERATURE OF
SCOTLAND.”
At last we have a history of Scottish Ver-
nacular Literature, and from so competent an
authority as Mr. T. F. Henderson, associate edi-
tor of the Centenary Burns. Probably no sub-
ject in the whole range of literature has suffered
more in the hands of the judicious than this.
It is the fashion of the English literary his-
torian to treat the Scottish literature as a mere
adjunct of the English; and being unable, for
the most part, to appreciate or to understand
the picturesque and racy vernacular, made up
of an immense variety of subtle linguistic
forces—Cymric, Pictish, Gaelic, Norse, French,
— he is prone to judge the Scots writer by one
of his styles only. Professor Courthope, pre-
ferring the labored allegory of Gavin Douglas,
finds few “notes of human interest” in Dunbar.
So Mr. Edmund Gosse, with a natural affinity
perhaps for “terms aureate,” describes Dunbar's
talent as “gorgeous,” but denies that the poet
ever gets away from the artificial in language.
Just why no Scotchman has written a history
of the vernacular until now, is not clear. Dr.
Ross's “Early Scottish History and Litera-
ture” is an essay in the field, but Dr. Ross
brought his work down to the Reformation
only, and, as his title shows, his point of view
was not purely literary. Moreover, Dr. Ross's
method was not scholarly, and his book was
further unfortunate in being published after
his death, without adequate editing. Professor
Hugh Walker's “Three Centuries of Scottish
Literature’ is an admirable discussion of the
* Scottish VERNACULAR LITERATURE. A. Succinct His-
tory. By T. F. Henderson. London: David Nutt. (Im-
ported by the New Amsterdam Book Co., New York.)
later period. Meanwhile, a vast mass of mate-
rial, collected by individual editors, such as
Scott, Irving, and Laing, by the learned Clubs
— the Bannatyne, the Maitland, the Rox-
burghe, and the Hunterian — and by the Early
English and Scottish Text Societies, has been
accumulating. What was needed was a clear
and intelligent treatment of the whole subject
within reasonable limits. This is what Mr.
Henderson has attempted, and on the whole
successfully, although the thoroughness of his
scholarship on certain points is open to doubt,
and his style leaves something to be desired.
The survey of the vernacular covers more
than five centuries, from the “mokkyshe ryme”
on Edward Longshanks to Allan Cunningham.
It was no light task to condense so large a sub-
ject into one volume, but Mr. Henderson has
been equal to it. His judgment is discrimin-
ating, his taste is correct, if not mellowed, and
his sense of proportion is good. No important
author has been overlooked, and one notes
few omissions among writers not of the first
consideration. “The Totall Discourse of the
Rare Adventures” (of William Lithgow),
1632, might have been included as a curious
and interesting contribution to vernacular
prose, and it is a genuine disappointment to
miss “Aye Waukin', O !”— which has been
described as a perfect song, so fortunate also as
to be the subject of a perfect criticism, that of
Dr. John Brown in “Horae Subsecivae.”
Poetry bulks large in the Scottish vernacu-
lar, and the picture of it here shown, represent-
ing Dunbar receiving the torch from Chaucer
and handing it on to Burns, is illuminating.
The Scots “makaris” wrote, not a different
language from Chaucer, but the same language,
which, like him, they called “Inglisch.” The
difference is only that the genius of Chaucer
made the Midland dialect, the London speech,
English; the “makaris” preserved the North-
ern English, which did not become a dialect,
in the modern sense, until after the union of
the crowns in James WI. Like Chaucer, also,
the “makaris” went to the French poets, and
sometimes to the Italian, for models of versifi-
cation. Of a lineage so ancient and so honor-
able, by the time of Burns (as Mr. Henderson
happily says) the poetic tradition of Scotland
was the noblest ever inherited by any peasantry,
far higher than could have derived from even
an ideal peasantry. Of what other great poet
than Burns can it be said that much of the
emotions and sentiments he expresses lay out-
side his own personal experience? Excepting


1900.] THE
DIAL 88
the chapter on the ballads, which in the main
follows Mr. Courthope, and possibly therefor
suggests an ignoring of recent research, Mr.
Henderson's treatment of Scottish poetry is
excellent. His study of the relations between
the French and Scottish poets, especially be-
tween Willon and Dunbar, is so good that one
wants more of it. We see Dunbar getting the
idea of his stately “Lament for the Makaris”
from Willon's ballads on the “dames’” and
“seigneurs” of olden time, and writing it in a
favorite French form with him, the kyrielle.
Other Willon metres are the octave with refrain,
Willon's double ballade, and the rondeau.
Dunbar makes large use of the French octave,
named by King James VI. the ballat royal,
and more than a third of his verse is written
in the stave of the French rondeau, with or
without refrain. For two well-known French
metres in English, the seven-line stanza of
Chaucer's “Troilus and Criseyde,” called by
Gascoigne rime royal, and the rime couée, or
tail rhyme, so largely used by Burns, Dunbar
shows no great fondness. It is a pity that the
chapter on Dunbar is not more compact; as it
is, it shows Mr. Henderson's exceptional knowl-
edge of Scottish prosody at its best, and his
logical, or rather illogical, arrangement of ma-
terial at its worst. Dunbar surely stands in no
need of an advocate, and fewer quotations would
have sufficed to show his quality, his humor,
always gay, sometimes saturnine, and now and
then deliciously quaint and fantastic, as when
in “Kynd Kittok,” the alewife of Falkland
Fells eludes St. Peter and gets into heaven
privily, “God,” we are told, “lukit and saw
her lattin in, and lewch his hert sair’”; the
reality of his touch, his worldliness, and his
stoicism, all expressed with a brilliancy of im-
agination that time and circumstance have not
dimmed, and a mastery of language that easily
ranks him the greatest of the Chaucerians.
But on the whole the quotations are made with
so much reserve and judgment and taste as to
whet the appetite. The “Bill of Fare” which
Fergusson would have laid before Dr. Johnson
when banqueted by the St. Andrews professors
is fresh. His “Daft Days” is more familiar:
“Now mirk December's dowie face
Glowrs owre the rigs wi' sour grimace,
While thro' his minimum of space,
The bleer-ey'd sun,
Wi’ blinkin' light and stealing pace,
His race doth run.”
There, to use the words of R. L. Stevenson, is
“the model of great things to come”— in
Burns. Those who know (and who does not
know?) Mrs. Craik's beautiful song, “Too
Late,” will find the refrain of it in a curious
old allegorical poem, by Sir Richard Holland,
called “The Buke of the Howlat’’:
“O Dowglas, O Dowglas,
Tender and trewel ”
It is there given as a badge of the Douglases
embroidered on the coat-armor of the pursui-
vant. Exquisitely simple and sweet is the
“Departe” of Alexander Scott, the farewell of
the dying Master of Erskine, slain at Pinkie
Cleugh, 1547, to the Queen Dowager, the
beautiful Marie de Guise:
“Adew my awin sweit thing,
My joy and conforting,
My mirth and sollesing
Of erdly gloir;
Ffair weill, my lady bricht,
And my remembrance rycht,
Ffair weill, and haif gud nycht:
I say no moir l’’
Brief quotations in prose are harder to make,
but there is a good one from the diarist, James
Melville, describing the young King James VI.,
in 1574, when eight years old, “walking up and
down in the auld Lady Marr's hand, discours-
ing of knowledge and ignorance.” A single sen-
tence from that belated humanist, George Bu-
chanan, is an amusing hit, both at his old pupil,
Queen Mary, and at the pride of the Hamiltons:
“Thay wer in hoip yat scho sould mary Johnne
Hamiltoun ye Dukis sone quhome wt [with] mery lukis
and gentill contenance (as scho could weill do) scho
enterit in ye gayme of ye glaiks [coquetry], and causit
ye rest of ye Hamiltonis to fon for faymnes [to play the
fool for eagerness].”
Scottish vernacular literature without Sir
Walter Scott is the play of Hamlet with Hamlet
left out. In his index, Mr. Henderson tells us
that he mentions Sir Walter five times, and
he honors him with one sentence by himself
(p. 455). This sentence is well worth quoting,
for two reasons: because it is all there is about
Scott, and because it exhibits Mr. Henderson's
style, as they say in homely phrase, with its
foot around its neck.
“Hogg as a poet was very much a rustic Sir Walter
Scott, who was, besides, the founder of a vernacular
school of his own, that of the vernacular novel — a sub-
ject too vast for our present consideration, — but who
very seldom in his poetry drops into the vernacular,
and makes very chary use of it even in his lyrics, the
only almost pure examples being the spirited Jock o'
Hazeldean — founded on an old ballad, the witty char-
acter sketch of Donald Caird, and his new version of
Carle, now the King's Come; but March, march, Ettrick
and Teviotdale — derived from the old General Leslie's
March — contains at least one vernacular exclamation;
and the vernacular slightly tinges his re-reading of
D'Urfey's Bonnie Dundee.”
A precisely similar sentence sums up—or


84 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
lumps up – “The Tea Table Miscellany” of
Allan Ramsay (p. 410). Of minor matters of
style, such verbal forms as “strenuity,” “re-
joicements,” “artificiosity,” instead of the
usual words, may be good North British, but the
contractions “was n’t,” “is n’t,” and “can't"
are undignified in any serious writing. Anent
North Britain, the transatlantic reader has his
“Marmion ” to explain North Berwick Law,
produced by the “Gyre-Carling,” the mother-
witch of Scotland, to discomfit her lover, but
what was the “whikey’ tree which grew in
Robert Henryson's orchard?
Instead of furnishing a glossary of Scottish
words, Mr. Henderson writes the glosses in the
margin. This is well enough for general pur-
poses, but for the use of students there should
be something to indicate the connection be-
tween word and definition; and the proof-
reading should have been done by someone
with a correct eye for lines and leads. Some
of the glosses are hopelessly askew. Titles
throughout are not glossed, for some inexplica-
ble reason. We note one or two slight errors.
On p. 391, Robert Sempill, author of “Habbie
Simson,” was active in promoting the Restora-
tion, not the Revolution. On p. 394, a tangled
sentence executes George Baillie of Jerviswood,
husband of Lady Grizel Baillie, instead of his
father, Robert Baillie.
Mr. Henderson is at his worst in his index,
which does not seem to have been prepared
upon any system. It is fairly inclusive as to
names, but titles get into it by favor and grace
only. To instance a few eccentricities of index-
ing: we look in vain for “The Lament of the
Makaris,” a poem which is probably mentioned
oftener than any other, because it is a store-
house of information on the early Scottish
poets. Nor do we find the best-known Scotch
song, “Auld Lang Syne,” although “The
Gaberlunzie Man,” barely referred to, is
indexed. “The Wowing of Jok and Jynny”
is indexed twice: incorrectly as “Jok and
Jynny” (p. 289–290), where there is some
account of it, but correctly at p. 133, which
points to a cross-reference. So the unwary
reader who wants to turn to “Tullochgorum,”
“the best Scots song Scotland ever saw,” in
Burns's extravagant praise, must know before-
hand that it was written by one John Skinner.
But the faults of this book are few, and
easily remedied; its merits are many and great,
and Mr. Henderson is to be congratulated on
having produced a good book on a difficult
subject. MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT.
RECENT FICTION.”
Mr. Marion Crawford has again made one of his
occasional excursions into the historical past, and
told us, in his “Via Crucis,” a story of the Second
Crusade. His central figure is that of Queen
Eleanor, the queen of the monkish Louis VII.,
linked afterwards to English history as the wife of
Henry Plantagenet, and to romantic tradition as
the jealous persecutor of the fair Rosamond. Stu-
dents of English history are apt to learn little of
her career as the consort of the French crusading
monarch, or of that most picturesque episode which
concerns her Amazonian masquerade, in company
with a train of court ladies, across Europe to the
East. It supplies a singularly effective subject for
a romance, and Mr. Crawford has made good use
of it. The hero is a fictitious character, a young
Englishman who is made landless during the tur-
*WIA CRUCis. A Romance of the Second Crusade. By
Francis Marion Crawford. New York: The Macmillan Co.
My LADY AND ALLAN DARKE. By Charles Donnel Gib-
son. New York: The Macmillan Co.
For THE FREEDOM of THE SEA. A Romance of the War
of 1812. By Cyrus Townsend Brady. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons.
IN OLD NEw York. A Romance. By Wilson Barrett and
Elwyn Barron. Boston: L.C. Page & Co.
THE FAvor of PRINCEs. By Mark Lee Luther.
York: The Macmillan Co.
THE GRAND MADEMoiselle. By James Eugene Farmer,
M.A. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
THE ORANGE GIRL. By Sir Walter Besant.
Dodd, Mead & Co.
THE Colossus. A Story of To-day. By Morley Roberts.
New York: Harper & Brothers.
THE PRINCEss XENIA. A Romance. By H. B. Marriott
Watson. New York: Harper & Brothers.
OUR LADY of DARKNEss. By Bernard Capes. New York:
Dodd, Mead & Co.
SIREN Crcy. By Benjamin Swift.
Mead & Co.
THE PERILs of JosephinE. By Lord Ernest Hamilton.
Chicago: Herbert S. Stone & Co.
Ion E MARch. By S. R. Crockett.
Mead & Co.
HERoNFord. By S. R. Keightley.
Mead & Co.
Rising ForTUNEs. The Story of a Man's Beginnings. By
John Oxenham. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co.
LovE MADE MANIFEs.T. By Guy Boothby. Chicago:
Herbert S. Stone & Co.
THE SHIP of STARs. By A. T. Quiller-Couch. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons.
THE WATCHERs. A Novel.
York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
RUPERT, BY THE GRACE of God —. By Dora Greenwell
McChesney. New York: The Macmillan Co.
A WARD of THE KING. A Romance. By Katharine S.
Macquoid. New York: F. M. Buckles & Co.
MR. JAck HAMLIN's MEDIATION, and Other Stories. By
Bret Harte. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
THE OTHER FELLow. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
THE Powers AT PLAY. By Bliss Perry.
Charles Scribner's Sons.
The SURFACE of THINGs.
ton: Small, Maynard & Co.
New
New York:
New York: Dodd,
New York: Dodd,
New York: Dodd,
By A. E. W. Mason. New
New York:
By Charles Waldstein. Bos-


1900.] THE
IXIAL 85
bulence of the strife between Stephen and the daugh-
ter of Henry I., and who seeks to carve out for
himself a new fortune by joining the crusaders.
The story is chiefly concerned with the fruitless
efforts of the enamoured queen to withdraw him
from allegiance to his early love, but his faith
proves too steadfast to yield to this temptation.
Other historical figures are those of Arnold of
Brescia and St. Bernard. The romance is excel-
lently told, although it is not without longueurs and
. something of the stucco-effect which seems
inevitable when such a theme is handled by any
but the greatest of novelists.
“The Tempest” has clearly been the inspiration
of “My Lady and Allan Darke.” The scene is an
island off the coast of Virginia, the time something
over a century ago. Prospero is a gentleman who,
having been accused of a crime of which he is guilt-
less, has taken refuge upon the island, and eventu-
ally becomes monarch of all he surveys, including
the plantation and slaves of the former owner,
whose daughter he marries. Here his own daugh-
ter (our Miranda) grows up in maidenly seclusion,
not knowing the full tale of the past, and hither
Allen Darke (our Ferdinand) is brought by the
accident of shipwreck. Now Allan, unwitting of
all this history, is really the one whom Prospero
most fears, because he is by birth the natural avenger
of the crime with which Prospero is wrongfully
charged. Declaring his name, his protestations of
ignorance avail him no whit; his life is spared, but
he is kept a close prisoner on the island. Over and
over again he escapes a treacherous death at the
hands of a too zealous servant of Prospero, and in
the end, when the latter dies, and all the mystery
is cleared away, wins the love of My Lady, and the
story ends happily. It is a really fascinating bit
of romance, original (except for its admitted pro-
totype) in design, and carried breathlessly on
through many thrilling episodes to the conclusion
that no experienced reader needs to be told is
coming.
For a professional man of peace, Archdeacon
Brady has a very pretty taste in scrimmages. He
prefers them by water, and the mere thought of a
sea-fight is enough to heat his blood to the boiling
point. In his new story, “For the Freedom of the
Sea,” he has a theme after his own heart, and he
writes of the glories of Old Ironsides with an en-
thusiasm that is wholly unaffected. The War of
1812 supplies the subject-matter of this romance,
and the fight between the “Constitution” and the
“Guerrière” is but one of a series of episodes that
keep the interest wide awake. The authoris as yet an
amateur novelist, to be sure; he elaborates too much,
and his style is far from impeccable, but there is an
honest manliness about his work that compels both
respect and admiration.
“In Old New York,” the romance which we owe
to the collaboration of Mr. Wilson Barrett and Mr.
Elwyn Barron, is a story of the year 1745, the time
of the siege of Louisburg and of the Young Pre-
tender. These happenings, however, only appear
in the story as echoes from distant lands, although
the fortunes of one of the characters are directly
affected by the news of the Jacobite rising in Scot-
land. The story is really concerned with the social
and commercial life of Manhattan Island at a time
when the city was mewing its mighty youth, and
the possibilities of its future were becoming revealed
to the far-seeing eyes of its shrewd Dutch and En-
glish inhabitants. It is a well-constructed novel of
private interests, with a charming heroine, and a
pair of heroes who, if not charming, are at least
interesting, and in quite different ways. Although
Mr. Barrett's name stands first upon the title-page,
we find more of Mr. Barron in the book itself —
more, that is, which seems attributable to the author
of “Manders” than to the author of “The Sign of
the Cross.”
“The Favor of Princes” is a variant upon a very
hackneyed theme. An impoverished young noble-
man comes to Paris to seek his fortune at court.
The time is that of Louis XV. and the ascendancy
of the Pompadour. He marries a wealthy woman
of bourgeoise extraction, actually falls in love with
her, and finding a rival in no less a man than the
King, defies that august personage, and wins his
point by virtue of sheer audacity. The story is with-
out originality, and is told in too commonplace a
manner to excite more than a languid interest.
In writing “The Grand Mademoiselle,” Mr.
James Eugene Farmer has gone far beyond his first
historical romance, “The Grenadier.” He has
learned, for example, to mix historical fact with his
narrative much more skilfully, and to impart to his
work much more of vivacity and animation. His
subject is, of course, the Fronde, and the character
of Mademoiselle de Montpensier seems to have
inspired him with great enthusiasm. He tells of her
audacious entry into Orleans, and of her brilliant
although ineffectual defence of Paris against the
forces of Mazarin and the young King. The author
displays a fertile invention in the devices with
which he embroiders the pages of history, as well as
a certain talent in the portraiture of the numerous
historical characters who figure in his tale.
From seventeenth century Paris, as described in
the foregoing romance, to eighteenth century Lon-
don, as depicted in Sir Walter Besant's “The
Orange Girl,” is a transit to be measured otherwise
than in leagues of land and sea. The latter, too, is
a historical novel, in a sense, but it is social rather
than political history that concerns us. Newgate,
the debtor's prison, and the details of a criminal
trial, are Sir Walter's themes, and he writes of
them from that intimate knowledge of Old London
with which few may hope to compete. There is
more matter in this book than the author has been
wont to give us of late, more antiquarian detail and
more dramatic incident. And it is by a true artistic
instinct that he takes us at the end, in company
with his chief characters, across the ocean to the
Virginia colony, and provides a peaceful epilogue


86 - THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
to his story of crime and degradation. The mem-
ory of his heroine, who rose from the slums to be-
come a famous actress, and whose salf-sacrificing
devotion saved the hero from the toils of villainy,
will long remain in the mind of the reader.
One does not get far in “The Colossus” of Mr.
Morley Roberts before supplying the words “of
Rhodes” parenthetically. The novel has three fea-
tures: a man, an enterprise, and an intrigue. The
man has been indicated, the enterprise is the Cape
to Cairo railway, the intrigue is supplied by political
conditions in Cairo, in which town the whole scene
is laid. The designing young woman who has set
her cap at the hero, and who insinuates herself into
the intrigue for the purpose of helping him with
the enterprise, excites little admiration and less
sympathy. Nor is the figure of the Colossus half
as impressive as the author evidently believes it to
be. He affects a pretentious style, and succeeds
only in producing an impression of futility.
The “Monte Cristo” type of story has an inex-
haustible interest. There are so many things that
can be done by a man in possession of an enormous
fortune, and so wide a field for the ingenuity of the
novelist dealing with such a case, that the plot of
such a story never becomes hackneyed. In “The
Princess Xenia,” the fortune falls to an Englishman
living in impecunious obscurity in a small German
duchy, presumably in the pre-imperial days. He
seeks to make himself the arbiter of destiny, both
for this and the two adjoining petty states, and
would combine them under one rule as a barrier
against the Prussian policy of encroachment. In
this design he almost succeeds, but the achievement
is wrested from him at the very moment of triumph
by the act of a passionate woman — the inevitable
and incalculable woman, with whom both fiction and
actual life have to reckon in some unexpected
fashion. There are intrigues manifold, and peril-
ous adventures without number, from which entan-
glement the hero barely escapes in the end, carrying
with him the dispossessed princess, who seems to
count the world well lost for the love of such a man.
It is all delightfully and improbably entertaining.
Mr. Bernard Capes is becoming so completely
the victim of his mannerisms that he is well-nigh
unreadable. He is so inoculated with the Mere-
dithian microbe that his style has become hope-
lessly strained and obscure, while such a matter as
coherency of plot seems altogether unworthy of his
attention. “Our Lady of Darkness” is the book
which occasions the present strictures. It is a ro-
mance of the French Revolution, with English and
Belgian episodes, and is carried through a bewilder-
ing series of happenings to a most futile conclusion.
The “Siren City” of “Benjamin Swift” is more
interesting as a story than any of its three prede-
cessors by the same hand, although it is not without
that infusion of bitterness which so marks the work
of this singularly powerful writer. The heroine is
a woman whose purity and strength are brought
into effective contrast with the sordid influences that
surround her innocent life, and turn her romance
into the darkest of tragedies. Superficially, this
novel is the story of an English girl who becomes
the prey of an Italian fortune-hunting adventurer.
Psychologically, it is a study of the interrelations of
a group of intensely passionate natures in which
virtue is beset by villainy, but remains invincible.
The Neapolitan setting of the best part of the work
lends it an added external glamour, and its study
of Italian character is no less subtle and penetrating
than its dealings with English persons and scenes.
The style is admirably direct and tense, at moments
rising to the heights of a grave and restrained
beauty. Altogether, the writer appears more than
ever one to be reckoned with, and already displays
evidences of a more softened humanity than has
heretofore been discernible in his cynical envisage-
ment of modern society.
Those who remember Lord Ernest Hamilton's
“Outlaws of the Marches,” with its striking depic-
tion of the fifteenth century feuds of the Scotch
border, will hardly be prepared for the surprise that
awaits them in “The Perils of Josephine.” No
two novels could well be more dissimilar. The one
was a stirring romance of the days of rough man-
hood and hard fighting; the other is a sensational
melodrama of modern society, enacted in and about
an English country house. We are led up by easy
degrees to the extremely improbable plot against
Josephine, but her perils, when they become really
manifest, are quite as thrilling as the most exacting
reader could wish. The author is a clever artificer,
besides being a versatile one, and this his latest
effort is a noteworthy example of its own peculiar
sort of composition.
“Ione March,” Mr. S. R. Crockett's latest ven-
ture, is a most unhappy one. It is supposed to be
a study in American girlhood, and what the writer
does not know of the subject would fill many vol-
umes. Such caricatures as those of the heroine and
her girl friends are not often met with in fiction of
serious intent, and such unrealities as the incidents
which are strung together about the heroine belong
strictly to the literature of burlesque. The story is
one long and disjointed extravaganza, without a
suggestion of real characterization, and without
ordinary verisimilitude in its several episodes. We
advise Mr. Crockett to go back to his moss-hags,
and never again venture so far away from them.
In shifting his activities from the field of histor-
ical to that of domestic romance, Mr. S. R. Keightley
has not been well-advised. “The Crimson Sign”
and “The Cavaliers” were among the best recent
examples of the former species of production, but
“Heronford’” is not thus distinguished among its
many competitors. It is, however, a sufficiently
stirring tale of an old English family, and leads up
to certain culminating episodes that are sufficiently
improbable to meet the most exacting of romantic
demands. And it must be added that in matters of
minor craftmanship, Mr. Keightley's hand has even
gained something of deftness.


1900.] THE
DIAL 87
Since “God’s Prisoner” came into our hands
some months ago, the name of Mr. John Oxenham
has been one that could not go disregarded upon
the title-page of a book. His “Rising Fortunes,”
which has just been published, is not equal in inter-
est to its predecessors, but it is an enjoyable story.
It is essentially a story of the “literary shop” as
it exists in London, with its attendant commercial-
ism, and log-rolling, and mean rivalries. The heroes
—for there are two of coördinate rank — are young
Scotchmen who, attracted by what Dr. Johnson
called the noblest of all prospects, start for the
metropolis with little other provision than their
undaunted ambitions. How they gradually secure a
foothold, and eventually achieve success — the one
in art and the other in literature—is the substance
of the narrative which the author unfolds. The
book has a grasp upon reality, which is much, and
its ideas are wholesome, which is more.
We cannot say that there is much of either
reality or wholesomeness in Mr. Guy Boothby's
“Love Made Manifest.” Here again is a young
man of letters, but the struggle is lacking, for he
writes a play in a single night, has it accepted in a
single interview, and becomes almost immediately
the most popular author of the day. So much for
the question of reality. We have but to continue
our summary to dispose of the question of whole-
someness. Our meteoric author is rashly and un-
happily married, and, in the full flush of his success,
meets a woman — a childhood friend — who is in
like case. The conventional conscientious pose is
maintained for a time, but in the end they run away
together, and make a home on a lonely island in the
Pacific. Presently they both experience religion of
the hysterical sort, and, in expiation of their sins,
repair to a leper colony, and there end their lives.
This is sad rubbish, although candor compels the
admission that the book is somewhat better written
than the Dr. Nikola stories.
Mr. Quiller-Couch has a genius for titles. All of
his books bear names that fascinate, and the latest
of them is the happiest of them all in this respect.
“The Ship of Stars” might mean so many things,
and has about it such an atmosphere of mystery
and poetical suggestiveness. The book itself seems
to us the masterpiece among all that the author has
produced hitherto. It is a tale of the Cornwall
coast, of which the landscape, the customs, and the
quaint folk are now so familiar to us through the
ministrations of this gifted story-teller. The ele-
ments of which it is compounded are various, recall-
ing Mr. Hopkinson Smith in the lighthouse episode,
“Jude the Obscure” (although with no touch of the
bitterness) in the brief sojourn of the hero at Ox-
ford, and “Sentimental Tommy” in the delineation
of a boyish imagination, and the slow moulding of
a character strong enough to react upon environ-
ment and conquer it. There is something so abso-
lutely clean and wholesome about this story of duty
done for its own sake, so high and fine in the ideal-
ism with which it is informed, that we may once
more take heart for our fiction-literature, in spite of
the meretricious and brutal forces that sometimes
seem so hopelessly in the ascendency. What a
refreshing contrast is here offered to such books as
“The Christian" and “Stalky & Co.,” to name two
conspicuous illustrations of the degrading tendencies
to which we have reference. It is the whole dif-
ference between art and fustian. “Lord, make men
as towers” is the prayer which here serves as a text,
and in the spirit of that fine aspiration the book is
written for the bettering of men's lives and the
bringing back into literature of a large sanity and a
worthy purpose.
To the coast of Cornwall—or rather beyond it to
the Scillies—we are also taken by “The Watchers,”
a story by Mr. A. E. W. Mason, which follows close
upon the two that we reviewed only a few weeks ago.
The story is, however, a disappointment, being little
above the level of the “shilling shocker,” and de-
pending for its mystery upon that cheapest of all
sensational devices—hypnotic influence. This and
a buried pirate treasure are the mainsprings of what
must be described as an irritating and grossly
improbable invention. It is a story of the eight-
eenth century, but the special coloring of the period
is plastered upon the surface rather than worked
into the texture of the narrative.
The Cromwell period of English history appears
to be an inexhaustible source of material for writers
of historical fiction. Industriously as it has been
worked, it still offers one of the most interesting
opportunities for romantic exploitation. Women, as
a rule, are not very successful in work of this sort,
but an exception must be made of Miss McChesney,
whose “Rupert, by the Grace of God —” is a
highly satisfactory narrative. The herois, of course,
the daring royalist leader, and the story is chiefly
concerned with a conspiracy to persuade him into
treason by the promise of the English crown. The
scene is mostly in the west of England, and the inter-
est culminates with the siege and capitulation of Bris-
tol. A love story is worked in, as a matter of course,
and all ends happily for the hero and the heroine.
Mrs. Macquoid is a practiced novelist, but she is
unwise in attempting historical romance. Her latest
book, “A Ward of the King,” is prettily enough
written, but the plot is feebly developed, and its
excitement proves to be of a very mild type. It is
a French story of the Constable de Bourbon and
the struggle which led to the disaster of Pavia.
Public interests are, however, rather kept in the
background, and the story is really about the tribu-
lations of a young gentlewoman, beset by unscrupu-
lous enemies, and saved in due course of time from
their evil machinations.
Among recent volumes of short stories, the new
collection by Mr. Bret Harte occupies the first place.
These tales have, however, little of the pristine
freshness of their earlier predecessors, and it is be-
coming more and more evident that the author's
rich pay-streak is worked out. Even the familiar
figure of Jack Hamlin is less engaging and impu-


88 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
dent than usual, and the other types introduced
reveal only a weakening of the writer's grasp as his
Californian past recedes farther and farther from
his view. His improbabilities are too glaring to be
accepted, now that they come to us unaccompanied
by the old magnificent verve and picturesqueness of
effect. The stories are eight in number.
In Mr. Hopkinson Smith's small volume there are
no less than eleven stories, but several of these are
mere sketches of a few pages each. The interest is
here in the author's own personality, for he does not
strain after inventions, but rather chooses to portray
his own experiences, with just enough imaginative
coloring to save them from being tedious. They
have an undoubted charm, in spite of their excess
of sentiment, for they reflect a generous view of
life, as observed by a man who is both artist and
humorist. Several of them are based upon inci-
dents picked up by Mr. Smith in his character as a
lecturer, for of recent years he has added that occu-
pation to his many others.
Mr. Bliss Perry has reversed the order usual with
writers of fiction in that he has turned to the telling
of short stories after having won a considerable
success in the full-fledged novel. At least, “The
Powers at Play” is the first collection of stories by
his hand that has come to our notice, and we sin-
cerely trust it may not prove the last. He has a
quick eye for the possibilities of an incident or a
situation, and he serves it up with neatness and
despatch. There are eight stories in the present
volume, some very slight, others more elaborate,
and all interesting. Their invention is excellent,
and they are enlivened by whimsical humor or else
touched with subtle pathos. Whichever of these
two formulae is applied to the work in hand, it is
deftly employed and effective. The first story,
“His Word of Honor,” seems to us on the whole
the best of the eight, but a close second may be
found in either “The White Blackbird” or “The
Incident of the British Ambassador.”
Turning now to Dr. Charles Waldstein's “The
Surface of Things,” we find ourselves confronted by
writing of a different sort from that contained in
the preceding volumes of short stories. Admirably
entertaining as those volumes are, they are dis-
tinctly light literature, and lightness is the last
quality to be predicated of Dr. Waldstein's work.
Indeed, the elaborate and possibly a trifle too “im-
portant” prefatory matter which accompanies these
three studies in “the ethics of the surface” pre-
pares the reader for a severer strain upon the philo-
sophical intelligence than is really intended, and it
is with something of a surprise to find, in one of
the studies at least, the adumbration of a love-story.
Dr. Waldstein's thesis—for his work is written to
illustrate a thesis—may be briefly stated, for the
most part in his own words. The interests of the
modern civilized man have come to embrace so
many things that the motives of the older fiction
become every year more and more inadequate to
express the complexity of the social organism.
“The relation of man to woman, love in all its
phases and with all its consequences, the lust of
power and gain, the struggle for empire or the strug-
gle for existence, money, a successful career.” —
these must give way in part to “the more abstract
and intellectual interests of life” if the art of fiction
is to remain the typical literary art of the coming
century. “The novelists with whose theories I am
at issue, it appears to me, always understand by
life what I should call the life of prehistoric man.”
“Not only those who are the fullest and highest
representatives of our culture and civilization, but
even the simplest and humblest members of our
modern occidental communities, have a variety of
needs and desires, without which life would to them
not be worth living, which are so far removed from
the fundamental necessities of prehistoric people
that they would appear barely to graze the surface
of existence.” Voilà le grand mot lancé. That
is the sense in which Dr. Waldstein would have us
take his title. “These needs appear to be on the
surface, but in reality they form the very core of
our conscious existence. Considerably more than
half of our waking thoughts and aspirations are
directed toward the satisfaction of them; they have
become fundamental to us, and we therefore need
not appeal to the basal passions of life for their
justification.” In reading this plea, we think at
once of the delicate work of Mr. Henry James, and
the present writer reminds us of Mr. James at more
than one point, but we must add that he strikes the
note of a deeper intellectual sincerity, that his utter-
ance seems to us much weightier. It is true that
studies of this sort leave indistinct the border-line
that separates the story from the essay, but this
difficulty of classification need not concern us in
view of the keen pleasure which they afford. Dr.
Waldstein has opened what is almost a new vein in
literature, and we trust that the present small vol-
ume is but the earnest of what he shall yet accom-
plish in the exploitation.
WILLIAM MoRTON PAYNE.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
The translation of Seignobos's “Po-
litical History of Modern Europe,”
by Professor S. M. Macvane (Holt),
is a meritorious undertaking. The result, we be-
lieve, would be more satisfactory were the work
that of a translator alone. This, however, is not
the case, for the book, as given in English, presents
many of the translator's views and criticisms. This
would be the more bearable were these changes made
in addition to rather than in place of original mate-
rial; or were they stamped and subscribed to as
“editor's notes.” The difficulty is that for the
English reader there is nothing to indicate respon-
sibility for statements and deductions. The most
sweeping changes are made in the treatment of
Contemporary
European
history.
•


1900.] THE
DIAL 89
present century English history, in which the author
and the translator disagree. Aside from the gen-
eral question of translators' alterations, is not the
conception of a distinguished French historian of
greater importance to the student than the mere
statement of more generally accepted opinion ?
As to the book itself, it deserves most generous
praise for simplicity of statement, clearness of in-
sight, and for a just balancing of the various ele-
ments that go to make up the history of a nation
in any given period. Part I. is devoted to a do-
mestie history of Europe since 1814, by nations;
Part II. treats of “certain political phenomena
common to various European communities,” as, for
example, the growth and distribution of ideas of
state socialism ; Part III. is given up to an exam-
ination, for all Europe, of such details of military
and diplomatic history as have not already been
touched upon in previous pages. A most interest-
ing chapter at the present time is that entitled “The
Parliamentary Republic”—the concluding one in
the domestic history of France — because of the
author's insight into secret political conditions, and
because of his supreme faith in the permanence of
the Republic. Especially noteworthy is his defense
of the custom of interpellations. The present gov-
ernment, says Seignobos, is anomalous in that
France is governed by men chosen on the demo-
cratic principle of election, while it is administered
by a beaureaucratic official class, imperial in its
organization, and in part independent of public
opinion. The politicians labor to please the people
upon whose votes their political existence depends;
the officials “tend to see in the citizens subjects of
administration who must be kept in due submission
to authority and regulations.” While the politicians,
as cabinet members, are at the head of official ad-
ministration, they are quickly imbued with the
spirit and attitude of the permanent office-holding
class, and it then becomes the duty of Deputies, by
interpellations, to hold them in check. Thus inter-
pellations “are practical contrivances which enable
two contradictory sets of institutions to exist side
by side: a democratic political system and a per-
manent administrative hierarchy. It compels the
permanent officials to submit to the people's chosen
representatives.” It is a new argument, but it will
hardly suffice to overthrow the weight of evidence
against interpellations.
Mr. William Archer is a man whose
good opinion even a great nation of
eighty millions of unprecedently well-
fed, well-housed, and well-clothed people, like our
own, may think worth having. We have pretty
well gotten over our old provincial sensitiveness to
foreign opinion. We do n’t in general care a rap
what the ordinary touring cockney or badawd
may think or say of us. We did n’t fume and fret
and neglect our business when even Matthew Arnold
found our cities “uninteresting,” and hinted that
Chicago, for all her culture and “sky-scrapers,” was
Mr. Archer's
notes on
America.
still not exactly the Athens of Pericles. To be sure,
Mr. Arnold came before the World's Fair, and
never saw the bronze colossus that later kept watch
and ward on the Lake Front and awed the soul of
the approaching voyager, like the Athene Pro-
machos on the Acropolis. But the pages of Mr.
Archer’s “America of To-Day” (Scribner) are quite
free from that “certain condescension ” we used to
resent so hotly. He is pleased with us, and wishes
us well; but he doesn't affect to look down benevo-
lently on us. The only thing we have to complain
of in his tone is that it is not quite free from that
note of amused interest with which the Briton, time
out of mind, has been wont to regard the outside
world in general. But Mr. Archer's smile is a quiet
one, and not in the least irritating; so we can well
afford to let him enjoy it. Mr. Archer's papers are
stamped with a freshness of view, and a tendency
to reëxamine and in some cases to combat certain
stock complaints about Brother Jonathan, that
caused them to be rather freely quoted and can-
vassed in England when they appeared serially —
for the book is a reprint of letters to London peri-
odicals. His hardy defense of the “American Lan-
guage,” for instance, really shocked some of his
English friends — Mr. Lang, especially, whose
nerves, originally none of the strongest, were quite
upset by some of his fellow-critic's heresies. Mr.
Lang's Scotch ear is ravished by the skirl of the
bag-pipes; but the American phrase “all the time”
is enough to drive him out of the room. Mr. Archer
has divided his text under two captions —“Obser-
vations,” under which are grouped the more purely
descriptive letters reflecting his impressions of New
York, Boston, and Chicago, of American hospitality,
American character and culture, etc.; and “Reflec-
tions,” a series of thoughtful papers on “North and
South,” “The Republic and the Empire,” “Amer-
ican Literature,” and “The American Language.”
He especially relishes the American humorous anec-
dote, and has gathered some choice specimens for
English consumption, notably that of the rustic
Kentuckian who, leaving the theatre after witness-
ing Salvini in “Othello,” warmly observed: “It was
a good show — a mighty good show ; and I don't
see but the coon did as well as any of ‘em.”
Volume IV. of Mr. Laird Clowes's
in the story of comprehensive and elaborately
*** mounted and constructed history of
“The Royal Navy” (Little, Brown, & Co.) contains
the record of the Minor Operations of the Navy
between 1763 and 1792, by Mr. W. H. Wilson; the
story of Naval Voyages and Discoveries (including
the expeditions of Cook, Wallis, and Carteret) dur-
ing the same period, by Sir Clements Markham;
The Civil History of the Navy from 1793 to 1802,
and an account of the Major Maritime Operations
during the war of the French Revolution, by the
editor; a summary of the Minor Operations of that
war, by Mr. W. H. Wilson; and a notice of Naval
Voyages and Discoveries, 1793–1802, by Sir
More chapters


90 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
Clements Markham. Mr. Clowes's undertaking, it
will be remembered, as originally planned, called
for the completion of the work in five volumes. But
the appearance of much new matter bearing upon
naval events and developments of the present cen-
tury has rendered a sixth volume necessary to the
promised completeness and comprehensiveness of
the work. The completion of the History, Mr.
Clowes hopes, will not be much delayed by this ex-
tension, material for Volume V. being already in
type. We gladly testify to the abundant evidences
of painstaking research and collation manifest in
the work of Mr. Clowes and his competent colaborers.
The distinctive plan of the work, - that is to say,
the parcelling out of specific phases and periods
among writers specially qualified to deal with their
respective allotments, whatever its obvious draw-
backs from the literary point of view, has undoubt-
edly conduced to accuracy and despatch, and will
result in the production of a book which will long
serve as the standard one for reference and appeal.
The illustrations are, as before, profuse and hand-
some, the most notable plate being a very strong
and attractive portrait of Nelson after an original
painting never before reproduced. The volumes
are separately indexed.
Aside from a not unsuccessful effort
to produce a readable “ yarn,” the
aim of Mr. Alex. J. Boyd, in his book
called “The Shellback” (Brentano's), appears to be
to paint in the blackest possible colors the ways and
characters of the officers of American sailing ships,
not only now but some forty years back, when Mr.
Boyd's own experiences of our merchant service
were acquired. To-day, as in the sixties — Mr.
Boyd's literary sponsor, Mr. Robertson, assures us
— the terms “Yankeeship ’’ and “Hellship ’’ are
synonymous; and he goes to say: “Were the laws
now on our statute books rigidly enforced, a large
majority of American captains and mates would be
sent to the penitentiary, and not a few to the gal-
lows or electric chair.” This is strong language,
and, supposing it to be justifiable, it seems to imply
that the gangs in the forecastles, with whom the
wicked captains and mates necessarily served their
time and got their notions of sea-discipline, must
themselves be a pretty tough lot, and more amena-
ble to hard knocks than moral suasion. For our
part, we are inclined to think the common seaman
suffers in general more from the rascally parsimony
of stingy shipowners than from the brutality of
mates and captains. There is at all events this to
be said for the officers of a deep-water ship: they
are very commonly under the absolute necessity of
aweing into subjection ruffianly crews of potential
mutineers who outnumber them twenty to one; and
if they resort to rough measures it is fair to pre-
sume that they do so quite as much from their
knowledge of the men they have to deal with as
from mere wanton cruelty. Mr. Boyd's book is a
readable one, of a rather lurid and sensational order,
Dark pictures of
Yankee sailing
ships and officers.
and it is clearly, as he claims, founded on personal
experience; but we are quite unwilling to accept
the “Altamont,” the “floating hell” on which he
sailed as an apprentice-boy from Melbourne to
Liverpool, as a representative American merchant
ship, or her fiend incarnate of a captain as the typ-
ical Yankee skipper. There are several illustrations.
That quaint little treatise on “The
Art of the Old Masters” written by
Cennino Cennini of Padua in 1437
has been well re-translated and editorially supple-
mented by Mrs. Christiana J. Herringham, and pub-
lished in attractive form by Mr. Francis P. Harper.
In his “Trattato,” Cennino, himself a painter and
a pupil of Agnolo (son of Taddeo) Gaddi, describes
the technical processes of his time—the technique,
that is, of the great masters of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, from Giotto, Fra Angelico, and
Memmi, down to Botticelli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghir-
landajo, etc., - and tells how his contemporaries
ground and mixed their pigments, painted their
pictures and miniatures, tinted their papers, made
their varnishes, laid on their gold, and so on. For
example, says the “Trattato”: “If you would make
a changing drapery in secco, cover it with a flat tint
of lake; use flesh-color for the lights, or, if you
will, giallorno. Glaze the dark parts as you like
with pure lake, or purple (bisso), with tempera.”
The extract may serve to indicate the scope and
uses of the book, which is a mine of detailed inform-
ation as to the materials and processes of the time
and school. In translating Cennino Mrs. Herring-
ham has two predecessors, Mrs. Merrifield, and the
German, Ilg. In the two older versions, especially
the English one, inaccuracies have been found.
Mrs. Herringham's practical knowledge of the pro-
cesses described in the treatise has assisted her in
making a translation free, at least, from technical
errors. There is an Appendix containing some
useful notes on mediaeval methods.
The technical
processes of
the old masters.
Ordinarily, the lives of authors are
but dull reading, so uneventful and
colorless are the greater number of
them; but sometimes the personality of a poet or a
novelist is so original and individual that the life is
of more permanent interest than the letters. We
shall never be quite satisfied with what we know
about Poe the man; the story of Byron's stormy
career will never cease to have attractions for us,
and Gulliver must always be of less moment than
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's. Among
such names as these we must number that of Oliver
Goldsmith, whom we cannot cease to love, however
much or little we may care for “The Deserted Wil-
lage,” or “She Stoops to Conquer,” or “The Vicar
of Wakefield.” In his memoir of Goldsmith (Dodd,
Mead & Co.), Mr. Austin Dobson gives us just so
much of his life as most readers will care to know.
He tells the history of his checkered career with
the easy skill that makes it seem a story of romantic
The story of
Oliver Goldsmith.


1900.] THE
DIAL 91
reality, duly authenticated by frequent reference to
Johnson, and Garrick, and Reynolds, and the
“Jessamy Bride,” but a story still. There is
abundant record of pounds and guineas and other
things not distinctly literary, here (by some magic of
the pen) given a decidedly literary flavor. And there
is record, too, of lack of pounds and guineas and other
things prosaic, perhaps even more certainly literary
and serving as a thread on which the memoir strings
in close sequence the irregular happenings of Gold-
smith's life. It is something to have so lived as to
make possible such a biography so written. Whole-
souled kindness and persistent cheeriness glow in
its pages, and these are things of which we can
never have too much, whether in men or books,
Mr. Oliver Elton's work on “The
Augustan Ages” (Scribner), written
for the “Periods of European Lit-
erature” series, is the most readable of the four
volumes thus far published in that collection, and
is at least not inferior to any of the others in point
of scholarship. Mr. Elton's period begins, roughly,
about the middle of the seventeenth century, and
ends, more roughly, with the first quarter of the
eighteenth century. In France, it deals with the
great names of Bayle, Bossuet, Mme. de Sévigné,
La Bruyère, La Fontaine, Boileau, and the three
dramatists. In England, it includes Hobbes, Bun-
yan, Dryden, the Restoration drama, Defoe, Pope,
Addison, and Swift. Six chapters of the work are
given to French and English literature. A seventh
surveys the literature of Germany, Holland, and
the Scandinavian countries, with an excellent state-
ment of Holberg's work and significance; an eighth
deals with Italy and the Peninsula, finding only
Filicaja and Molinos even among second-class
names, and a ninth briefly summarizes the whole
work. No man could cover such a field as this
without exhibiting many shortcomings, and the au-
thor frankly acknowledges his dependence upon
the standard histories for some of the outlying re-
gions of his survey. He has certainly performed a
difficult task in a more than creditable fashion, and
we place the book beside its fellows with much sat-
isfaction.
-Great names
of Augustan
literature.
A late contribution to the literature
of the school of exact description of
historic characters is “The True
William Penn” (Lippincott), by Mr. Sydney George
Fisher, an earnest student of men and matters con-
nected with Pennsylvania. The volume takes its
place with “The True Benjamin Franklin” by the
same author, and “The True George Washington”
by Mr. Paul Leicester Ford. In the case of William
Penn, it was not possible to produce a very sensa-
tional story, because he has not been so idealized
as have the two others. The value of the biog-
raphy does not consist, therefore, in the dissipa-
tion of mists of error which have surrounded the
founder of Pennsylvania, or, as Carlyle might
put it, in “taking him down a peg.” In place of
The true
William Penn,
this there is a very interesting description of the
conditions of life in the time when Penn was grow-
ing up, so that it is not at all difficult to understand
how this youth, having chances to enjoy the gay
career of a courtier, preferred to cast his lot with
the persecuted Quakers. The changes in his thought
as the panorama of his life shifted are admirably set
forth. Both the frame and the picture are to be
praised, and perhaps that is the most satisfactory
thing that can be said of a biography. A writer
has done well who gives a faithful presentation of
the facts connected with an individual and his en-
vironment, and this is what Mr. Fisher seems to
have done in the story of the true William Penn.
The pretty book containing an “Au-
tobiographical Sketch of Mrs. John
Drew” (Scribner) outlines the long
career of that sterling actress and estimable woman,
and glances briefly at many stage celebrities of by-
gone days with whom her calling brought her in con-
tact. T. P. Cooke, Maria Foote, Forrest, Madame
Celeste, the Kembles, the Booths, Miss Cushman,
Tyrone Power, Macready, Murdoch, Hamblin, Mrs.
Shaw, and others, appear in Mrs. Drew's cheery
pages, and their portraits serve to embellish and
add interest to the volume. Mrs. Drew's slight
mention of these older professional associates is sup-
plemented by the Biographical Notes of Mr. Doug-
las Taylor, in the Appendix. For Forrest the author
has some kindly words, although she admits that he
“was never a good-tempered man, and was apt to
be morose and churlish at rehearsals.” But he was,
she adds, the “fairest” actor that ever played. “If
the character you sustained had anything good in
it, he would give you the finest chance of showing it.
He would get a little below you, so that your facial
expression could be fairly seen; he would partially
turn his back, in order that the attention should be
given entirely to you.” Mrs. Drew's somewhat
meagre and sketchy narrative has been judiciously
eked out in the editing, and the portraits are decid-
edly interesting. —
Denominational Encyclopaedias at
first glance may seem to be un-
needed, but second thought will con-
vince one that every religious denomination has
connected with its history matters which are of
first rate importance to its members, and occasion-
ally to the world at large. In addition, the bio-
graphical element is of course always in evidence.
Of such works, the Lutheran Encyclopaedia (Scrib-
ner), edited by Professor H. E. Jacobs and the
Rev. J. A. W. Haas, is in many ways an admir-
able example. The articles have been assigned
apparently to the proper persons, and, to judge from
the character of such articles as have been exam-
ined, the work has been done conscientiously and
with somewhat remarkable conciseness. One can
hardly agree with all the positions taken in the
general theological articles, which are unexception-
ally ultra-conservative. It sounds somewhat strange
Glimpses of
bygone stage
celebrities.
Men and
events of the
Lutheran Church,


92 THE
DLAL [Feb. 1,
to-day to read the statement that confessionalism is
the most efficient protection from rationalism. But
apart from such criticisms as this, the Lutheran
Church is to be congratulated upon possessing such
a complete and succinct record of its important
men and actions.
The series of pocket volumes, “The
Beacon Biographies” (Small, May-
nard & Co.), continues to bear out
the promises made by its earliest representatives.
The latest additions to the series include the volume
on Hawthorne, by Mrs. Annie Fields; on Burr, by
Mr. Henry Childs Merwin; and on Frederick
Douglass by Mr. C. W. Chestnutt. All of them are
very readable, and the volume on Douglass is a
capital illustration of the method of producing a
clear biographical picture. Mrs. Fields's volume
on Hawthorne is characteristically reminiscent, al-
though very largely dependent upon the well known
volume of her husband. Mr. Merwin's treatment
of Burr impresses one with the feeling that the
author began the study with the intention of not
painting his character quite as black as he is usually
painted, but found himself compelled to give up the
struggle before his work was completed. Taken
altogether, the three volumes are capital illustrations
of how to write a small book, and the editor again
is to be congratulated upon bringing so much uni-
formity into a series which deals with such different
subjects.
Biography
in miniature.
A somewhat “ancient and fish-like
smell” pervades Mr. W. H. Long's
miscellaneous collection of old-time
British “Naval Yarns” (F. P. Harper), although
most of the matter is now for the first time printed.
Over fifty documents or extracts from documents
are given, some of them mere scraps from private
letters and journals, and all of them narrating per-
sonal experiences and adventures in the British
Navy in the days of sail-power, when the gunner
guessed at the range, and squinted across the sights
of a piece that would have been about as effective
as a catapult against the sides of a modern iron-
clad. The most valuable paper in the book, “The
Journal of a Surgeon’” (1758–63), presents a
graphic picture of life afloat at that period, and is
worth preserving. There are several plates after
paintings representing famous naval episodes and
engagements.
Old-time
naval yarns.
The curious collection of materials
by Mr. Howard Payson Arnold,
published under the title “Historic
Side-Lights” (Harper), make up a book, whose plan,
if it has any, is not easily discovered, and whose
purpose excites the increasing wonder of the reader.
Hercules and George the Third may appear in one
place; while, in another, Trilby is appealed to, or
“Mr. Dooley’’ is introduced with a characteristic
sentence. From many a by-path of literature,
quaint and curious material has been gathered, quite
a large part of it relating more or less closely to
From Franklin
to Mr. Dooley.
Benjamin Franklin. The discourse is rambling and
disconnected in the extreme, and while portions of
it are interesting, and the illustrative details it fur-
nishes may be valuable to a reader who is fond of
anecdote or flippant phrase, it scarcely seems that
serious history is really illuminated by such “side-
lights” as these.
BRIEFER MENTION.
We have examined with much interest a recent pub-
lication of the University of Minnesota. It is the work
of Mr. Conway Macmillan, and has for its subject
“Minnesota Plant Life.” The work is intended for
general reading rather than for text-book use, but is
clearly to be taken as an educational publication in the
large sense. After preliminary chapters on the soci-
eties and the migrations of plants, the descriptive work
is taken up, beginning with slime-moulds and algae, and
leading up to the most highly specialized forms of flow-
ering plants. The volume contains 568 pages, and has
for illustrations 240 figures and photographs (many of
them of great interest and beauty) besides four full-
page plates. Scientific names of species are not given
as a rule (which we think a mistake), and there is no
analytical key. We wish that every State in the Union
might contrive to publish such a volume as this.
A recent publication of the Field Columbian Museum
of Chicago deserves more than a word of passing men-
tion. It is a work on “The Birds of North America,”
by Mr. Charles B. Cory, and is a manual of the most
practical character for the use of amateur ornithologists.
The work is, in substance, an analytical key to the fam-
ilies and species of all birds known to occur east of the
ninetieth meridian; the descriptions are so plain as to
make identification an easy matter even for the inex-
perienced, and what is not made clear by the text is
made clear by the many illustrations. Such a manual
as this, inexpensive and easy of use, ought to do much
toward popularizing the fascinating branch of natural
history with which it is concerned.
Mr. Thomas Newbigging, a student, and, we suppose,
a stanch defender of the Stuart cause, has recently pro-
duced a small volume on “The Scottish Jacobites”
(London: Gay & Bird). While the greater part of
the book is occupied with a brief narrative of the Jacob-
ite risings and an account of their battles, the two most
interesting chapters are those devoted to the fascinating
songs and music which had their inspiration in the Lost
Cause. The portraits and illustrations are really fine,
and the wide margins and clear type make up a very
attractive volume.
The following are the latest text-books in the mod-
ern languages: M. France’s “Le Crime de Sylvestre
Bonnard” (Holt), edited by Mr. C. H. C. Wright;
“Letters of Madame de Sévigné” (Ginn), selected and
edited by Professor James A. Harrison; “Contes Fan-
tastiques” (Holt), by Erckmann-Chatrian, edited by
Professor E. S. Joynes; “Episodes from Malot's Sans
Famille” (Heath), edited by Mr. I. H. B. Spiers;
“Goethe's Poems” (Heath), selected and edited by
Professor Charles Harris; J. G. Seume's “Mein Le-
ben" (Ginn), edited by Dr. J. Henry Senger; “Sup-
plementary Exercises to ‘Das Deutsche Buch” (Holt),
by F-ºnlein Josepha Schrakamp; Alarçon’s “El
Capit, ' , ...eno” (Heath), edited by Mr. J. D. M. Ford.


1900.] THE
TXIAL 98
NOTES.
A life of James Martineau, by Rev. A. W. Jackson,
is in preparation by Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co.
Miss Florence N. Levy has edited a supplement to the
“American Art Annual” for 1899, which is published
by the Art Interchange Co., New York.
The third volume of “The Anglo-Saxon Review"
will be ready for delivery early in February. The
magazine is published by Mr. John Lane.
Volume W. of Carlyle’s “Critical and Miscellaneous
Essays,” in the “Centenary” edition, has just been
published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.
Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill's latest work, “Sav-
rola, a Tale of the Revolution in Laurania,” is just
published by Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co.
Prof. G. Maspero’s “Passing of the Empires, Egypt,
Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Medea — B. c. 850 to
330,” is just published by Messrs. Appleton & Co.
The Messrs. Scribner publish “A Manual of Historic
Ornament,” by Mr. Richard Glazer, an abundantly illus-
trated manual for the use of both student and craftsman.
A large-type edition of Dr. Moore's Oxford text of
the “Divina Commedia,” with revisions by Paget Toyn-
bee, will be published at once by the Clarendon Press.
A new edition, in handsome half-vellum binding, of
Mr. Charles F. Richardson's well-known volume on
“The Choice of Books” is published by Messrs. E. P.
Dutton & Co.
“Shirley” and “Villette,” with introductions by Mrs.
Humphry Ward, have just been added by the Messrs.
Harper to their handsome “Haworth" edition of the
Bronté sisters. -
An unusual sale for a new volume of poetry is that
of Mr. Stephen Phillips's “Paolo and Francesca,”
which, it is stated by its publisher, Mr. John Lane, has
already reached its eighth thousand.
A monograph on “The English Income Tax,” by
Dr. Joseph A. Hill, is the latest issue in the series of
“Economic Studies” published by the Macmillan Co.
for the American Economic Association.
Professor C. H. Herford’s “Eversley” edition of
Shakespeare, published by the Macmillan Co., is now
brought to a close with the tenth volume, which contains
“Coriolanus,” “Timon of Athens,” and the “Poems.”
The tendency of the American publishing trade to
centralize in New York has for its latest illustration
the removal of Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. from
Boston to that city. Their new address is 426 and 428
West Broadway, N. Y.
“The Wider View,” edited by Mr. John Monroe
Dana, and published by the Messrs. Putnam, is an an-
thology of short extracts in both prose and verse, em-
bodying the higher aspirations and deeper religious
thought of many great writers.
The perennial vitality of Jane Austen is once more
attested by the publication of a new edition of her
novels. It is in the “Temple" format, occupies ten
volumes neatly boxed, and bears the Dent imprint. The
Macmillan Co. publishes the set in this country.
The London “Academy” prize award for meritorious
literature produced during the past year was divided
into six parts, and the following persons were the ben-
eficiaries: Sir George Trevelyan for “England in the
Age of Wycliffe,” Miss Gwendoline Keats for “On
Trial,” Mr. W. B. Yeats for “The Wind amono, the
Reeds,” Mr. H. H. Belloe for his biography of Dan-
ton, Mrs. Garnett for her translation of Tourguénieff,
and Mr. H. G. Graham for his “Social Life of Scotland
in the Eighteenth Century.”
Miss Johnston's story “To Have and to Hold,”
which has aroused rather unusual interest while running
as a serial in the “Atlantic,” will be published in book
form this month by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
with illustrations by Mr. Howard Pyle and others.
As a part of the reorganization of the business affairs
of Messrs. Harper & Brothers, all the text-books here-
tofore issued by that house will henceforth be issued by
the American Book Company, of New York and Chi-
cago, to whom all correspondence relating thereto should
now be addressed.
“The Growth of Sartor Resartus,” by Prof. D. L.
Maulsby, is a publication of Tufts College. It is a
pamphlet thesis designed to show that the work in ques-
tion had its roots in Carlyle's earlier work, and was,
in fact, “an epitome of all that Carlyle thought and felt
in the course of the first thirty-five years of his resi-
dence on this planet.”
“Who's Who” (Macmillan) for 1900 has just made
its appearance and will be welcomed by editors and
other persons who are constantly needing up-to-date
information about persons and things. We note the
curious classification which puts down “The Atlantic
Monthly” as a leading American newspaper. The infor-
mation afforded upon English subjects is, we doubt not,
more accurate than this.
“Statistical Methods with Special Reference to Bio-
logical Variation,” by Dr. C. B. Davenport, is the title
of a small volume published by Messrs. John Wiley &
Son. It is issued “in answer to a repeated call for a
simple presentation of the newer statistical methods in
their application to biology,” and contains the work-
ing formulae most used in summer laboratories. The
little book is bound in full leather, and will slip easily
into the pocket.
“Mythology for Moderns,” by Mr. James S. Met-
calfe, is a book issued by the “Life” Publishing Co.
The text consists of a series of up-to-date versions of
the ancient myths, as audacious as an Offenbach libretto,
while many illustrations add their share to the enter-
tainment offered. The same publishers have also sent
us a thin quarto volume of “Coontown's 400,” by Mr.
E. W. Kemble. Here the pictures are the thing, and
the text is reduced to brief explanatory notes.
Mr. Thomas Hardy contributed recently the follow-
ing verses, entitled “A Christmas Ghost Story,” to a
London paper:
“South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
There lies—be he or not your countryman —
A fellow mortal. Riddled are his bones,
But 'mid the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus—fain to know
By whom, and when, the All-Earth-Gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by Some One crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?”
The death of James Martineau, which occurred as
our last issue was going to press, must not be passed by
without at least a brief and belated word of mention.
He had reached the great age of nearly ninety-five
years, and had retained his intellectual vigor almost to
the last. Among the leaders of nineteenth century re-
ligious thought in England he towers like a giant above
all save two or three, having for his peers only such
men as Newman and Maurice. Nominally a Unitarian,


94 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
his outlook was too liberal to be confined even by that
broad horizon, and it is hardly fair to apply to him any
sectarian name. His life was spent in teaching and
preaching, in Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, and Lon-
don. So engrossing were these activities that he pub-
lished few books. Two volumes of college lectures, four
of sermons, “A Study of Religion,” and “Types of Eth-
ical Theory,” are all the publications that need be men-
tioned. The last-named is his most important book,
and is likely to live the longest.
“The Empire of the South” is the title of an attract-
ive and creditable work of some two hundred pages,
written by Mr. Frank Presbrey and published with the
coöperation of the Southern Railway. The book is a
comprehensive treatment of the history, development,
resources, and industries of the Southern States, with
descriptions of pleasure and health resorts, and is illus-
trated with five hundred photographs reproduced in
half-tone. It appeals very strongly to those who have
travelled in this interesting section of our country, and
must prove of much value to the prospective traveller
or investor.
Mr. Frederick Furchheim has followed his “Biblio-
grafia di Pompei” (see THE DIAL, 1895, Vol. XIX,
p. 149) with a “Bibliografia del Vesuvio.” This is by
far the most extensive collection of titles relating to Vesu-
vius that has ever been brought together. According to a
summary given by the compiler in a footnote, the names
of about 1000 writers are recorded, reference being
made to more than 1800 books and articles. Italian writ-
ers naturally claim the largest number of titles, 944; but
the interest that the world in general has taken in the
volcano may be measured by the fact that there are no
less than 329 German, 257 French, and 180 English
titles. The matter of the books and articles referred
to covers a wide range; there are included technical
treatises on the geology and mineralogy of the volcano,
descriptions of eruptions, by eye-witnesses, and philo-
sophical disquisitions on the volcanic phenomena, be-
sides papers dealing with the history of the mountain
from the earliest times. The titles are arranged in
alphabetical order under the authors’ names. At the
end is a list of engravings and maps, followed by a
chronological finding-list and an index. The volume
is well printed, and altogether a valuable addition
to the list of bibliographical helps. (Naples: Emilio
Prass.)
Richard Doddridge Blackmore, the author of “Lorna
Doone,” who died on the twenty-first of last month, at
the age of seventy-five, had the misfortune to be con-
sidered as a man of one book by a large section of the
public. While it is probably true that the novel by
which he was so widely known was his highest literary
achievement, it is also true that he wrote other novels
nearly as deserving of praise. “The Maid of Sker,”
for example, is a very close second, and such books as
“Alice Lorraine” and “Springhaven” come not very
far behind. Blackmore's rank among the novelists of
the latter half of the century is very high. There was
a time about twenty-five years ago, after the major
Victorian novelists had passed away, when he seemed
to overtop any of his contemporaries. At that time,
neither Mr. Hardy nor Mr. Meredith had been discov-
ered by the larger public, and Black appeared to be the
chief rival of Blackmore. Besides the novels we have
named, we may mention “Clara Vaughan” (his first),
“Cradock Nowell,” “Cripps the Carrier,” “Crema,”
“Christowell,” “Mary Anesley,” and “Perlycross.”
He began his literary life, however, as a poet, a fact
attested by three or four volumes of verse, and by a
translation of two of the “Georgics” of Virgil. The
last-named task was a labor of love, if ever there was
one, for Blackmore's interests throughout his life were
divided, like those of our own Mr. John Burroughs,
between literature and gardening, if indeed gardening
may not be named as his vocation, having literature for
a mere avocation. His neighbors, in his country home
a few miles outside of London, knew him as an expert
grower of fruits and vegetables, having little idea of
his fame in the world of letters, and many of the most
delightful pages in his books derive their charm from
his intimate acquaintance with the aspects of farm life.
His command of a finished (if at times too rhythmical)
prose style, his familiarity with the homely speech of
the rustic, his sympathy with dumb animals, his tender
human feeling, and perhaps also his fine old crusted
conservatism, may be mentioned as the predominant
characteristics of his books and his thought.
TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS.
February, 1900.
Agriculture, University Extension in. A. C. True. Forum.
American College in the Twentieth Century. Atlantic.
Anti-Trust Issue, Futility of. David Willcox. Forum.
Art as Means of Expression. W. J. Stillman. International.
Boer War, Opening of. H. J. Whigham. Scribner.
China, Reform in. Gilbert Reid. Forum.
Chopin. James Huneker. Scribner.
Congo State and Central-African Problems. Harper.
England's Perilous Position. W. T. Stead. Rev. of Reviews.
German Empire, The. P. de Coubertin. Rev. of Reviews.
Havana, Social Life of. T. Bentley Mott. Scribner.
History. James Ford Rhodes. Atlantic.
Hypnotic Suggestion, Moral Value of. Harper.
Indian Territory, Need of Better Government in. Forum.
Italy, Recent Books on. Harriet W. Preston. Atlantic.
Japan's Entry into World's Politics. G. Droppers. Internat'l.
Journalism as Basis for Literature. G. S. Lee. Atlantic.
Lawton, Gen. H. W. O. O. Howard. Review of Reviews.
Library of Congress. Herbert Putnam. Atlantic.
Longevity and Degeneration. W. R. Thayer. Forum.
Mahdism, Results of Crushing of. F. C. Penfield. Forum.
Marine Biological Laboratory. H. S. Williams. Harper.
Mississippi Valley, Future of. A. B. Hart. Harper.
Mitchell, Donald G. Arthur R. Kimball. Scribner.
Moody, Dwight L. George P. Morris. Review of Reviews.
Mormons, The. Rollin L. Hartt. Atlantic.
Napoleon, Talks with. Barry E. O'Meara. Century.
New York, Midwinter in. Jacob A. Riis. Century.
Old-Age Pensions. Michael Davitt and W. H. Lecky. Forum.
Opera in America and Europe. H. T. Finck. International.
Orient, True Flavor of the. Julian Ralph. Harper.
Pacific Cable, Problems of a. H. L. Webb. Scribner.
Paris Revisited. Richard Whiteing. Century.
People's Party, The. Marion Butler. Forum.
Personality, Loss of. Ethel Dench Puffer. Atlantic.
Philanthropy, Science in. C. R. Henderson. Atlantic.
Railroad and the People. Theodore Dreiser. Harper.
Roberts, Field Marshal Lord. Review of Reviews.
Russia in Central Asia. A. R. Colquhoun. Harper.
Science of Religion, Recent Workin. C. H. Toy. International.
Short Story, Future of. E. Charlton Black. International.
Singapore, White Man's Rule in. Poultney Bigelow. Harper.
Southern Colleges, Needs of. J. L. M. Curry. Forum.
Transvaal, England's Relation to. Gen. Poortugael. Forum.
Treasury and the Money-Market. C. A. Conant. Rev. of Rev.
Waring, Colonel, Military Elements in Career of. Century.
Washington's University. Charles W. Dabney. Forum.
West, Literature in the. E. Hough. Century.


1900.] THE
DIAL 95
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
[The following list, containing 61 titles, includes books
received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
The Life of Edward White Benson, Sometime Archbishop
of Canterbury. By his son, Arthur Christopher Benson.
§ 2 tº. illus., large 8vo, gilt tops, uncut. Macmillan
. $8.
Henry Irving: A Record and Review. By Charles Hiatt.
Illus., 12mo, gilt top, pp. 282. Macmillan Co. $3.
Literary Reminiscences. By Edouard Grenier; trans.
from the French by Mrs. Abel Ram, 8vo, uncut, pp. 297.
Macmillan Co. $1.75.
Luca Signorelli. By Maud Cruttwell. Illus., 12mo, gilt top,
p. 144. “Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture.”
millan Co. $1.75.
Wagner. By Charles A. Lidgey. Illus. in photogravure,
etc., 12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 268. “Master Musicians.”
E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.25.
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz. By John
Gray M'Kendrick, M.D. . With portrait, 12mo, uncut,
pp. 300. “Masters of Medicine.” Longmans, Green, &
Co. $1.25.
The Story of Lewis Carroll Told for Young People by the
Real Alice in Wonderland, Miss Isa Bowman. Illus, in
photogravure, etc., 12mo, gilt top, pp. 120. E. P. Dutton
& Co. $1.
Life of Russell H. Conwell, Preacher, Lecturer, Philan-
thropist. By Albert Hatcher Smith. Illus., 12mo, pp. 335.
Silver, Burdett & Co. $1.25.
HISTORY.
A History of the British Army. By the Hon. J. W. For-
tescue. In 2 vols., with maps, large 8vo, uncut. Mac-
millan Co. $14.
The Story of France from the Earliest Times to the Consul-
ate of Napoleon Bonaparte. By Thomas E. Watson. In
2 vols., Vol. II., From the End of the Reign of Louis XV.
to the Consulate of Napoleon Bonaparte. 8vo, gilt top,
uncut, pp. 1076. Macmillan Co. $2.50.
Builders of Nova Scotia: A Historical Review. By Sir
John G. Bourinot, K.C.M.G. Illus., large 8vo, pp. 200.
Toronto: The Copp-Clark Co.
Prisoners of the Tower of London: Being an Account of
Some Who at Divers Times Lay Captive within its Walls.
By Violet Brooke-Hunt. Illus. in photogravure, etc.,
12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 347. E. P. Dutton & Co. $2.50.
A Short History of the Expansion of the British Em-
pire, 1500–1870. By William Harrison Woodward. With
maps, 12mo, pp. 326. Macmillan Co. $1, net.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
Letters of Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Master of Balliol Col-
lege, Oxford. Arranged and edited by Evelyn Abbott,
M.A., and Lewis Campbell, M.A. With portrait, large 8vo,
gilt top, uncut, pp. 262. E. P. Dutton & Co. $5.
Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates.
By Frederic Harrison, 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 302. Mac-
millan $2.
French Portraits: Being Appreciations of the Writers of
Young France. By Vance Thompson. Illus., large 8vo,
uncut, pp. 241. Richard G. Badger & Co. $2.50.
The Foundations of English Literature: A Study of the
Development of English Thought and Expression from
Beowulf to Milton. By Fred Lewis Pattee. 12mo, pp.394.
Silver, Burdett & Co. $1.50.
The Choice of Books. By Charles F. Richardson. New
edition; 12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 208. E. P. Dutton &
Co. $1.25.
The Rise of Formal Satire in England under Classical
Influence. By Raymond MacDonald Alden. 8vo, pp. 264.
ºlication. of the University of Pennsylvania.” Ginn
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
The Natural History of Selborne. By Gilbert White;
edited by Grant Allen; illus. by Edmund H. New. Large
8vo, uncut, pp. 528. John Lane. $7.50.
The Works of Jane Austen. “Temple’’ edition. In
10 vols., with colored frontispieces, 24mo, gilt tops. Mac-
millan Co. $8.
The Letters of Cicero: The Whole Extant Correspondence
in Chronological Order. Trans, into English by Evelyn S.
Shuckburgh, M.A. In 4 vols., Wols. I. and II., B. c.68–49.
12mo, uncut. “Bohn's Classical Library.” Macmillan Co.
Per vol., $1.50 net.
Philobiblon: A Treatise on the Love of Books. By Richard
de Bury; English translation by John Bellingham Inglis;
with Introduction by Charles Orr. 8vo, gilt top, uncut,
pp. 143. New York: Meyer Brothers & Co. $2.50.
The Works of Shakespeare, “Eversley” edition. Edited
by C. H. Herford. Litt.D. Vol. X., completing the work.
12mo, uncut, pp. 507. Macmillan Co. $1.50.
Temple Classics. Edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A. New
vols.: Plutarch's Lives, Englished by Sir Thomas North,
Vol. X. (completing the set); Microcosmographie, by
John Earle. ch with portrait, 24mo, gilt top, uncut.
Macmillan Co. Per vol., 50 cts.
BOOKS OF VERSE.
The Living Past, and Other Poems. By Thomas Seton
Jevons. 16mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 59. Macmillan Co. $1.
The V-a-s-e, and Other Bric-à-Brac. By James Jeffrey
Roche, 16mo, uncut, pp.97. Richard G. Badger & Co. $1.
FICTION.
The Light of Scarthey: A Romance. By Egerton Castle.
12mo, gilt top, pp. 434. Frederick A. Stokes Co. $1.50.
Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania. By Winston
Spencer Churchill. 12mo, pp. 345. Longmans, Green, &
Co. $1.25.
Old Madame, and Other Tragedies. By Harriet Prescott
irº. 12mo, uncut, pp. 302. Richard G. Badger & Co.
1.25.
The Enchanter. By U. L. Silberrad. 12mo, gilt top, pp. 389.
Macmillan Co. $1.50.
Donna Teresa. By Frances Mary Peard. 12mo, gilt top,
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Vassar Stories. By Grace Margaret Gallagher. Illus.,
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Captain Landon: A Story of Modern Rome. By Richard
Henry Savage. Illus., 12mo, pp. 391. Rand, McNally &
Co. $1.25.
Passion and Patience. By Janie Prichard Duggan. Illus.,
12mo, pp. 270. Am. Baptist Publication Society. $1.25.
The Hungarian Exiles. By Benjamin Cowell. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 220. Milwaukee: The Young Churchman Co. $1. net.
Pepys's Ghost. By Edwin Emerson, Jr. 18mo, pp. 153.
Richard G. Badger & Co. $1.25.
Mythology for Moderns: An Up-to-Date Text-Book for
Up-to-Date Students. By James S. Metcalfe, M.A. Illus.,
8vo, pp. 117. New York: Life Publishing Co. $1.
TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
Highways and Byways in Yorkshire. By Arthur H.
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12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 384. Macmillan Co. $2.
RELIGION.
Gleanings in Holy Fields. By Hugh Macmillan, D.D.
12mo, uncut, pp. 252. Macmillan Co. $1.50.
Sunday School Lessons for Young Children: A Manual
for Teachers and Parents. By Florence U. Palmar. Illus.,
8vo, pp. 226. Macmillan Co. $1.
PHILOSOPHY.
The World and the Individual: Gifford Lectures Deliv-
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Ph.D. First Series, The Four Historical Conceptions of
Being. 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 588. Macmillan Co. $3. net.
Bushido, the Soul of Japan: An Exposition of Japanese
Thought. By Inazo Nitobé, A.M. 16mo, gilt top, pp. 127.
Philadelphia: Leeds & Biddle Co. $1.
REFERENCE.
Who's Who, 1900: An Annual Biographical Dictionary.
12mo, pp. 1100. Macmillan Co. $1.75.
The Daily News Almanac and Political Register. Com-
piled by Geo. E. Plumbe, A.B. 12mo, pp. 448. Chicago
Daily News Co. Paper, 25 cts.


96 THE DIAL
[Feb. 1,
ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY.
Greek Terracotta Statuettes. By C. A. Hutton; with
Preface by A. S. Murray, LL.D. ń. in colors, etc., 4to,
gilt top, uncut, pp. 100. Macmillan Co. $2.50 net.
The Destruction of Ancient Rome: A Sketch of the His-
tory of the Monuments. By Rodolfo Lanciani. Illus.,
12mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 279. “Handbooks of Archae-
ology and Antiquities.” Macmillan Co. $2.
EDUCATION.—BOOKS FOR SCHOOL AND
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The Logical Bases of Education. By J. Welton, M.A.
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Method in Education: A Text-Book for Teachers. By
§º. Roark, Ph.D. 12mo, pp. 348. American Book
Xo. $1.
The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from "The Spectator.”
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Ph.D. With portrait, 12mo, pp. 217. D. Appleton & Co.
40 cts.
La Tulipe Noire. Par Alexandre Dumas; abridged and
annotated by Edgar Ewing Brandon, A.M. 12mo, pp. 156.
American Book Co. 40 cts.
Going to College. By Waitman Barbe, A.M. With the
opinions of 50 leading college presidents and educators.
16mo, pp. 104. Morgantown, W. Va.: The author. Paper,
25 cts.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools. Edited by A. F. Kirk-
atrick, D.D. New vols.: The Proverbs, edited by the
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Alice and Tom; or, The Record of a Happy Year. By Kate
Louise Brown. Illus., 12mo, pp. 212. D. C. Heath & Co.
40 cts.
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Edited by Ella Boyce
Kirk. 12mo, pp. 304. American Book Co. 50 cts.
Illustrations of Logic. By Paul T. Lafleur, M.A.
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Milton's Shorter Poems and Sonnets. Arranged and
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Pope's Iliad of Homer (Selections). Edited by Paul
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§
THE
DIAL
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THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of
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THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
No. 328. FEB. 16, 1900. Vol. XXVIII.
CONTENTS.
rage
* WHEN WE DEAD AWAKE.” William Morton
Payne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
COMMUNICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Jane Austen and Thackeray. Albert Mathews.
RUSKIN. (Lines.) Lewis Worthington Smith . . . 113
DEMOCRACY OUT OF JOINT. B. A. Hinsdale . 113
REALISM IN FRENCH HISTORY. M. S. B. A. 116
CLASSICAL HISTORY, FESTIVALS, AND
LEGENDS, Shailer Mathews . . . . . . . 117
Thomas’s Roman Life under the Caesars. — Hill's
Handbook of Greek and Roman Coins. – Fowler's
The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic.
– Lang's The Homeric Hymns. – Leland's The
Unpublished Legends of Virgil.
PROFESSOR FISKE'S ESSAYS. Foster Bain . . 119
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION. M. B.
Hammond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Macfarlane's Value and Distribution.—Rodbertus's
Overproduction and Crises.— Le Bon's The Psychol-
ogy of Socialism.–Root's The Profit of the Many.—
Hall's Sympathetic Strikes and Lockouts.- Burke's
History and Functions of Central Labor Unions.—
Gilman's A Dividend to Labor.—Ferris's Pauperizing
the Rich.-Urdahl's The Fee System in the United
States.—Marot's Handbook of Labor Literature.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . 124
England in the days of her supremacy.—Mr. Goldwin
Smith's latest history.- An historical encyclopaedia
of Illinois.- An English Rajah. — History of Amer-
ican privateers.-Life without ennui among Austra-
lians.—A new life of Benvenuto.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
LIST OF NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . 128
“ WHEN WE DEAD A W.A.K.E.”
The publication of Dr. Ibsen's latest drama
comes a year later than his long-established
custom had led us to expect. Since the appear-
ance of “An Enemy of the People” in 1882,
every second year brought its new play until
1898, when it was learned that no work was
then forthcoming. Coupled with this announce
ment was a report to the effect that the vener
able dramatist had in view the writing of a
volume of memoirs, but it seems that this pro
ject, if ever definitely entertained, was aban
doned in favor of another play, which duly came
from the press late last December, and has re
cently reached us. It is in three acts, bears the
suggestive title, “Naar Vi Döde Vaagner,
and is further described as “a dramatic epi
logue.” We are given to understand that this
description means that the author has defi-
nitely closed the series of problem-plays, or
studies in social pathology, which was begun
in 1878 with “The Pillars of Society,” and
which is made an even dozen by the work now
under discussion. One in search of fanciful
analogies might find in that first title some
suggestion of an intellectual Samson deter-
mined to pull down the temple of modern so-
ciety, and in the last some suggestion of the
nobler social structure that may be expected to
spring from the ruins of the old order.
This is, of course, the merest fancy and
nothing more, but it is the prerogative of Dr.
Ibsen's work to suggest ideas that lie far afield
from its direct message, and it is impossible to
remain literal-minded in the presence of the ex-
traordinary series of compositions now brought
to an end. Their significance is none the less
real because it is elusive, and their larger im-
plications must determine our judgment quite
as much as the nicety of their dramaturgical
craftsmanship. “When We Dead Awake"
is a title which in itself awakens many echoes
from the author's earlier writings. It proclaims
anew his whole insistent gospel of the need of
spiritual regeneration for an age sunk in sloth
fulness — the gospel of Brand's
“Forth 1 out of this stifling pit!
Vault-like is the air of it !
Not a flag may float unfurl’d
In this dead and windless world”-


110
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
it sounds once more that note of high idealism
which is never altogether missing from his
work, and which is the real secret of the appeal
which he has so powerfully made to all who
have ever dreamed of the realization of utopias
and the permanent betterment of the social
order.
But, whatever aspirations may breathe
through his symbolism, Dr. Ibsen never forgets
that he is a dramatic artist writing for the stage,
and that his first concern is the concrete pre-
sentation of such men and women as we may
at any time meet with in actual life. The new
play opens in the most matter-of-fact way at a
summer resort on the Norwegian coast. Pro-
fessor Rubek and his wife Maja are seated
outside the hotel. They have just finished
breakfast and are reading the newspapers.
Rubek is a sculptor of European reputation,
who has returned to his native land after a
lengthy sojourn abroad. Both are restless, and
it soon transpires that neither of them has found
satisfaction during the years of their married
life. It is a case of the deeper sort of incom-
patibility. An artist and a frivolous woman
are joined together, and neither of them can
give the other what is most wanted. To him
has been denied inspiration for his work, to her
the joyous round of gaiety which she craves.
For years they have pretended a satisfaction
they did not feel, but the breaking-point has
nearly been reached.
Maja. Tell me. You have begun to go restlessly about.
You find contentment nowhere, either at home or abroad.
Of late you have come to shun human society.
Rubek. No, really? Have you noticed that?
Maja. No one who knows you could help noticing it. And
it seems to me, it has grown so serious that you have lost all
pleasure in work.
Rubek. Have I done that ?
Maja. Just think, you, who formerly could work so un-
weariedly — early and late :
Rubek. Yes, formerly, yes —
Maja. But from the time when your great masterpiece
was once off your hands —
Rubek. “The Day of Resurrection”—
Maja. — the one that has gone all over the world, that
has made you so famous —
Rubek. Perhaps that is the misfortune, Maja.
Maja. Why so?
Rubek. When I had created that masterpiece of mine
[making a passionate gesture], for “The Day of Resurrec-
tion” is a masterpiece. Or it was at first. No, it is still. It
shall, shall, shall remain a masterpiece
Maja. Yes, Rubek, that is something which all the world
knows.
Rubek. All the world knows nothing! Understands
nothing l
Maja. At any rate they imagine something.
Rubek. Something which isn't there, yes. Something
which was never in my thought. They fall into an ecstasy
over that.— It isn't worth the while to wear yourself out
for the mob and the crowd—and for “all the world.”
Maja. Does it seem to you better, or even worthy of your-
self to do nothing but a portrait bust now and then 2
Rubek. They are not strictly portrait busts that I make,
Maja.
Maja. Yes they are, God knows, during the last two or
three years, since your great group was completed and out of
the house.
Rubek. Yet they are not merely portrait busts, I tell you.
Maja. What do you mean by that?
Rubek. There is something suspicious, something con-
cealed, both inside and outside the busts—something secret,
that men cannot see.
Maja. Indeed!
Rubek. But I can see it. And I get my quiet amusement
out of it. Apparently there is the "striking likeness,” as
they call it, which people stand and gaze at with wonder [in
a lower tone] — but deep within are traced the respectable,
even honorable lineaments of the horse, or sometimes donkey
snouts, and close-eared low-browed dog-skulls, and masked
swine's heads, and the counterfeit presentment of brutal ox-
faces —
Maja. All the domestic animals, in fact.
Rubek. Just the domestic animals, Maja. All the animals
that man has transformed in his own image, and that have
transformed man by way of compensation. And these tricky
works of art are what well-to-do people come and order of
me. And pay for in good faith, and with high praises.
Almost with their weight in gold, as men say.
Maja [filling his glass]. Fie, Rubek 1 Drink and be con-
tent.
Rubek. I am content, Maja. Really content. In a way,
that is. [Pause.] For there is a certain happiness in feeling
free and undisturbed on all sides. To have everything that
one can think of desiring. Externally, I mean. Don't you
feel as I do about it, Maja?
Maja. Oh, yes, that is all very well, too. But can you
remember what you promised me the day when we agreed-
about that difficult—
Rubek. Agreed that we should marry. It was a little hard
for you, Maja.
Maja. And that I should journey abroad with you, and
live there for good—and be happy. Can you remember what
you promised me then?
Rubek. No, really I can't. What was it I promised you?
Maja. You said you would take me up on a high moun-
tain and show me all the glory of the world.
Rubek. Did I make you that promise too?
Maja. Me too? Whom besides?
Rubek. No, no, I mean merely, did I promise to show
you—?
Maja. All the glory of the world. Yes, you said that.
And all the glory should be mine and yours, you said.
Rubek. It was a sort of phrase that I was in the habit of
using in those days.
Soon after this conversation, the two remain-
ing characters of the play come upon the scene.
One is a landed proprietor named Ulfhejm,
the other is Irene, a pale, mysterious woman
who turns out to be an old friend of Rubek —
no other, in fact, than the woman who had
been his model for “The Day of Resurrection,”
and thus the inspiration of his best artistic
effort. She is attended by a deaconess, a
shadowy, silent figure, who speaks only three
words at the very close of the drama. Ulf-
hejm, who is an enthusiastic sportsman, is
coarse of speech and unconventional in man-
ner. Maja is attracted to him by his abundant
animal spirits, and they plan a hunting expe-


1900.] TELE
DIAL 111
dition. When they have gone off together,
Rubek is left with Irene, and memories of
the past come surging upon him. In the
intimacy of their earlier relations, he had
viewed her with the artist's eye only; she, on
the other hand, had loved him with all the
strength of her passionate nature. To him she
had been an episode; to her he had been every-
thing that makes life desirable. When they
had parted she had become like “The Woman
with the Dead Soul’ of Mr. Stephen Phillips's
poem. She had existed, but the vital spark
had been extinguished within her breast. He,
learning too late how great was his need of her
inspiration, had made a prosaic marriage, and
had discovered that the creative impulse had
fled beyond his control. The situation is some-
thing like that of “Master Builder Solness,”
when the appearance of Hilda reawakens in the
artist the old aspirations and the old ideal
visions. Irene reproaches the sculptor with
having seen in her only the beautiful figure,
not the loving woman's soul.
Rubek. I was an artist, Irene.
Irene. Just that, just that.
Rubek. An artist first of all. And I was ill and would
create the great work of my life. It should be called “The
Day of Resurrection.” It should be produced in the likeness
of a young woman, waking from the sleep of death.
Irene. Our child, yes.
Rubek. She should be the noblest, purest, most ideal
woman of earth, she who awoke. And then I found you. I
could use you with complete satisfaction. And you submitted
so willingly, so gladly. Left people and home, and followed
rºle.
Irene. It was my resurrection from childhood when I fol-
lowed you.
Rubek. That was just why I could use you. You and none
other. You became for me a sacrosanct creature, whom I
might touch only in the worship of my thoughts. I was still
young then, Irene. And I was possessed by the superstition
that should I touch you, desire you in reality, it would be a
desecration, and put beyond my power the work that Isought
to do. And I yet believe there is truth in that.
Irene. First the work of art—then the human child.
Rubek. Judge of it as you will. But I was completely
controlled by my task at that time, and it made me jubilantly
happy.
Irene. And your task turned the corner for you, Arnold.
Rubek. With thanks and blessings for you, it turned the
corner for me. I sought to create the pure woman just as it
seemed to me she must awake on the day of resurrection.
Not surprised at anything new and unknown and undreamed
of, but filled with sacred joy at finding herself unchanged –
she, the woman of earth—in the higher, freer, more joyous
lands—after the long and dreamless sleep of death. So did
I create her-in your image I created her, Irene.
Irene. And so you were through with me.
Rubek. Irene !
Irene. Needed me no longer.
Rubek. Can you say that?
Irene. Began to look about for other ideals.
Rubek. But found none, none after you.
Irene. No other models, Arnold?
Rubek. You were no model for me. You were the task
set for my creative powers.
Irene. What have you done since? In marble, I mean.
Since the day I left you?
Rubek. I have done nothing since that day. Merely trifled
and modelled.
Irene. And the woman with whom you are now living?
Rubek. Do not speak of her now. A pang strikes through
my breast.
Irene. Where do you think of journeying with her?
Rubek. Oh, some trip or other up the north coast.
Irene. Journey rather high up among the mountains. As
high as you can climb. Higher, higher, ever higher, Arnold.
Rubek. Will you up yonder?
Irene. Have you courage to meet me once more?
Rubek. If we could—ah, if we could !
Irene. Why can we not do what we will? Come, Arnold,
come up to me.
“Why can we not do what we will?” The
whole of Ibsen is in that passionate question.
Why does deed fall so far short of impulse?
Why do we cripple our lives by making them
so much less than our ideals” Noticeable also
in this scene is the recurrence of the typical
motive of “Solness,” for as Hilda comes to the
master builder, and recalls the past in such
fashion as to rekindle his artistic energies, so
Irene comes to the sculptor at a similar period
of slackened will, and bids him once more be
greatly daring.
The two extracts thus far made are taken
from the first act of the play. In the second
act, Rubek and his wife, in sorrow rather than
in passion, say some of the things they have
long felt, and put into bare and almost brutal
speech their attitude toward one another. After
this discussion, Maja leaves the scene, meets
Irene, and sends her to Rubek.
Irene. She, the other woman, said that you were waiting
for me.
Rubek. I have been waiting for you year after year, with-
out understanding it myself.
Irene. I could not come to you, Arnold. I lay far yonder,
sleeping a long, deep, dreamful sleep.
Rubek. But now you are awake, Irene.
Irene. Yet deep and heavy sleep is still upon my eyes.
Rubek. It will dawn and grow bright for us both now, you
shall see.
Irene. I can never believe that.
Rubek. I believe it! I know it! For now I have found
you again.
Irene. Arisen.
Rubek. Transfigured 1
Irene. Only arisen, Arnold, not transfigured.
A long reminiscent scene between the two now
follows, leading at last to this poetical and
impressive climax.
Irene. Look, Arnold. Now the sun is sinking behind the
peaks. Just see how red the slanting rays shine upon all the
hilltops yonder.
Rubek. It is long since I have seen a sunset on the moun-
tains.
Irene. And a sunrise?
Rubek. I think I have never seen a sunrise.
Irene. I saw a wonderfully beautiful sunrise once.
Rubek. Did you? Where was it?
Irene. High, high up on a dizzy mountain top. You enticed
me thither, and promised that I should behold all the glory of
the world, if I would only—
Rubek. If you would only 2– Well?
Irene. I did as you told me. Followed you up to the


112
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
heights. And there I fell on my knees, – and besought you
—and worshipped you. Then I saw the sunrise.
The close of this act brings an appointment
between the two to spend the warm bright
summer night upon the heights. At the same
time it must be remembered that Maja and
Ulfhejm have planned a hunting expedition
for that night also.
Irene. Until to-night. On the upland.
Rubek. And you will come, Irene?
Irene. I will truly come. Wait for me here.
Rubek. A summer night on the upland. With you, with
you. Oh, Irene, it might have been a lifetime. And we have
wasted it, we two.
Irene. We first come to see the irretrievable when —
Rubek. When?
Irene. When we dead awake.
Rubek. What is it we come to see?
Irene. We see that we have never lived.
With the last act comes the inevitable tragic
ending. The scene is laid high up among the
mountains, with precipices on the one hand,
and snowclad peaks on the other. The time is
just before sunrise. Maja and Ulfhejm first
appear, and after a long dialogue, come upon
Irene and Rubek. A storm is brewing, and
the note of warning is sounded by Ulfhejm.
Ulfheim. Don't you see that the tempest is over our head.
Don't you hear the gusts of wind.
Rubek. It sounds like the overture to the day of resur-
rection.
Ulfheim. It is the storm-wind from the peaks, man! Just
see how the clouds roll and descend. Soon they will close
about us like a winding-sheet.
Irene. Well do I know that shroud.
Maja. Let us try to get down.
Ulfhejm. I can help but one. Stop in that hut until the
tempest is stilled. I will send people up to rescue both of you.
Irene. Rescue us! No, no!
Ulſheim. To take you by force, if need be. It is a ques-
tion of life and death. Now you know the truth. [To Maja)
Come on, and trust to your comrade's strength.
Maja. Oh, how I shall rejoice and sing if I get down with
a whole skin.
Ulfhejm. Just wait in that huntsman's hut until they come
for you with ropes.
The
Rubek and Irene are now left alone.
woman is in an ecstasy of terror at the thought
of returning to the hopeless conditions of every-
day life. She displays a dagger, and declares
that she will not suffer herself to be rescued.
She also confesses that she had meant the
dagger for Rubek himself, that he might atone
for all that she had suffered from his indiffer-
ence and desertion.
Rubek. Why did you not strike?
Irene. Because the frightful thought came to me that you
were already dead, long since.
Rubek. Dead?
Irene. Dead, you as well as I. We sat there together, we
two clammy corpses, and played together.
Rubek. I do not call it death. But you cannot understand
nue.
Irene. Where is now the burning desire with which you
once fought, when I stood before you as the uprisen woman?
Rubek. Our love is surely not dead, Irene.
Irene. The love which is the life of earth, the beautiful,
wonderful life of earth, the mystery-haunted life of earth—
that is dead in us both.
Rubek. Don't you know that just that love is seething and
burning in me as fiercely as ever before.
Irene. And I. Have you forgotten what I now am?
Rubek. Be who and what you will. For me you are the
woman I dream that I behold in you.
Rubek. We are free. There is yet time for us to live our
life. Irene.
Irene. The desire of life died within me, Arnold. Then I
arose, and spied you out, and found you. And now I see that
both you and life are lying dead, as I lay.
Rubek. How are your thoughts astray ! The stir and the
ferment of life are in us and about us as before.
Irene. The young uprisen woman sees the whole of life
upon its couch of death.
Rubek. Then let us two dead live life once to the dregs,
ere we go down again into our graves.
Irene. Arnold!
Rubek. But not here in the twilight. Nothere, where the
wet, hideous shroud flaps about us.
Irene. No, no. Up into the light and all the glittering
glory! Up to the peaks of divination 1
Rubek. Up there we will celebrate our bridal festival,
Irene, my beloved.
Irene. The sun will see us gladly, Arnold.
Rubek. All the powers of light will see us gladly. And
all the powers of darkness. [Taking her hand] Will you
follow me then, my gracious bride?
Irene. Willingly and gladly will I follow my lord and
master.
Rubek. We must first make our way through the mists,
Irene, and then—
Irene. Yes, through all the mists, and so straight up to the
towering peak, that gleams in the sunrise.
As the two pass upward hand in hand, the
tempest increases in violence. The silent
attendant of Irene appears and looks about for
her mistress. The jubilant voice of Maja is
heard from far below. Then, with a roar like
thunder, an avalanche sweeps down the moun-
tain side, and buries the devoted two in its
depths.
Such is the scene which, like the similar
scene in “Brand,” leaves us awe-stricken at
the close of the drama. We leave to others
the task of reading a lesson into this tragic
presentment of two human souls thus brought
to the crisis of their lives. Journalism — and
by journalism we mean the sort of writing
which, whether found in newspapers or in
books, invariably balks at every form of ideal-
ism, and always, of the possible motives for any
course of action, assumes the basest or the least
worthy to offer the most rational explanation—
journalism, we say, will scoff at this story, just
as it scoffed at “L’Abbesse de Jouarre" and
“Die Versunkene Glocke,” with both of which
works this drama has suggestive affinities. But
we pity the reader who can contemplate the
situation here created by the genius of Dr.
Ibsen, and find only prosaic emotions to feel,
only prosaic things to say. An awful pity and


1900.] THE
DIAL 113
an awful sense of omnipotent fate seem the
fitting subjective accompaniment of the tragedy
here worked out with unerring objective mas-
tery. In the presence of such creative power,
of such a certain grasp upon the very core of
passion, such an envisagement of the problem
of life when stripped of all adventitious trap-
pings, all criticism seems futile, and all com-
ment superfluous. For this occasion, at any
rate, we will remain content with the outline
of the story that has been given, and with the
illustrative extracts that have been translated.
We understand that an English version of the
drama, made by Mr. William Archer, will soon
be offered to the public.
WILLIAM MoRTON PAYNE.
COMMUNICATION.
JANE AUSTEN AND THACKERAY.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
Your recent notice of Mr. Pollock's little book on
Jane Austen recalls a story I happened to see in a New
York journal last summer. “Mrs. Ritchie,” it was
remarked, “has presented somewhere a picture of the
personality of Jane Austen. Miss Austen visited the
Thackerays and took tea with them. Her hosts waited
in vain for the brilliant conversation, or even intelligent
remarks that they expected. Thackeray, before the
evening was half over, made his escape to the club.”
The writer is wisely vague as to where Mrs. Ritchie
relates this precious story, for it is impossible that she
could have originated anything so absurd. Born in India,
Thackeray, according to his own statement in “The
Four Georges,” “first saw England when she was mourn-
ing for the young Princess Charlotte,” who died No-
vember 6, 1817. As Jane Austen had died the 18th of
the previous July, it is obvious that the alleged meeting
could not have taken place. But let us suppose that
Thackeray's memory was at fault, that he reached En-
gland somewhat earlier, and that the two novelists met:
what then? On the day of Jane Austen's death, Thack-
eray had reached the ripe age of six; and it is safe to
assume that the boredom was on the part of Jane Austen,
and that Thackeray retired, not to the club, but to the
nursery. ALBERT MATTHEws.
Boston, Feb. 5, 1900.
R USRIN.
Since earth was beauty first to human eyes,
And truth grew wonderful in man's desire,
No other soul has felt such longing rise,
Such passion for them, as a living fire
Of noblest aspiration making sweet
The pathway of the dust for aching feet.
Out of this earth his spirit-blooms unfold,
As some pure lily from the age-black mould.
LEwis WoRTHINGTON SMITH.
Čbe #tto $ochs.
DEMOCRACY OUT OF JOINT.”
Mr. Gamaliel Bradford owes such public
reputation as he enjoys mainly to the numerous
contributions that he has made, in the last
thirty years or so, to certain leading journals
of the country, in which he has freely criticised
the course of our governments and confidently
offered a specific remedy for the evils that have
furnished the subjects of his criticism. He
now comes before the public with an elaborate
work, which comprises two volumes of more
than eleven hundred pages, devoted to a much
fuller and abler presentation of his well-known
views. The range of his argument is very wide,
and it is impossible in these columns to do more
than to state his leading ideas. First, however,
we must seize the author's point of view.
Perhaps occasional readers, or even regular
readers, of his newspaper lucubrations have
formed the opinion that Mr. Bradford despairs
of popular government. Not at all; he is
rather a thorough believer in democracy. On
this point he takes pains not to be misunder-
stood. He begins with the well-known yet
almost astounding fact that “within little more
than a century a force has made its appearance
in the world which was never before known,
and which, having already changed the whole
face of society, points to still greater changes
in the future”; the allusion being “not to a phys-
ical but to a moral cause; that is, the carrying on
of government, if only in theory, in accordance
with the expressed wish of the great mass of the
people.” His first chapter is devoted to histor-
ical illustrations of this proposition. He ex-
amines and thrusts aside “some criticisms of
democracy” that have been made by such well-
known writers as President Woolsey, Francis
Parkman, and Sir Henry Sumner Maine, and
asserts a confident faith in popular government.
He insists that history furnishes no good reason
for discarding it, but the contrary. If popular
governments have made mistakes and fallen
into excesses, so have all other governments
since society began — mistakes and excesses
both greater and more numerous. At the same
time, popular governments have been the source
and cause of reforms and benefits of the most
extended and beneficent character. The facts
of history that he marshalls to support these
*THE LEsson of PopULAR Gover NMENT. By Gamaliel
Bradford. In two volumes. New York: The Macmillan Co.


114
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
propositions, and particularly the last one, are
extremely effective. Think of it! when Black-
stone wrote his “Commentaries” in 1760–70
there were a hundred and sixty capital crimes
under the English law; up to 1838, poor debtors
were immured in the miserable prisons of the
time; down to 1833, Parliament had done noth-
ing whatever for popular education in England
and Wales, and then began with the pittance
of £20,000 a year; while as late as 1815 the
tax on a copy of a newspaper was fourpence.
The extraordinary changes that have been
made in these matters, and many more, are
the work of democracy. “Much space has
been given to the experience of Great Britain,
because it is there that the best results of pop-
ular government have been worked out.” The
other countries that have been deeply touched
by the democratic spirit are passed in review,
with an outcome that, on the whole, is encour-
aging. If the United States has not made as
much progress in matters of government as
some other countries—which must be admitted
—“one reason is that we began at a point so
relatively high that a proportionate improve-
ment was not to be expected, especially when
it was encumbered during the first half cen-
tury with the conflict with slavery, and since
then with the tide of promiscuous foreign em-
igration.”
Before passing on, we may remark upon the
almost universal tendency to exaggerate the
weaknesses and excesses of democracy as com-
pared with those of aristocracy or monarchy.
The fact is a distinctly interesting one, and its
psychology well worth investigation. Somehow
it is far worse for the people to kill than it is
for the prince or the lord; also far worse to
kill a prince or lord than it is to kill the peo-
ple. And yet Mr. Froude assures us, in a pow-
erful paragraph of his “Caesar,” that the
popular party, as compared with the aristo-
cratic party, has always been the party of mod-
eration and mercy.
“Patricians and plebians, aristocrats and democrats,
have alike stained their hands with blood in the work-
ing out of the problem of politics. But impartial his-
tory also declares that the crimes of the popular party
have in all ages been the lighter in degree, while in
themselves they have more to excuse them; and if the
violent acts of revolutionists have been held up more
conspicuously for condemnation, it has been only be-
cause the fate of noblemen and gentlemen has been .
more impressive to the imagination than the fate of the
peasant or the artisan. But the endurance of the ine-
qualities of life by the poor is the marvel of human
society. When the people complain, said Mirabeau, the
people are always right. The popular cause has been
the cause of the laborer struggling for a right to live
and breathe and think as a man. Aristocracies fight
for wealth and power— wealth which they waste upon
luxury, and power which they abuse for their own
interests. Yet the cruelties of Marius were as far ex-
ceeded by the cruelties of Sylla as the insurrection of
the beggars of Holland was exceeded by the bloody
tribunal of the Duke of Alva; or as “the horrors of the
French Revolution” were exceeded by the massacre of
the Huguenots two hundred years before, for which the
Revolution was the expiatory atonement.”
But while a firm believer in democracy, Mr.
Bradford contends that in the United States,
and in some other countries where popular
government is found, democracy is out of joint.
Popular government is not producing its legit-
imate fruits. Incompetence, extravagance, and
corruption abound and grow apace. He passes
in review our National, State, and municipal
governments, as they bear upon this point.
The suppression of the Southern rebellion and
the maintenance of the Union, together with
“the crowning glory,” the restoration of peace,
and the speedy reëstablishment of fraternal
relations between the sections, shows what the
American democracy is capable of doing when
it has a fair chance.
“A firm conviction is justified that the spirit which
did these things is just as available to-day for the vic-
tories of peace as it then was for those of war; that it
can be made use of for reforms which would immedi-
ately insure the purity and efficiency of government in
the Nation, the States, and the cities. Why it is not,
and how it may be so made, it is the object of this book
to examine.”
What, then, is the matter? Why does not
popular government work as it ought to work?
Why is it that our governments are inefficient,
costly, and often corrupt? The answer comes
in such propositions as that “The executive is
the essential branch of government,” “Neither
the people nor the legislature can govern,” and
“Our dangers arise from the legislature.”
Much of the author's argumentation is really,
but not formally, an expansion of the well-
known sentences that Madison sent in one of
the papers of “The Federalist.”
“Experience proves a tendency in our governments
to throw all power into the legislative vortex. The ex-
ecutives of the States are little more than ciphers. The
legislatures are omnipotent. If no effectual check can
be devised on the encroachments of the latter, a revo-
lution will be inevitable.”
Such was Mr. Madison's prophecy. If he and
his compeers could have seen the spectacle of
mingled incompetence and corruption that our
worst State legislatures present year after year
— the carnivals of folly and selfishness—they
might have been too disheartened to go farther


1900.] THE
DIAL 115
with the experiment of popular government.
Fortunately, the character of Congress has
never fallen so low, although that is low enough;
but the municipal legislatures have gone still
lower.
Good government, we are told, is impossible
without leadership, and legislatures cannot lead.
Political leadership, like all other leadership,
is necessarily individual, and it must reside in
or be directly connected with the executive.
“In all cases in history where a nation has been
lifted out of almost desperate complications, it has been
always under the leadership of one man. Take the
dawn of modern civilization in Europe under Charla-
magne. There is William the Silent in Holland, William
Pitt in England, Richelieu and Napoleon in France,
Stein and Bismarck in Germany, Cavour in Italy,
Washington and Lincoln in America.”
If it were objected that some of these names
are of ominous sound to believers in popular
government, the author would reply that they
stand for the power and value of leadership,
which is just as important in popular govern-
ments as in any other.
What then is the remedy for the ills of the
body politic? What must be done to put
democracy in joint? In general the answer is
that the power of the legislatures must be
limited and the power of the executives be
increased, while the two are brought into closer
affiliation. In a word, the answer is the spe-
cific—if the word may be allowed—that Mr.
Bradford has been holding up to view all these
weary years, a form of cabinet government.
“For this it is necessary that they [Congress and the
President] should come physically into contact; that
the executive should have just as good an opportunity
of stating his position and defending his rights before
the great arbitrating tribunal of public opinion as the
legislature has, and that each branch should enforce
responsibility upon the other.”
“The prescription for the complaint,” Mr.
Bradford tells us, “is furnished to us by good
authority,” namely, a bill that was submitted
to the National Senate by an influential com-
mittee of its members in February, 1881, of
which the following are the two leading para-
graphs:
“That the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the
Navy, the Secretary of the Interior, the Attorney Gen-
eral, and the Postmaster General shall be entitled to
occupy seats on the floor of the Senate and House of
Representatives, with the right to participate in debate
on matters relating to the business of their respective
departments under such rules as may be prescribed by
the Senate and House respectively.
“That the said Secretaries, the Attorney-General,
and the Postmaster-General shall attend the sessions of
the Senate on the opening of the sittings on Monday
and Thursday of each week to give information asked
by resolution or in reply to questions which may be
propounded to them under the rules of the Senate and
House; and the Senate and House may by standing
order dispense with the attendance of one or more of
said officers on either of said days.”
So far as remedy is concerned, Mr. Bradford's
reasoning in great part may be described as the
expansion and enforcement of these main ideas.
We have now outlined, very roughly, the
general course of the argument. It will not be
at all new to many readers. These ideas have
been more or less familiar to the country for a
generation. Criticism of them, to be of value,
would necessarily require space that we cannot
devote to the subject. We have long been of
the opinion that it is desirable to bring the
legislative and executive branches of our gov-
ernments into much closer connection, borrow-
ing, as far as we fairly can considering out
institutions, the cabinet idea of England; but
we must confess to not being fully persuaded
that if this were done the effects would be as
far-reaching and as beneficent as Mr. Bradford,
in his enthusiastic advocacy, is disposed to
think. For the rest, it must suffice to say that
he conducts the discussion with decided ability
and earnestness; that he brings before us an
amount of historical and political information
that makes his work valuable for the purposes
of comparative study, and that, even if one does
not agree with him fully, or not at all, in his
main theses, he must admit the great import-
ance of the subject and the value of all discus-
sions of it that show marks of serious study by
an earnest and able mind.
We have a single reflection to add. If salva-
tion can come to us only in the manner that
Mr. Bradford believes, the outlook is not very
encouraging. His main idea has now been for
some time before the country. We have not
forgotten — although he does not mention it,
that we have observed — a resolution which
was before the House of Representatives in
1865, in the identical words, or nearly so, that
are quoted above from the report of 1881,
and that nothing came of it but talk. Mr.
George H. Pendleton, then in the House, was
the real author of the measure, as he was no
doubt of the later one. General Garfield, who
was always deeply interested in whatever prom-
ised to improve government, then serving his
first term in the House, supported it in an able
speech that may be found in the first volume of
his published works. This was his peroration:
“I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this measure will be
fairly considered. If it do not pass now, the day will


116
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
come, I believe, when it will pass. When that day
comes, I expect to see a higher type of American States-
manship, not only in the cabinet, but also in the legisla-
tive hall.”
Unhappily, we see no sign of progress since
that day, and the realization of the prophecy
seems as far off as ever. B. A. HINsdale.
REALISM IN FRENCH HISTORY.”
“To note the varying forms of government, to trace
the ancient origin of modern laws and customs, to mark
the encroachment of absolutism on popular rights, to
describe the long-continued struggle of the many to
throw off the yoke of the few, to emphasize the cor-
rupting influences of the union between Church and
State, to illustrate once more the blighting effects of
superstition, ignorance, blind obedience, unjust laws,
confiscation under the disguise of unequal taxes, and
the systematic plunder, year by year, of the weaker
classes by the stronger, have been the motives which
led to the enormous labor involved in this book.”
Thus forcibly stated is the comprehensive
proposition of which Mr. Watson's “Story of
France” is the demonstration. He explicitly
disclaims any attempt to fill in details in his
study of the development of a great people,
and protests that nothing less than a great pur-
pose would have led him to undertake the pro-
duction of these two large volumes. This
purpose, then, is the raison d'être of the work;
it looks out on every page, it is apparent be-
tween the lines, it colors the facts and makes
an untrue perspective; and the question ever
recurs, Does the end justify the means?
If, however, we accept this proposition and
make allowance for the purpose, we have only
applause for the consistent attitude and fear-
less honesty of the author. His aggressive
truth-telling makes French history superla-
tively realistic, and his fertile mind, keen wit,
and dramatic power combine to make a story
of absorbing interest. He is no technical his-
torian whose qualifications invariably include
scholarly research, accuracy, and discriminat-
ing judgment. He is, rather, the philosopher,
who, after wide reading and assimilation, has
been inspired to present in entertaining form
the historical discoveries of others. In other
words, Mr. Watson is the popular historian in
vogue to-day.
The historian of a half-century ago was the
man whose work showed care, symmetry, grace
of style, fluency, and finish. Accuracy was
*THE Story of FRANCE FROM THE Earliest times to
THE Consula.TE of NAPoleon BonapartE. By Thomas
E. Watson. In two volumes. New York: The Macmillan Co.
necessary, to be sure; but the manner was of
greater importance than the matter, and errors
of characterization, if there were such, were
uniformly in favor of the personage depicted.
To-day we seem to see a reaction, and the dan-
ger of an extreme in the other direction seems
imminent. If, as has been stated, we had “by
a slow process of evolution well-nigh discarded
from the lives of our greatest men of the past
all human faults and feelings; have enclosed
their greatness in glass of the clearest crystal
and hung up a sign “Do not touch,’” we are
on the verge of another extreme wherein a com-
mendable ambition to “humanize” runs riot
and renders inhuman. It is apparently true
that the public has outlived the days of myth-
ology and is tired of hero-worship. Nothing
is so relished as the “True Story,” wherein
the traditional bundle of valor and virtue is
invested with real flesh and blood and painted
with true, if less vivid, colors. It is a refresh-
ing performance, and when the task is under-
taken with sympathy and enthusiasm, and the
attributes of the writer include fluency and a
well-balanced use of dramatic effect, he is then
able to count upon the support of that uncer-
tain quantity — the reading public.
Mr. Watson has succeeded admirably in
meeting the demands of this exacting critic.
The sympathy and enthusiasm are not wanting,
his creatures are men, not mere historical fig-
ures, the style is dramatic and the interest sus-
tained. But having got the ear of the public,
is it fair to impose upon the credulity of his
audience? Is there any justifiable excuse for
working upon the feelings of the reader with
the weapons of the emotional evangelist? Will
not the effort to paint dark days blacker —
to ignore the rays of light and truth which
have never been quite obscured—react in a
way to bring discredit upon the narrative?
If this tendency develops, shall we not ex-
pect a protest against extravagant realism in
history 2
Let us examine, by way of illustration, Mr.
Watson's portrait of Frederick II. of Prussia.
“Frederick the Great is one of the “great men” of
history. Like most members of that order, he was
unscrupulous, ungrateful, cruel, and treacherous. He
played politics with a callous double-facedness that was
Machiavellian in its perfect art. He could lie like
Queen Elizabeth, could be as merciless as Caesar, as
vindictive as Philip II., and as cynical as Sylla.”
We fail to find a syllable of commendation in
a score of references to this celebrated monarch.
It is fierce treatment for a personage of such


1900.] THE
DIAL 117
achievements, by a writer who goes out of his
way to accord credit to a king so universally
condemned as Philip II.
Mr. Watson's cordial condemnation of affairs
existing under our own flag finds expression in
an interpolated paragraph on Taxation, which,
with its prophecy between the lines, we quote.
“Taxation, after all, is confiscation. When the gov-
ernment takes no more than its just dues, the evil is a
necessary one, for the government must live at the
public expense. . . . More than it needs is tyranny.
. . . Exceptions are made of those ablest to pay. . . .
Now let the wrong go one step further. Let the privi-
leged be salaried, pensioned, and sinecured out of the
tribute wrung from the unprivileged, and we have a
government which will become as rotten, as cruel, as
vicious, and as intolerable as any that ever existed in
the days of paganism.
“This was precisely what Bourbon was driving at,
precisely what Richelieu achieved, precisely what Louis
XIV. enjoyed, precisely what went to pieces under
Louis XVI., and precisely what now exists in all Chris-
tian lands.”
Is this history, or has history simply furnished
an excuse for a political stump-speech or a text
for a campaign argument? That Mr. Watson
was not unprepared for criticism because of
these frequent digressions, is apparent; for he
discusses the province of the historian, and
defends his “right to meddle with politics.”
“Is it not, then, the legitimate right of the historian
to deal with laws as well as battles 2 With robberies
by statute as well as robberies by riot? Must he write
of the crimes of the sword and never speak of the crimes
of the pen?”
But whether in sympathy or at variance with
this purposeful historian, we read on. The force
and sincerity of the writer are unmistakable,
and the tale is fascinating. Mr. Watson's first
essay in history has succeeded, without doubt,
in stimulating interest in his subject; and
herein must lie one of the chief merits of a
book, where the facts of history are too often
sacrificed to striking epigram and entertain-
ment. There are scores of statements in these
absorbing pages which cannot be corroborated;
and more numerous than these are the distor-
tions of fact, or the failure to give all the
facts, which make it impossible to designate
the work as history in an authoritative sense.
There are so many examples which illustrate
one or the other of these faults, that it is diffi-
cult to choose. However, the revolting account
of life under the Ancien Régime, in the second
volume, is a conspicuous illustration. Should
we accept it in its entirety, we must believe in
the unspeakable degradation of French Royalty
and nobility — universal and without excep-
tion; we must count virtue and decency un-
known except among shopkeepers. Indeed,
even from a champion of the people, is not the
argument against classes weakened by whole-
sale denunciations?
Thus we have the partisan, the prophet, the
reformer. Yet, whatever the rôle, the promise
in the preface has been faithfully kept, and
these two readable volumes bear conspicuous
evidence of sincerity and ability.
M. S. B. A.
CLASSICAL HISTORY, FESTIVALS, AND
LEGENDS.*
The study of all matters pertaining to the
Roman Empire has of late years taken on
something of a new phase. In the place of the
universal vilification of a generation ago, stu-
dents of to-day accord to Roman life some-
thing like a just measure of credit. In the
same proportion as the study of the first few
centuries of the Empire has not been carried on
from the point of view of Christian apologetics,
have we come to see the extraordinary mod-
ern quality of the life then lived. Professor
Thomas, in “Roman Life under the Caesars,”
has given a somewhat general treatment of
this subject from the new point of view. He
is well grounded in his literature, and has very
properly made use of archaeology as furnishing
materials for reconstructing the life of the time.
Especially does this appear in his study of the
Roman home life and the barbarians. The
subjects handled are somewhat miscellaneous,
and the student of Friedländer will find few
things new, but the work makes a capital hand-
book of its subject.
Another phase of the present interest in
classical history is to be seen in the study of
numismatics, a branch of archaeology that has
to-day some better use than to amuse amateur
collectors. The “Handbook of Greek and
Roman Coins,” by Mr. Hill of the British
*Roman LIFE UNDER THE CAEsARs. By Emile Thomas,
Professor at the University of Lille. Illustrated. New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
A HANDBook of GREEK AND Roman CoINs. By G. F.
Hill, M.A., of the Department of Coins and Medals in the
British Museum. With fifteen collotype plates. New York:
The Maenmillan Co.
THE Roman FESTIVALs of THE PERIoD of THE REPUBLIC:
An Introduction to the Study of the Religion of the Romans.
By W. Warde Fowler, M.A., Fellow and Sub-Rector of
Lincoln College, Oxford. New York: The Macmillan Co.
The HoMERIC HYMNs. A New Prose Translation, and
Essays, Literary and Mythological, by Andrew Lang. With
illustrations. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co.
The UNPUBLISHED LEGENDs of VIRGIL. Collected by
Charles Godfrey Leland. New York: The Macmillan Co.


118
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
Museum, is something more than a mere de-
scription of different coins, and for that reason
is exactly the work that has been wanted. It
will be difficult to find a better presentation of
such matters as the manufacture of the coin,
and the process of dating coins, than is given
in this handbook. Occasionally, however, one
might be inclined to differ with his judgment
as to the authenticity of issues: as, for example,
in the case of those issued in the year three of
Judaea, which have been commonly assigned to
Simon the Maccabee. Mr. Hill refers this to
the period of the great revolt under Nero, but
gives no reason for his decision. The volume
contains a series of valuable appendices, not the
least important of which is a select bibliog-
raphy. In addition it has fifteen collotype
plates, which are as beautiful representations of
the coins as one is likely to see.
Equal commendation can be given the work
upon Roman Festivals, by W. Warde Fowler.
The plan of the book is perhaps somewhat
arbitrary, as it follows the calendar in its de-
scription of the festivals. This, of course, has
a certain encyclopaedic advantage, but at the
same time does not give the assistance which
comes from a classification of festivals on the
basis of their intention. In this connection,
however, it should be stated that the author is
not as greatly interested as are men like Mr.
Frazer in the origin and deep-seated intention
of the festivals, but is more concerned in de-
scribing the customs as they actually existed.
Within these limits, the book is most admira-
bly constructed, and forms an exceedingly val-
uable addition, not only to our knowledge of
Roman life, but also to our knowledge of Roman
religion; for notwithstanding the praiseworthy
absence of speculation on the part of the author
as to the question whether the Roman festivals
preserved primitive customs, no one can read
the mass of material brought together so care-
fully without feeling the force of the claim that
religious festivals are largely the conventional-
ized customs of primitive people preserved as
forms of worship long after their original inten-
tion has been forgotten.
It is somewhat startling, however, to find
this thesis carried out so rigorously by Mr.
Andrew Lang within the somewhat narrow
limits of the Homeric Hymns. Mr. Lang is
very sure that the Hymns are fragments of a
school which had a great master and great tra-
ditions. This, of course, is not especially sen-
sational, but he also seeks “the origins of
Apollo, and of the renowned Eleusinian Mys-
teries, in the tales and rites of the Bora and
the Nanga; in the beliefs and practices of the
Pawnees and Larrakeah, Yao, and the Khond.”
This purpose Mr. Lang elaborates in his strik-
ing conclusion, all of which would well bear
quotation, but perhaps the following sentences
most of all:
“The confusions of sacred and profane; the origins
of the Mysteries; the beginnings of the Gods in a mental
condition long left behind by Greece when the Hymns
were composed; all these matters need elucidation. I
have tried to elucidate them as results of evolution from
the remote prehistoric past of Greece, which, as it
seems, must in many points have been identical with the
historic present of the lowest contemporary races. In
the same way, if dealing with ornament, I would derive
the spirals, volutes, and concentric circles of Mycenaean
gold-work, from the identical motives, on the oldest
incised rocks and kists of our Islands, of North and
South America, and of the tribes of Central Australia,
recently described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and
Mr. Carnegie.”
“Greek religion, Greek myth, are vast conglomerates.
We find a savage origin for Apollo, and savage origins
for many of the Mysteries. But the cruelty of savage
initiations has been purified away. On the other hand,
we find a barbaric origin for departmental gods, such as
Aphrodite, and for Greek human sacrifices, unknown to
the lowest savagery. From savagery Zeus is probably
derived; from savagery come the germs of divine
amours in animal forms. But from barbarism arises
the sympathetic magic of agriculture, which the lowest
races do not practise. From the barbaric condition, not
from savagery, comes Greek hero worship, for the low-
est races do not worship ancestral spirits.”
It goes without saying that the translation of
the Hymns is done into excellent English—
perhaps just a trifle over-classic.
It is a far cry from this work of Mr. Lang's
to mediaeval legends as to Virgil. To most
readers of Mr. Leland's collection of the “Un-
published Legends of Virgil,” one may suppose,
it will come as a surprise to know that the
friend of their school days, like so many wor-
thies, was transformed by mediaeval popular
imagination into a sorcerer, generally with hon-
orable and kindly intentions, and that through-
out Italy there are still in existence among the
people stories of his extraordinary perform-
ances. The probability is that they all spring
from the Sixth Book of the AEneid, and are
thus humble guarantees of the guide chosen by
Dante; but apart from that, is not Virgil the
last man, unless it be Horace, who would ex-
pect to find himself made into a mediaeval demi-
god? The stories are translated from a large
number of sources, and form as curious a tail-
piece to classical study as they are serviceable
to the student of folk-lore.
SHAILER MATHEws.


1900.] THE
TXIAL 119
PROFESSOR FISKE’s ESSAYS.*
“A Century of Science” is the slightly
misleading title, explained by the sub-line “and
Other Essays,” of a little book which will be
welcomed by many readers. While the Other
Essays — which, in fact, include addresses,
biographies, and book reviews, as well as essays
proper—form much the larger portion of the
book, the spirit of a century preeminently sci-
entific runs through the whole and does much
to justify the leading title. The initial essay of
the volume is an excellent presentation of the
principal results of the scientific work of the
last hundred years stated in terms of philos-
ophy. The extension of the knowledge of
chemical and physical laws over the extra-
terrestrial sphere, the development of uniform-
itarianism in geology, of the doctrine of corre-
lation of forces in physics, of natural selection
in biology, and of the philosophy of evolution
in all branches of research, are all well shown
in proper relations. Where, however, one
attempts so much in a single essay, mistakes
of fact or emphasis are hardly to be avoided.
In the present case, for example, while the
pre-Darwinian evolutionists have been treated
to a refreshing meed of justice, the pre-Lyellian
geologists are more scantily served. Particu-
larly are the earlier French geologists ignored;
and this is the more unexpected since Sir Archi-
bald Geikie has so recently called fitting atten-
tion to them.
The chapters on the “Scope and Purpose
of Evolution” and on “The Part Played by
Infancy in the Evolution of Man” belong to-
gether, and include a discussion of Mr. Spen-
cer's views, which, in the light of the fund of
personal anecdote brought in, we must con-
sider as almost ex-cathedra. In “Guessing at
Half and Multiplying by Two,” a much needed
dressing-down is given to some would-be critics
of science. In lighter vein is the essay on
circle-squarers, perpetual-motion inventors,
and others of similar pursuits who are consid-
ered under the caption “Some Cranks and
their Crotchets.”
The remaining miscellaneous essays include
a discussion of the late lamented “Arbitration
Treaty,” “Cambridge as a Village and City,”
“The Origins of Liberal Thought in Amer.
ica,” “A Harvest of Irish Folk-Lore,” and the
well-known summary of “Forty Years of the
Bacon-Shakespeare Folly” contributed to the
anniversary number of “The Atlantic Monthly.”
The biographies are four in number. They
deal with Edward Livingston Youmans, Sir
Harry Wane, Edward A. Freeman, and Francis
Parkman. Of these essays, the first is mainly
a personal tribute. The second and third are
concise interpretations of the work of the men.
The fourth is a really notable summary of the
life and work of a very notable man. Pro-
fessor Fiske, vigorous fighter that he is, can
hardly hide himself and his opinions even in
writing biography, and in speaking of You-
mans he finds place for a word on the intem-
perance of the temperance party (p. 76), and
he turns from Parkman for a side-thrust at
forty per cent tariffs (p. 223).
On the whole, the book is a collection of
exceedingly readable and thoughtful papers
previously widely scattered.
Foster BAIN.
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION.”
In no part of the industrial sphere has the failure
of the classical economy to explain the new order of
affairs, following the widespread use of machinery
and the consolidation of industries, been so apparent
as in the field of Distribution. Realizing that this
failure had its origin in the theory developed by
the older economists, that the value and prices of
commodities were determined under conditions of
free competition, the later economists, notably the
Austrian school, have brought forward the marginal-
utility theory of value, explanatory of monopolized
as well as competitive industries, of conditions in a
dynamic as well as in a static society. This theory,
By John
*A CENTURY of SCIENCE, and Other Essays.
Fiske. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
*VALUE AND Distribution. By Charles William Mac-
farlane. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.
OverPRodUCTION AND CRIsrs. By Karl Rodbertus.
Translated by Julia Franklin. New York: Imported by
Charles Scribner's Sons.
THE Psychology of Socialism. By Gustave Le Bon.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
THE PROFIT of THE MANY. By Edward Tallmadge Root.
Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co.
SYMPATHETIC STRIKEs AND SYMPATHETIC LockouTs.
By Fred. S. Hall, Columbia University Studies. New York:
The Macmillan Co.
History AND FUNCTIONs of CENTRAL LABor UNIONs.
By William Maxwell Burke. Columbia University Studies.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
A Divide ND To LABor. A Study of Employers' Welfare
Institutions. By Nicholas Paine Gilman. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.
PAUPERIzing THE RICH. By Alfred J. Ferris. Philadel-
phia: T. S. Leach & Co.
THE FEE SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATEs. By Thomas
K. Urdahl. Madison, Wis.; Democrat Printing Co.
A HANDBook of LABort LITERATURE. Compiled b
Helen Marot. Philadelphia: T. S. Leach & Co.


120 THE - TXIAL
[Feb. 16,
subject to slight modifications by individual writers,
may be said to have found a permanent place in the
writings of present-day economists. But the appli-
cation of this theory to the problems of Distribution
has proceeded but slowly. Some valuable work in
this direction has been done, it is true, especially by
American economists. But the work so done is
fragmentary, and is so scattered through the maga-
zines that there is danger that its real value will not
be recognized.
It is the work of bringing together this scattered
material, and of constructing out of it and the work
of the Austrians a theory of Distribution consonant
with modern conditions, that Dr. Macfarlane has
attempted in “Value and Distribution.” His work
is, however, not entirely one of construction, as his
criticism of other writers and modification of their
views ultimately leads him to a presentation of a
theory of his own. This theory of Distribution
originates in his belief that neither the cost theory
of Ricardo nor the marginal-utility theory of the
Austrians serves as a complete explanation of the
way in which price is determined. The former
fails because it does not show that in the case of
monopoly or scarcity of goods the producer obtains
a surplus over costs; the latter fails because it does
not take account of consumers' surplus. The au-
thor's contention is that the point at which price is
fixed is more or less indeterminate, being some-
where between the marginal utility of the good to
the consumer and its marginal utility to the pro-
ducer, the exact point depending on the relative
monopoly strength of buyer and seller. This he
terms the monopoly theory of price, true of all
goods which are not freely reproducible. In dis-
tributing the social product among the various
factors of production, we may find, the author con-
tends, three forms of surplus: We have rent, which
is a differential surplus peculiar to all factors, and
is due to actual differences in the productivity of .
different portions of land, capital, labor, or em-
ployers. It does not enter into price, but is deter-
mined by price. We have also a marginal or
monopoly surplus, which is secured by all factors in
case they are engaged in the production of com-
modities which have a monopoly or scarcity value.
This is the surplus over the marginal utility to the
producer mentioned above in treating of price.
Unlike the surplus rent, this is secured by all pro-
ducers, those on the margin as well as those above
it; and, unlike rent, it does enter into price. The
author would call this monopoly surplus profits;
but it would seem likely to cause confusion to use a
word of common usage to denominate this unfa-
miliar conception of monopoly earnings. The third
form of surplus is the normal surplus secured only
by the factors that are freely reproducible, capital
and labor. The normal surplus in the ease of cap-
ital is interest, in the case of labor it is gain. Both
result from the fact that the supply of these factors
is limited by the abstinence of the marginal saver
or laborer, as the case may be, who sacrifices present
enjoyment in order to continue producing for the
future. Like the surplus profits, this normal sur-
plus enters into price. From this brief statement of
the theory it will be seen that confusion must inevi-
tably result from the attempt to keep separate these
three forms of surplus. Little seems to be gained
by the effort to treat interest and gain as a surplus.
The author himself admits that in a progressing
society they become a part of costs. The writer's
criticism of recent theories is characterized by much
acuteness, but the continuity of his own argument
is broken by the unnecessarily long excursions into
the history of theory, and by the numerous and
lengthy quotations with which the pages of his book
are filled.
2The present system of distribution finds a sharp
criticism from the extreme socialistic standpoint in
Rodbertus's “Overproduction and Crises,” an ex-
cellent English translation of which has been made
by Miss Julia Franklin. Rodbertus's theory of
crises is, in brief, as follows: In spite of an increas-
ing productivity of labor, the wages of the laboring
classes become an ever smaller portion of the na-
tional product. Because of this fact, “the pur-
chasing power of four-fifths or five-sixths of society
does not expand in proportion to the progressive pro-
duction, but rather simultaneously contracts in like
proportion, from which it would be just and easy to
demonstrate the necessity of gluts.” If every partici-
pant in exchange retained the entire product of his
labor, then no glut could arise from over-production
of any one or of all commodities until more of them
had been produced than were required by society.
The purchasing power of society would then always
remain commensurate with its productiveness. In
a critical Introduction to this work, Professor J. B.
Clark points out that crises do not result either
from over-production or from a wrong distribution,
but from misdirected production; i.e., employers
have made speculative and inaccurate estimates of
incomes that are to exist in the future. Even if
Rodbertus's theory of wages as a steadily declining
share of product were true, it would not lead to a
crisis. “Whatever qualities producing employers
may lack, they have the capacity to bring the kinds
of goods that from year to year they make into a
general conformity to any gradually changing de-
mand.”
~~. The Psychology of Socialism,” by the author
of “The Psychology of Peoples” and “The Psy-
chology of the Crowd,” is an interesting and sug-
gestive book. To suggest, however, is not to
demonstrate; and, unfortunately, the writer has
accepted his suggestions as though they were al-
ready beyond the pale of controversy, and has been
at little pains to examine the premises on which he
bases his conclusions or to carefully weigh the evi-
dence with which he supports them. As a conse-
quence, many of his statements are without foun-
dation, and even such of his interpretations of
phenomena and tendencies as seem reasonable need
far more proof than has been offered before we can
-


1900.] THE
DIAL 121
accept them as final. They suggest an explanation,
but do not warrant it. Socialism, the author thinks,
is rapidly gaining converts, and gives promise of a
speedy adoption by one of the nations of Europe.
It owes its power, however, not to any inherent
truthfulness of its theories, nor to the fact that it
would bring to its adherents the results at which it
aims. Socialism is essentially a belief, and one
which is rapidly assuming a religious form. It ap-
peals to the emotions rather than to the reason, and
its success, like that of all religious beliefs, is en-
tirely independent of the proportion of truth which
it contains. Its present success is due to the fact
that it has appeared at a period in the world's his-
tory when men have become skeptical concerning
the old doctrines and distrustful of the promises
held out by the old religions. Something must re-
place the old doctrines, for “humanity has not
been able to exist without beliefs.” Socialism fits
the needs of the hour. It is not based on logic,
and it does not equal the old beliefs in the grandeur
of its ideals; but it does constitute an ideal which,
however low, “possesses the merit of bestowing on
man a hope which the gods no longer give.” Ow-
ing to the fact that it appeals to the imagination
rather than to reason, socialism appeals to the
Latin mind much more forcibly than to the people of
Teutonic origin. M. Le Bon apparently regards it as
inevitable that at least one among the Latin nations
of Europe (present circumstances point to Italy)
should make an experiment with socialism on a
large scale. No latter-day prophet of Latin degen-
eracy has been more unsparing in his denunciation
of the Romanic peoples than is this French psy-
chologist and sociologist in the several chapters
which he devotes to this subject. The Latin peo-
ples, he asserts, are “characterized by feebleness
of will, energy, and enterprise.” Lacking the indi-
vidual initiative of the Anglo-Saxons, they are con-
stantly seeking to be guided and governed. Their
past history, their present needs and lack of capac-
ity, their system of education which teaches de-
pendence and the need of external discipline, and
their failure to modify the old concepts of religion
without rejecting all belief, have “doomed ” the
Latin nations “to suffer the State socialism which the
collectivists are preaching to-day.” Had M. Le Bon
confined himself to the work for which he is fitted and
for which his book professes to stand — a psycholog-
ical analysis of the social mind, with the purpose of
discovering the grounds for the reception and rapid
spread of socialistic doctrines — his book would
have been of more worth and would have inspired
more confidence than it will in its present shape.
His knowledge of economic phenomena is not pro-
found, and he lacks the sympathy for the laboring
classes which is necessary to a fair discussion of the
social problems of to-day. His fondness for gen-
eralizations and striking statements has led him into
statements not only careless and crude, but such
as are unwarranted by even the most superficial
knowledge of the facts. Numerous examples might
be quoted, but one must suffice—an account of
the Chicago strike of 1894. “It ended,” says the
author, “in the strike of all the railway men in
the United States, and had as its further results the
burning of the palaces of the Exposition and the
immense workshops of the Pullman Company.
The Government assumed the upper hand only by
suspending civil rights, proclaiming martial law,
and delivering veritable battle to the insurgents.
The strikers were shot down without pity, and de-
feated.”
“The Profit of the Many” is a strong appeal
from a Christian socialist for unselfishness in the
production, distribution, and use of wealth. The
appeal is made on economic as well as on ethical
grounds. Self-interest, says the author, is inade-
quate as a motive to secure the largest production
of wealth. Production will not attain its true pos-
sibilities until every producer takes as his motto,
“I seek not mine own profit but the profit of the
many.” The greater part of the book is taken up
with a review and analysis of the social teachings
of the Bible, wherein the author finds support for
his thesis. Much of this work is well done. The
treatment of the Mosaic code is especially suggest-
ive. There is always the danger, however, that
students of modern social problems who use the
Bible to illustrate social teachings will read into
the Scriptures lessons which they were never in-
tended to convey. This, our author seems at times
to have done, as when he tries to teach the necessity
of cooperation from the story of Cain; equality of
wealth from the account of the gathering of the
manna; and sees in Christ's statement, “Seek first
the kingdom,” not its obvious meaning, seek right-
eousness, but a command to adopt socialism. No
one can for a moment doubt the beauty of the ideal
contained in the principle, “Seek the profit of the
many,” or can wish to withstand the effort to realize
this ideal. But the author is wiser than his doc-
trine when he says that “only the universal preva-
lence of such a spirit can make socialism practicable;
and with such a spirit, individualism would accom-
plish all the ends of socialism.” The fact that
Christ addressed himself to the individual in pre-
senting the claims of a Christian life, and did not
seek to overthrow existing social institutions, shows
that society does not, because it cannot, enforce this
ideal. The beauty of the principle lies in the very
fact that it is to be voluntarily and cheerfully ac-
cepted, not enforced.
A timely and excellent monograph on an inter-
esting subject is that of Dr. Fred S. Hall, entitled
“Sympathetic Strikes and Sympathetic Lockouts.”
Dr. Hall defines a sympathetic strike as one in
which “workmen having no grievance of their own
take action out of a belief that another body of
workmen is not fairly treated, and so take up the
cause.” A sympathetic lockout, on the other hand,
“occurs when an employer discharges men against
whom he has no grievance in order thus to enforce
the settlement of some other dispute.” The author


122 THE DIAL
[Feb. 16,
reviews briefly the efforts of statisticians and others
to give precise meaning to the terms “strike” and
“lockout,” and decides that no absolute line of dif-
ference can be drawn. What the employer calls a
strike, the laborer terms a lockout. Each party to
the controversy tries to throw the responsibility for
initiating the disagreement on to the other's shoul-
ders. Our author concludes, therefore, that the
attempt at distinction is both valueless and mis-
chievous, and in scientific classifications should be
dropped. But with what seems a strange inconsist-
ency, the writer immediately insists that there is a
clear distinction between a sympathetic strike and
a sympathetic lockout. It would be interesting to
know how he would make use of this distinction in
a statistical table in which the distinction between
strikes and lockouts had been abandoned. Is a
sympathetic lockout a lockout and not a strike? If
so, what shall be done with lockouts that are not
sympathetic? If the answer be that there are no
such lockouts, may we not ask why then the quali-
fying adjective “sympathetic”? The sympathetic
strike is a comparatively recent invention, intended
to further the purpose of the original strike. Its de-
velopment does not indicate a growth of sympathy
among the working classes, but a better knowledge
of their common interests. The sympathetic lockout
was of much earlier development. It was intended
to prevent laborers from contributing to the support
of fellow-laborers during a strike. The necessity for
it is thus as old as the habit of contributions, and
this is as old as unionism itself. The sympathetic
strike is a powerful weapon, but it is like a two-edged
sword: it cuts both ways, and requires intelligence for
its effective use. The most powerful labor organi-
zations do not make use of it. It has caused the
downfall of the Knights of Labor and the American
Railway Union. It cuts off financial assistance to
the original strikers by a cessation of earnings of
the sympathizers, and this financial assistance is of
supreme importance. Dr. Hall, accordingly, does
not believe that the future holds much in store for
the sympathetic strike, and thinks that it is likely
to be displaced by the “successive strike.” The
sympathetic lockout is even less likely to succeed.
Prices rise, and competing firms who may have
reached an agreement to assist each other find the
temptation constantly growing stronger to break
the agreement, either secretly or openly, in order
to reap the advantage of high prices. The weakness
of the sympathetic lockout thus constitutes a con-
tinual and automatic check to its application.
Another excellent monograph in the same series
as the foregoing is that on the “History and Func-
tions of Central Labor Unions,” by Dr. William
Maxwell Burke. By Central labor unions is meant
the general union which is caused by the federation
of the trade unions of a given locality, usually a
city, for the purpose of rendering mutual assistance
as in case of strikes, or of coöperating to secure a
desired end. The unions that make up the Central
union are not necessarily, or even generally, unions
of allied trades. In this respect the Central union
differs from a national trade union, which is nearly
always a federation of allied trade unions. The
objects of the Central union are (1) to aid and
strengthen the organization of the local unions;
(2) to educate the laborers and the public “along
those lines in which they hope to accomplish ame-
lioration in the conditions of labor or to effect cer-
tain reforms”; and (3) to protect the rights and
to defend the interests of the laboring classes by
offensive and defensive alliances of the workers of
the district or municipality, especially those in the
local unions. Although Central labor unions were
not unknown in earlier years, the period of rapid
development of this form of organization in this
country has been since 1880. Within this period
they have grown both in numbers and in influence,
and have done much to accomplish the above ob-
jects, especially that of organization. In furthering
the great object of all trade union organizations —
that of collective bargaining — the Central labor
union has indirectly been of great assistance, espe-
cially where, as in Cleveland, the union has a sal-
aried agent to transact the business. The chief
defect is the looseness of the organization, and the
fact that the local unions cannot be made to accept
the decisions of the Central. Unless a radical
change should take place in the organization of the
Central unions, Dr. Burke does not think that they
will be able to directly undertake the function of
collective bargaining.
Plans for a reform of the existing wage system
may be separated into three main classes. The
first class is composed of those in which the em-
ployer takes the initiative and which are carried
out under his supervision. In the second class, the
laborers combine into organizations, such as trade-
unions, with the view of obtaining better terms from
employers. In the third class, the State takes the
initiative and seeks to effect reforms through leg-
islation. Such legislative measures range all the
way from factory laws to the complete suppression
of the wage system through socialism. It is prob-
able that most economists and students of the labor
question to-day expect the ultimate solution of
the problem to be reached through one of the two
last-named methods. But only the most rabid advo-
cates of trade unionism or of socialism would deny
the possibility of making substantial contributions
toward the end of industrial peace through the first
method proposed. It is further to be remembered
that, as Mr. Gilman, in his work entitled “A Div-
idend to Labor,” says, while “the distant future of
industry may belong to coöperative production, or
even to the socialistic stage, the present and the
near future belong very plainly to capitalistic pro-
duction on a large scale.” In this system the
employer-manager is an essential part, and his re-
sponsibilities to his employees and his power of
establishing friendly relations between capital and
labor are not slight. Many employers have shown
their interest in and sympathy for their workmen by
º


1900.] THE
DIAL 123
the adoption of profit-sharing, or by what Mr.
Gilman calls “an indirect dividend to labor”—the
establishment of certain institutions designed to
promote the welfare of their employees as a class.
Some of these institutions, which include social
clubs, hospitals, dispensaries, schools and libraries,
restaurants and lodging houses, coöperative savings-
banks, accident and old-age insurance, etc., have
frequently been described in newspapers and mag-
azines, but Mr. Gilman has rendered an important
service by bringing together in one work the infor-
mation concerning these institutions and the firms
which have founded them. Not all the establish-
ments maintaining these welfare institutions have
been considered, but the most important ones in
Germany, France, England, and the United States
are described, and several chapters are devoted to a
discussion of the principles on which such institu-
tions should be founded and maintained. One point
mentioned by the author needs to be noted, and that
is the danger of paternalism in the management of
such institutions. Especially in America is it de-
sirable to leave to the workmen the chief part in
the administration of such institutions. Many phil-
anthropic measures have been wrecked through a
dictatorial policy or a patronizing spirit on the part
of the employer. In the concluding chapters of the
book, Mr. Gilman supplements his earlier work
by some additional information concerning profit-
sharing.
The reader of economic literature who can afford
to devote some time to the consideration of panaceas
for social disorders will find entertainment, if not
instruction, in the perusal of Mr. Alfred J. Ferris's
book entitled “Pauperizing the Rich.” Like most
social reformers, Mr. Ferris finds the cause of pov-
erty and distress to be the inequality in the distri-
bution of wealth; but, unlike many reformers, he
does not propose, in order to bring about a better
distribution, to reconstruct the present system of
production or to abolish in its entirety the competi-
tive system of distribution. The enormous produc-
tion of wealth which has characterized the nineteenth
century the author attributes to the great discov-
eries and inventions and the improvements in the
processes of industry which have been made since
1770. These inventions have usually been patented
by their inventors, and royalties charged for their
use under governmental protection for a series of
years, at the end of which period they have been
thrown open to the public. It is the latter part of
this plan to which Mr. Ferris objects. He admits
that at the expiration of the patent period the ben-
efit of the invention goes to the consumer; but he
is not satisfied with this. He apparently regards
the consumer as, in some sort, an enemy of society,
and thinks that in reaping the benefits of improved
production the consumer is receiving an advantage
which he has not earned. He would have the na-
tional government assume the ownership of these
expired patents, copyrights, etc., in perpetuity and
would furthermore have the government assume
control over all improvements that have been made
in industry since 1770. The government should
collect the royalties on the same principle that would
be followed by an individual, and should then divide
the proceeds equally among the people of the coun-
try. The effect would be, he thinks, to raise prices
about one hundred per cent; but each person would
receive as his share of the “Property in Ideas” an
income, estimated by our author at one hundred and
sixty dollars. “Rated in purchasing power, as
compared with the present, therefore, each man's
income would be equal to one half of his present
income plus one-half of the average income.” This
plan, he thinks, by guaranteeing everyone some sort
of a living, would abolish poverty, do away with
much of the present social inequality, abate sinful
extravagance and remove the temptation to display,
prevent crises, raise wages and guarantee employ-
ment to labor, prevent friction between employer
and employed, check intemperance, gambling, and
the social evil. It would even do much toward
reforming the criminal and curing the defective
classes. There is always some danger of doing
injustice to a writer by thus epitomizing his theories,
and, of course, we have not attempted to describe
the ways in which Mr. Ferris's plan is to bring
about these desired results. Still, we think that
this brief statement of method and results exag-
gerates in no way the absurdity of the book. It is use-
less to criticize the theory, or to try to show what
effects such a measure proposed would have on the
social and economic habits of the people. Mr. Ferris
is not unaware of the objections which would be
raised to his measure, but he puts them lightly
aside as mere trifles—the obstacles certain to be
thrown in the path of any reformer. A careful
study of the principles of taxation and an investiga-
tion as to the results of our present pension system
would richly reward him.
The State influences distribution in many ways
that do not savor in the least of Socialism. Per-
haps the most important of these ways is through
its taxing power. How it may use this power to
enrich individuals at the same time that it dimin-
ishes the resources of others, is well shown by Dr.
Urdahl's monograph on “The Fee System of the
United States.” This is a carefully-prepared work
whose value is accentuated by the fact that this
subject has hitherto received scant attention in the
American treatises on public finance. The scope of
the monograph is somewhat wider than its title
implies, since it treats not only of the fee system in
this country but gives an historical review of the
fee systems of Europe, both ancient and modern,
and has a chapter on the theory of fees in general.
The author quite rightly defends fees on the prin-
ciple of benefits or service performed by the State,
thus distinguishing them from taxes which are levied
in proportion to the ability of the tax-payer. He
follows Neumann, Seligman, and Rosewater, in
separating fees from special assessments; a distinc-
tion which, in the opinion of this reviewer, none of


124
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
these writers has succeeded in justifying. Special
assessments seem to be only an important class of
fees. Among the most important abuses which the
author finds connected with the fee system to-day is
its employment in police and other minor courts as
a means of payment of judicial officers and others.
The tramp problem is aggravated by the encourage-
ment which the fees give to the judges and jailers
to confine these men in the jails, and direct encour-
agement is often given to tramps to return. So
with petty criminals. Payments according to the
number of arrests or commitments swell the num-
ber of persons convicted in the police courts. This
is shown whenever a change is made from fee pay-
ments to salaried court officials. The existence of
court money paid to the wife who has made appli-
cation for a divorce in order that she may hire an
attorney, the author thinks, encourages divorce
proceedings. Finally, the existence of offices which
yield to their holders immense sums in fees is a
standing premium to political corruption. The
replacement of fee-paid public officers by salaried
officials would do much to remove the political
corruption connected with purely administrative
offices.
Miss Helen Marot has compiled a bibliography
of writings on the labor problem which will be of
assistance to the readers of the literature on that
subject. The execution of the work, however, is
not entirely satisfactory. The titles of books are
not always correctly given. The periodical litera-
ture is not included, on the ground that it is to be
found in “Poole's Index" and the “Review of
Reviews,” while the compiler has included a mass
of literature which, like “Monopolies” and the
“Land Question,” have no reference to the labor
problem. The classification is peculiar in some
respects, and we find such headings as “Utopias”
and “How the Other Half Lives.” One of the best
features of the book is the list of the labor period-
icals and labor songs. It would have been interest-
ing to have included a list of the important works
of fiction and the poems dealing with labor questions.
M. B. HAMMOND.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
England, in the day of her military
the days ºf her decadence and humiliation, may de-
supremacy. rive a melancholy satisfaction from
the contemplation of the deeds by land and sea of
the sturdier sons of her heroic past. In his “How
England Saved Europe” (Scribner), Dr. W. H.
Fitchett undertakes to tell, in two moderate-sized
volumes written from the British point of view, the
story of the long struggle against Bonaparte (1793–
1815). Dr. Fitchett's picturesque and animated
style, and his unfailing sense of the logical and
dramatic unity of events, make his book an unus-
England in
ually entertaining and impressive piece of military
history. He regards the Napoleonic war as essen-
tially a contest in which, through the instrumental-
ity of England, the modern world was delivered
from the thrall of a despotism of the later Roman
type; and in his opening chapter he forestalls the
catastrophe of the great drama he is about to unfold,
by showing us the fallen Caesar, a volubly complain-
ing prisoner in the cabin of the “Bellerophon,” sunk
so low as to crave the favor of British citizenship
from his captors. “Who,” exclaims the author,
“shall assess the value of these memories to the
new and vaster England of to-day?” The value
of these memories has, we are inclined to think,
been in some regards doubtful. Have they not
contributed to breed in Englishmen that arrogance
that has caused the world to-day to jeer at them in
their hour of humiliation, that blind self-confidence
that has resulted in the rout of their gorgeous Bond
Street generals by the unkempt farmer-strategists
of the Transvaal? Perhaps, instead of persistently
pluming herself on the “splendid memories” of
the Nile and Waterloo, it would be better for En-
gland to reflect that it is for what she is to-day, not
for what she was a hundred years ago, that the world
is going to rate her. What her army is to-day is
manifest; if it cannot stand before the Boers what
showing could it make in a contest with a first-class
power? Her navy, in respect of ships and arma-
ment, is powerful; but what, at present, must be
the natural inference as to its personnel? There
is great reason to fear that that natural inference
will govern the political enterprises of her rivals
in a momentous way at no distant date. But
nevertheless, as we have already said, Englishmen
may derive a melancholy satisfaction from the con-
templation of the deeds of their forefathers; and
they should find Dr. Fitchett's book much to their
liking. He has not attempted to deal with En-
gland's political history during the period covered,
nor are the continental wars of Napoleon touched
upon, save incidentally. What is undertaken is “a
living and realistic account of the greatest war En-
gland ever waged.” The opening volume is mainly
a record of naval actions, with, incidentally, an ac-
count of the surprisingly disaffected and even mu-
tinous spirit prevalent in the navy at this period of
great warlike achievements. Dr. Fitchett is an
effective painter of sea-fights. His style is one that
wakes and feeds the imagination, and his forth-
coming and concluding volume will be awaited with
widespread interest. The work is attractively
printed, and liberally supplied with portraits, plans,
etc.
In the preface to his new two-volume
work entitled “The United King-
dom” (Macmillan), Mr. Goldwin
Smith writes: “The friends who urged the writer
to undertake this task know that it has been per-
formed by the hand of extreme old age.” If by
this the author intends to disarm criticism or to
Mr. Goldwin
Smith's latest
history.


1900.] THE
DIAL 125.
apologize for fancied shortcomings in the present
labor, he has no occasion for it. As in his earlier
writings, one finds in “The United Kingdom’” the
same clearness of insight and just appreciation of
men and events, the same facility of expression, the
same methodic grace, and, above all, the same mas-
terly ability in so arranging and classifying material
as to leave an ineffaceable impression of each historic
period. The work is, in fact, more free from the
faults and more replete with the beauties of the
author's accustomed style than is usual to the labors
of old age. If it was ever true, as a reviewer said
of him a few years ago, that “with age he seems
to have grown fond of crossing the ideas of all
other men on all subjects and of arguing the worst
result from any given present condition of affairs,”
the tendency has not developed, and old age has
mellowed rather than heightened the historian's ag-
gressiveness. The reverse of this is rather a most
noticeable characteristic. Mr. Smith was once prone
to berate the Irish race, to deny their fitness under
any conditions for self-government, to prophesy
naught but evil of all projects for political inde-
pendence, and to insist upon the necessity for strong
coercive measures if Ireland and England were to
live in harmony. But in turning from the role of
pamphleteer to that of historian, the just historical
attitude has been adopted, and differences of location,
race, and religion, together with certain unfortunate
incidents in the history of the two peoples, are made
responsible for the failure of peaceful union between
England and Ireland. No word is spoken of the
future; for prophecy, the author insists, is not the
work of the historian. To be sure, Mr. Smith does
not renounce previous views; but greater deference
to contrary beliefs, as well as greater kindliness in
general, characterize his statements. Again one is
reminded of an earlier work in which Mr. Smith
held up the empire to ridicule as a discordant whole,
emphasizing its lack of unity and expounding upon
the bitter hostility shown by the races subject to
Great Britain. Even Canada was depicted as per-
meated with factional strife and little likely to be
a source of strength to the mother country in time
of danger. Mr. Smith’s “Empire” of to-day is a
marvellous achievement, and its organizers are
men of genius. Due credit is accorded British phil-
anthropy for its treatment of subject states, and
England's services as a world-civilizing force are
justly estimated. Yet the shadows are there also,
and are portrayed with a keen but friendly criti.
cism. Mr. Smith has, in a word, abandoned the
argumentative method in writing this history, and
chosen to become the scholarly critic of historic
events. He no longer belittles or magnifies some
fact in support of his premises; and as historical
accuracy combined with brilliant execution are of
more permanent value than mere brilliance in po-
lemics, it is certain that the present volumes will
bring more lasting fame to their author than any
of his earlier writings. The work practically closes
with the year 1840.
As a record of stirring adventure,
Sir Stephen St. John’s “Rajah
Brooke” (Longmans) is delightfully
entertaining, while as an account of pioneer en-
deavor in private enterprise among Eastern peoples,
it depicts in a clear light conditions of government
and custom hard to realize by the Western world.
After a brief career in India, Sir James Brooke, upon
falling heir to a small fortune, determined in 1838
to fit out a ship for the exploration of the then un-
known peoples of the islands of the eastern Pacific.
The expedition ended in a remarkable manner, for
Brooke in the course of a year or so found him-
self ruler, under the title of Rajah, of a small ter-
ritory called Sarawak, on the northwest coast of
Borneo. His title was earned by judicious services
rendered to the native Sultan, while the allegiance of
his subjects, Malay, Dyak, and Chinese, was secured
by the unfailing courage and ability with which he
defended them against numerous pirate tribes. His
kingdom of Sarawak, now largely increased in ter-
ritory and population, still exists under the rule of
his nephew, Sir Charles Brooke, and furnishes the
unique spectacle of an Eastern state ruled by an
Englishman. In a strict sense Brooke was not a
“Builder of Greater Britain,” for his kingdom has
never passed under the dominion of England,
though at one time a “protectorate” was immi-
nent; but as an example of that adventurous spirit
which has played so important a part in the exten-
sion of England's empire, Brooke's name is illus-
trious. The very fact that his enterprise was indi-
vidual rather than the result of governmental
action lends an added interest to the story of his
successes. The story itself is well told, and with
an intimate familiarity with the events related, for
the author was himself an official of the Sarawak
government in its earlier history, and always a per-
sonal friend of Brooke. Possibly this friendship
blinds him to some of the shortcomings of his hero,
as in the case of the heated controversy with Cob-
den and Bright, but in general the treatment, while
sympathetic, is eminently fair. The main interest
of the work is, however, in the narrative of Brooke's
achievements. The concluding chapters furnish an
account of Sarawak, and of British North Borneo,
at the present day.
An English
Rajah.
A contribution of more than ordinary
Encyclopædia interest to the annals of American
of Illinois. commonwealths is the “Historical
Encyclopaedia of Illinois” (The Munsell Publishing
Co., Chicago), edited by Messrs. Newton Bateman
and Paul Selby, themselves a part of the things they
set forth. The death of Dr. Bateman, during the
early stages of the work, left the lion's share of it
to be performed by Mr. Selby, a veteran journalist
and citizen of Illinois, and familiar with its leading
events and men for more than half a century. In
one aspect the work is a biographical dictionary
containing the names of 1200 persons whose lives
are largely identified with that of the state; in an-
An historical


126 *
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
other, it is a gazetteer, the counties of the state and
all settlements with more than five hundred inhab-
itants being treated; in a third, and most important,
it contains historical material of value to all students
of human affairs, whether in the history of legisla-
tion, the growth of institutions, the part borne by
the people in the various wars of the nation, the
economical development of railroads and canals, the
geological and other scientific characteristics of the
state, or in the ideas for which Illinois is known to
stand in legislation and political precedent. Espe-
cially to be noted is the extended essay on the
“Underground Railroads” which carried so many
thousands of slaves from the neighboring states of
Kentucky and Missouri to safety across the great
lakes into Canada. “Remarkable Inundations,”
“Natural Scenery,” “Northern Boundary Ques-
tion,” “Camp Douglas Conspiracy,” and “Naviga-
ble Streams” are all interesting and important
entries. Where there is so much to commend there
are, almost of necessity, some omissions to be noticed.
While the investigator can find “Minority Legisla-
tion,” “Australian Ballot,” and “Torrens Land
Law,” he looks in vain for “Factories Act,” “Arbi-
tration Board,” “Prison Reform,” “Union Labor,”
“Strikes and Lockouts” (other than those in 1877
and 1894), “Great Trials” (as of the so-called
anarchists and the murderers of Dr. Cronin), and
many other matters of the first importance, as it
would seem ; the treatment of others, as “Labor
Troubles,” being wholly insufficient. It may be
said generally of the political aspect of the book
that it is unsympathetic so far as the democratic
party is concerned, even to a total omission from
its pages of all mention of the democratic plan of
nominating United States Senators in State conven-
tions, a matter held in favor by thoughtful persons
everywhere; while the almost infinite obligations of
the people of Illinois to its one democratic governor
for placing it among the most progressive of English-
speaking commonwealths in respect of scientific leg-
islation find neither expression in the book nor justi-
fication from its contents. With these limitations,
the work is deserving of much praise, and has an
historical value beyond that of any work in its field.
The trump of America's naval fame
is blown with no faltering or uncer-
tain sound in Mr. Edgar Stanton
Maclay's “History of American Privateers” (Ap-
pleton). The volume is published in uniform style
with the author's valuable “History of the United
States Navy,” now the standard text-book on the
subject, to which it forms a needed supplement.
The story of American privateering is a stirring
and romantic one, and Mr. Maclay tells it with due
werve and patriotic fire — without, however, allow-
ing his patriotism to sink into mere buncombe.
The book denotes a considerable degree of inde-
pendent research, and that its theme is by no means
relatively unimportant is sufficiently shown by the
fact that the value of prizes and cargoes taken by
History of
American
privateers.
privateers in the Revolution was three times that
of the prizes and cargoes taken by regular naval
vessels, while in the War of 1812 we had 517 pri-
vateers and only 23 vessels in the navy. It was
undoubtedly mainly the losses inflicted by our
ships on Great Britain's commerce at sea that con-
tributed most to bringing our wars with England
to a close favorable to us. Mr. Maclay points out
that in all the memorials presented to Parliament
the arguments used to bring about peace with Amer-
ica were based on the ruinous destruction of British
commerce, the increased rates of insurance, the
diversion of cargoes to foreign bottoms, etc., due to
the sleepless activity of our privateers. It is to be
remembered, too, that these vessels fitted out by
private enterprise were the training school, to a great
extent, of our navy. Most of the naval heroes of that
day—such men as Truxton, Porter, Biddle, Barney,
Decatur, Perry, Rodgers, Hopkins—served their
fighting apprenticeship as privateersmen. Mr. Mac-
lay's spirited and sufficiently thorough book fills a gap
in American naval history, and should find a place
on the student's shelves beside its popular prede-
cessor. The plans and illustrations are satisfactory.
In all human likelihood, the incre-
dulity with which “The Adventures
of Louis de Rougemont, as Told by
Himself” (Lippincott) have been generally received,
is due to nothing so much as the straining of the
autobiographer to prove his case. When every-
thing that can bear out the adventurer's account
of his stay for half a lifetime in the Australian
wilds is printed in italics and small capitals, the
reader's mind goes back to Pooh-Bah’s “merely
corroborative detail, intended to give artistic veri-
similitude to a bald and unconvincing narrative.”
Mr. William G. Fitz-Gerald writes a preface for
the book, in which he says: “There are many men
in England who know Australia. Most of these
wanted to get at de Rougemont in order to over-
whelm him; many had the opportunity, and were
soon converted into devoted adherents.” The name
of a single authority of all these would have been
better than the typographical hysterics; or, failing
this, Mr. Fitz-Gerald's mere statement. For the
adventures, wonderful as they are, and wholly out
of the beaten track of exploration and adventure,
are still in no degree improbable, if the difference
in point of view between the Frenchman and the
ordinary Englishman are taken into account. M.
de Rougemont is somewhat more effusive on paper
than most persons speaking English would be; but
it can hardly be said that he regards his own per-
formances more highly than Mr. Theodore Roose-
velt and several of the newspaper correspondents
regarded theirs during the war with Spain, as ap-
pears from their published writings. Without ref-
erence to the question of veracity, it is safe to say
that life among the Australian natives as here de-
scribed, if not wholly desirable, is yet fairly free
from ennui.
Ilife without
ennui among
Australians.


1900.] THE
DIAL - 127
The life of that delightful lying auto-
biographer, assassin, and matchless
craftsman, Benvenuto Cellini, is in-
telligently sketched in a suitably illustrated volume
of 154 pages by the anonymous author of “Falk-
lands,” etc. The little book may be read through
in an evening (as it probably will be, when once
begun, as we gladly testify); and as Benvenuto
sustained his own life with his chisel, took the lives
of several others with his poignard, and provided
entertainment for future lives with his pen, its
author has entitled it “Chisel, Pen, and Poignard”
(Longmans). The authorities seem to have been
carefully examined and collated; and the book may
be read to advantage as a preparative for Benve-
nuto's romantic but indispensable chef-d'oeuvre.
A new life of
Bentenufo.
BRIEFER MENTION.
The collection of “Songs of All Lands” (American
Book Co.), which Mr. W. S. B. Mathews has edited
for school and home use, is a work that meets with our
most cordial approval. It includes the national songs
or hymns of many nations, an interesting selection of
folk-melodies, a number of worthy old-time favorites
that we fear the younger generation is in danger of not
learning, and a few part-songs and glees. The selec-
tion is altogether admirable, and the reconstruction
of some of the newer material by Mrs. Jessie L. Gay-
nor is a feature that deserves special mention. Most
of the selections are arranged in plain four-part har-
mony, and in a few cases piano-forte accompaniment is
provided.
The two “Columbia University Studies in Litera-
ture” (Macmillan) that have just been published carry
on the series so solidly begun a few months ago with
Mr. Spingarn's monograph on the literary criticism of
the Renaissance. Both are doctoral dissertations, and
one of them, Mr. F. W. Chandler’s “Romances of
Roguery,” is but half completed, for the volume on
“The Picaresque Novel in Spain,” now at hand, is to
be followed by a second volume exhibiting the Euro-
pean influence of that literary form. Our other mon-
ograph is Mr. John G. Underhill's “Spanish Liter-
ature in the England of the Tudors.” Both works
are so well done that we may most heartily congratu-
late Professor Woodberry upon his department of
the University, since that is the source of this scholarly
Series.
The “Journal” of the National Educational Associa-
tion for the Los Angeles Meeting of 1899 has just been
issued from the University of Chicago Press. It is a
volume of 1258 pages, and its contents make it a ver-
itable encyclopaedia of current educational discussion.
The noticeable features are the three special reports of
the committees on public libraries, normal schools, and
college-entrance requirements. These should be read
by every teacher, for they are among the fundamental
documents of the modern educational movement. From
the hundreds of lesser contributions to the volume, it
would be invidious to select for special mention. It
must suffice to say that no department is neglected,
and that much matter of weight is to be found among
these minor features of the work.
NOTES.
“The story of Eclipses,” by Mr. George F. Chambers,
is an interestingly written little volume published by
the Messrs. Appleton.
“Canada,” by Mr. J. N. McIlwraith, is a small vol-
ume of “History for Young Readers” published by
Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.
A complete bibliography of the drawings of Aubrey
Beardsley, prepared by Mr. A. E. Gallatin, will be
issued at once by the A. Wessels Co.
Captain Alfred T. Andreas, well-known in Chicago as
the author of a comprehensive history of the city, died
in New Rochelle, N. Y., on the 10th inst.
The Macmillan Co. have just republished, in an
abridged edition, Mr. Frederic Harrison’s “Annals of
an Old Manor-House, Sutton Place, Guilford.”
An artistic little booklet containing Cardinal New-
man’s “Valentine to a Little Girl” is issued by the
“Brothers of the Book” as a valentine greeting to their
friends.
Announcement is made that the firm of M. F. Mans-
field & A. Wessels has changed its name to A. Wessels
Company, Mr. Mansfield's connection with the firm hav-
ing been severed.
The first number of the new “Magazine of Poetry,”
to be issued in March by Mr. Daniel Mallett of New
York City, will bear an attractive cover-design by Mr.
Louis J. Rhead, the well-known poster artist.
A collection of the stories contributed by Mrs. Kate
Upson Clark to various American magazines is an-
nounced for Spring publication by Messrs. J. F. Taylor
& Co., under the title “White Butterflies.”
“Plant Structures” (Appleton) is a second book of
botany by Professor John M. Coulter, and thus a sequel
to the author's earlier “Plant Relations.” Both are of
the series of “Twentieth Century Text-Books.”
The Messrs. Scribner publish a uniform library edi-
tion, in eighteen volumes, of “The Novels and Stories of
Frank R. Stockton.” Six volumes are now ready, and
we presume the others will follow in due time. The
books are handsomeiy printed, and the set will be wel-
comed by all lovers of this genial author.
“Nature's Miracles” is a volume of short papers on
popular science by Dr. Elisha Gray. It is the first of a
series by the same hand, and has for its special subject
“World-Building and Life.” Messrs. Fords, Howard,
& Hulbert are the publishers.
Jowett's translation of Thucydides, in a second edi-
tion, as revised by Messrs. W. H. Forbes and Evelyn
Abbott, has just been published in two volumes by the
Oxford Clarendon Press. The notes of the original
edition are, however, not reprinted.
A “Florilegium Latinum ” (Lane), edited by Messrs.
Francis St. John Thackeray and Edward Daniel Stone,
has just been published as a “Bodley Anthology.” The
translations into Latin are by many hands, and from
Greek, English, and Continental poets.
The Smithsonian Report for 1897, issued from the
Government Printing Office, is a thick volume of more
than a thousand pages, and something like the same
number of illustrations. The latter includes a fine
series of eighty full-page plates, illustrative of recent
Foraminifera, as described in a monograph by Mr.
James M. Flint. The remaining monographs include
two of unusual length: “Pipes and Smoking Customs


128
[Feb. 16.
THE DIAL
of the American Aborigines,” by Mr. J. D. McGuire;
and “Arrowpoints, Spearheads, and Knives of Prehis-
toric Times,” by Mr. Thomas Wilson.
Volume X. of the “Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology,” published by Messrs. Ginn & Co., contains
eleven papers, mostly concerned with the minuter mat-
ters of scholarship, although one or two of them offer
an exception to this general characterization.
“The Russian Journal of Financial Statistics” for
1900 is an octavo volume of over two hundred pages,
written in excellent English, and likely to be of great
value for reference purposes by economists and stndents
of finance. It is an official publication of the Russian
government prepared for free distribution to librarians,
editors, and others interested in the subject.
The edition of White's “Natural History of Sel-
borne,” which Mr. John Lane has just published, is
everything that the most exacting demand could specify.
It is a handsome royal octavo of more than five hun-
dred pages, with hundreds of illustrations. The late
Grant Allen edited this sumptuous volume shortly be-
fore his death, and a more competent editor and anno-
tator could not have been found.
“The Jew and Other Stories,” by Ivan Tourguénieff,
forms the fifteenth, and, we understand, the final vol-
ume in Mrs. Garnett's admirable translation of the great
novelist. For the first time we have practically the
whole of Tourguénieff's fiction in a uniform set of vol-
umes, and the recent prize award of the “Academy” to
Mrs. Garnett was a richly-deserved recognition of the
meritorious character of her work. The Macmillan Co.
publish this edition.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
[The following list, containing 71 titles, includes books
received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
Recollections, 1832 to 1886. By the Right Hon. Sir Algernon
West, K.C.B. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 442. Harper
& Brothers. $3.
Bismarck, and the Foundation of the German Empire. By
James Wycliffe Headlam. Illus., 12mo, pp. 471. “He-
roes of the Nations.” G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
Theodore Beza: The Counsellor of the French Reforma-
tion, 1519–1605. By Henry Martyn Baird. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 376. “Heroes of the Reformation.” G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $1.50.
Recollections of My Mother, Mrs. Anne Jean Lyman of
Northampton: Being a Picture of Domestic and Social
Life in New England in the First Half of the Nineteenth
Century. *ś" I. Lesley. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, pp. 505.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $250.
Henry Knox: A Soldier of the Revolution. *: Noah
Brooks. Illus., 12mo, pp. 286. “American Men of
Energy.” G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
Orestes A. Brownson's Middle Life, from 1845 to 1855,
By Henry F. Brownson. Large 8vo, pp. 646. Detroit,
Mich.: Published by the author. $3.
HISTORY.
The Puritan Republic of the Massachusetts Bay in New
England. By Daniel Wait Howe. Large 8vo, gilt top,
pp. 422. Bowen-Merrill Co. $3.50. -
The County Palatine of Durham: A Study in Constitu-
tional History. By Gaillard Thomas Lapsley, Ph.D.
Large 8vo, pp. 380. “Harvard Historical Studies.” Long-
mans, Green, & Co. $2. net.
The Africanders: A Century of Dutch-English Feud in
South Africa. By Le Roy Hooker. Illus., 12mo, pp. 279.
Rand, McNally & Co. $1.25.
Canada. By J. N. McIlwraith. Illus., 18mo, pp. 252. “His-
tory for Young Readers.” D. Appleton & Co. 60 cts.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
The Hitherto Unidentified Contributions of W. M.
Thackeray to “Punch.” With a complete and authori-
tative bibliography from 1843 to 1848. By M. H. Spiel-
mann. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 349. Harper &
Brothers. $1.75.
Earthwork out of Tuscany: Being Impressions and Trans-
lations. By Maurice Hewlett. New edition, with addi-
tional illustrations in photogravure. 12mo, gilt top, uncut,
pp. 234. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 met.
Nathan Hale: A Play in Four Acts. By Clyde Fitch.
Illus., 12mo, uncut, pp. 100. R. H. Russell. $1.25.
The Scarlet Stigma: A Drama in Four Acts. By James
Edgar Smith. 18mo, pp. 88. Washington: James J
Chapman. 75 cts.
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
Life and Works of the Sisters Brontë, “Haworth '' edi-
tion. With Introductions by Mrs. Humphry Ward. New
vols.: Shirley, and Villette. Each illus., 8vo, gilt top,
uncut. Harper & Brothers. Per vol., $1.75.
Thucydides. Trans. into English, with an Essay on Inscrip-
tions and a Note on the Geography of Thucydides, by
Benjamin Jowett, M.A. Second edition, revised. In 2
vols., large 8vo, uncut. Oxford University Press. $3.75.
The Novels and Stories of Frank R. Stockton, “Shen-
andoah" edition. First vols.: The Late Mrs. Null, The
Squirrel Inn and The Merry Chanter, Rudder Grange,
The Hundredth Man, Ardis Claverden, and The Great
War Syndicate, etc. Each with photogravure frontispiece.
8vo, gilt top, uncut. Charles Scribner's Sons. (Sold only
by subscription.)
Works of Shakespeare, “Larger Temple” edition. Ed-
ited by Israel Gollancz. Wols. III., IV., W., and VI.
Each illus, in photogravure, etc., 12mo, gilt top, uncut.
Macmillan Co. Per vol., $1.50.
Works of Rudyard Kipling, "Outward Bound" edition.
New vol.: From Sea to Sea, Part I. Illus., 8vo, gilt top, un-
cut, pp. 494. Charles Scribner's Sons. (Subscription only.)
CEuvres Complètes de Molière. 12mo, gilt top, uncut,
pp. 647. Oxford University Press. $1.25.
The Jew, and Other Stories. By Ivan Turgenev; trans.
from the Russian by Constance Garnett. 16mo, gilt top.
pp. 322. Macmillan Co. $1.25.
Temple Classics: Edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A. New
vols.: The Paradiso of Dante Alighieri, the Italian text,
with a new prose translation by Rev. Philip H. Wiek-
steed, M.A.; Ramayana, the Epic of Rama, Prince of
India, condensed into English verse by Romesh Dutt,
C.I.E. Each with photogravure frontispiece, 24mo, gilt
top, uncut. Macmillan Co. Per vol., 50cts.
POETRY.
By Charles Stuart Welles, M.D.
Macmillan Co. $1.50.
FICTION.
The Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy: A Historical
Romance. By Henryk Sienkiewicz; trans. from the Polish
by Samuel A. Binion. In 2 vols., illus., 12mo, R. F.
Fenno & Co. $2.
The World's Mercy. By Maxwell Gray.
D. Appleton & Co. $1.
A Rational Marriage. By Florence Marryat. 12mo, pp. 296.
F. M. Buckles & Co. $1.25.
Stranger than Fiction. By Albert Ross.
G. W. Dillingham Co. $1.; paper, 50 cts.
The Final Goal. By Bessie Dill (L. Beith Dalziel). 12mo,
pp. 352. J. B. Lippincott Co. Paper, 50cts.
TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
The Yangtze Valley and Beyond: An Account of Jour-
neys in Cltina, chiefly in the Province of Sze Chuan_and
among the Man-tze of the Somo Territory. By Mrs. J. F.
Bishop, F.R.G.S. In 2 vols., large 8vo, gilt tops, uncut.
G. P. $º: Sons. $6.
In the Valley of the Rhone. By Charles W. Wood, F.R.G.S.
Illus., large 8vo, uncut, pp. 439. Macmillan Co. $4.
Temperate Chile: A Progressive Spain. By W. Anderson
Smith. With frontispiece, large 8vo, uncut, pp. 400.
Macmillan Co. $3.50.
Letters of the Lady — Travels into Spain (1691).
Edited by Archer M. Huntington. Illus, in pho vure.
Fº gilt top, uncut, pp. 241. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1.50 net.
The Lute and Lays.
16mo, uncut, pp. 103.
12mo, pp. 287.
12mo, pp. 328.


1900.)
DIAL
THE
129
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
Statistics and Economics. By Richmond Mayo-Smith,
Ph.D. Large 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 467. Macmillan
Co. $3. net.
Growth of Nationality in the United States: A Social
Study. By John Bascom. 12mo, pp. 213. G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $125.
The Wheat Problem. Based on Remarks made in the
Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol
in 1898. By Sir William Crookes, F.R.S. 12mo, pp. 272.
"Questions of the Day.” G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.25.
Studies in State Taxation, with Particular Reference to
the Southern States. By graduates and students of the
Johns Hopkins University; edited by J. H. Hollander,
Ph.D. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 253. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press. Paper.
The Regeneration of the United States: A Forecast of
its Industrial Evolution. By William Morton Grinnell.
12mo, pp. 145. “Questions of the Day.” G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $1.
SCIENCE.
Heredity and Human Progress. By W. Duncan McKim,
M.D. 12mo, pp. 283. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net.
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. X. Large
8vo, pp. 187. Ginn & Co. $1.50.
Invisible Light; or, The Electric Theory of Creation. B
George W. Warder. 12mo, gilt top, pp. 334. G. W
Dillingham Co. $1.25.
Nature's Miracles: Familiar Talks on Science. By Elisha
Gray, Ph.D. Vol. I., World-Building and Life. 18mo,
pp. 243. Fords, Howard, & Hulbert. 60 cts. net.
The Story of Eclipses. Simply told for general readers.
By George F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. Illus., 18mo, pp. 222.
“Library of Useful Stories.” D. Appleton & Co. 40 cts.
MUSIC.—ART AND ARCHLEOLOGY.
Choral Songs by Warious Writers and Composers in Honour
of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Folio, gilt edges, pp. 143.
Macmillan Co. $8.
Pyramids and Progress: Sketches from pt. By John
Ward, F.S.A.; with Introduction by Rev. Professor Sayee.
Illus., large 8vo, pp. 288. E. & J. B. Young & Co. $4.
Books on Egypt and Chaldaea. Comprising: Egyptian
Ideas of the Future Life, Egyptian Magic, and Easy Les-
sons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, by E. A. Wallis É.i.
M.A.; and Babylonian Religion and Mythology, by L. W.
King, M.A. Each illus., 12mo. Oxford University Press.
Per vol., $1.25.
The Midsummer of Italian Art: Containing an Examina-
tion of the Works of Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael Santi, and Correggio By Frank Preston Stearns.
Revised edition; illus, in photogravure, 12mo, gilt top,
uncut, pp. 314. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.25.
Raphael. By Henry Strachey. Illus., 12mo, gilt top, pp. 147.
“Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture.” Macmillan
Co. $1.75.
Bembrandt. By Estelle M. Hurll. Illus., 12mo, gilt top, pp.
96. “Riverside Art Series.” Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 75c.
EDUCATION.—BOOKS FOR SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE.
Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the 38th Annual
Meeting of the National Educational Association, Held at
Los Angeles, Calif., July 11–14, 1899. Large 8vo, pp.1258.
Published by the Association.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year
1897–98. Vol. II.; large 8vo, pp. 1400. Washington:
Government Printing Office.
History of Education. By Levi Seeley, Ph.D. 12mo,
pp. 343. American Book Co. $1.25.
English History in American School Text-Books. By
Charles Welsh. 8vo, pp. 12. Published by the author.
Paper, 25 cts.
Public Educational Work in Baltimore. By Herbert B.
Adams. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 60. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press. Paper, 25 cts.
Plant Structures: A Second Book of Botany. By John M.
Coulter, A.M. Illus., 12mo, pp.348. Appleton & Co. $1.20.
Four Famous American Writers. By Sherwin Cody.
12mo, pp. 256. Werner School Book Co. 50 cts.
Prose and Verse for Children. By Katharine Pyle. Illus.,
12mo, pp. 168. American Book Co. 40 cts.
Economics and Industrial History for Secondary Schools,
£º W. Thurston. 12mo, pp. 300. Scott, Foresman
- 1.
Songs of All Lands for the Use of Schools and Social Gath-
erings. By W. S. B. Mathews. Large 8vo, pp. 157.
American §oºk Co. 50 cts.
Graded Literature Readers. Edited by Harry Pratt
Judson, LL.D., and Ida C. Bender. Second Book; illus.
in colors, 12mo, pp. 192. Maynard, Merrill & Co. 40 cts.
Lamartine's Scènes dela Révolution Française. Selected
and edited by O. B. Super. With portrait, 16mo, pp. 157.
D. C. Heath & Co. 35 cts.
Molière's Les Précieuses Ridicules. Edited by C. Fon-
taine. 12mo, pp. 60. Wm. R. Jenkins. Paper, 25 ets.
Macmillan's Pocket English Classics. New vols.: Irving's
The Alhambra, edited by Alfred M. Hitchcock, M.A.:
Scott's Marmion, edited by George B. Aiton, M.A. Each
with portrait, 24mo. Macmillan Co. Per vol., 25 cts.
ready IN FEBRUARY. A New
PHYSICS FOR SCHOOLS.
By Charles Burton Thwing, Ph.D., Knox College.
Correspondence with Science Teachers earnestly solicited.
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130
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THE
DIAL
3. Semi-ſtlanthlg 3ournal of 3Literarg Criticism, HBigtuggian, and information.
THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of
each month. TERMs or SUBscRIPTION, 82.00 a year in advance, postage
prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Mexico; in other countries
comprised in the Postal Union, 50 cents a year for extra postage must
be added. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the
current number. REMITTANCEs should be by draft, or by express or
postal order, payable to THE DIAL. SPECIAL RATEs to CLUBs and
for subscriptions with other publications will be sent on application;
and SAMPLE Corr on receipt of 10 cents. Adventisng RATss furnished
on application. All compºunications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
No. 329. MARCH 1, 1900. Vol. XXVIII.
CONTENTS.
Page
WHERE OUR SCHOOLS FAIL MOST. B. A.
Hinsdale . . . . . - - - . 141
BYRON'S INFLUENCE UPON GOETHE. Anna M.
Bowen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
COMMUNICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
A Question of Propriety. Martin Odland.
"Jane Austen and Thackeray.” W. R. K.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY.
E. G. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
DEAN MERIVALE. Percy Favor Bicknell . . . . 150
A NEW BIBLICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA. Ira M.
Price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
BUILDING THE SHIP OF STATE. James Oscar
Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
RECENT BOOKS OF TRAVEL. Hiram M. Stanley 154
Mrs. Bishop's The Yangtze Valley and Beyond.-
Lloyd's In Dwarf Land and Cannibal Country.—
Reid's In Unexplored Asia. – Swettenham's The
Real Malay.—Steevens's In India.-Bookwalter's
Siberia and Central Asia. - Miss Thomas's Two
Years in Palestine and Syria.-Lent's Holy Land.—
Griffis's The American in Holland. — Lees's Peaks
and Pines.—Miss Collins's By-Gone Tourist Days.-
Mrs. Sherratt's Mexican Vistas.-Twombly's Hawaii
and its People.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . 159
Bismarck and his king theories.—The new method
of teaching economics.-The religious redemption of
Africa.-French celebrities of fifty years. — Bruce,
and other famous Scots.-Two notable masters of
medicine.-Some appreciative literary essays.-An
authoritative work on old English silverware.—
Great Britain and Hanover.— Dutch and English in
South Africa. – Later labors of Mr. Kipling.—An
Englishman with the Cuban insurgents. – Cuba's
relations with Spain and the United States.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS . . . . . 161
LIST OF NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . 162
WHERE OUR SCHOOLS FAIL MOST.
It will be remembered by those who take
account of such things, that in the year 1893
a number of educational experts from different
parts of Europe visited our country and studied
our schools and school systems, often in school-
houses and in superintendents' offices, as well
as in the educational exhibit made at Chicago;
and that many of them, on their return home,
published their observations and impressions,
some in books and some in official reports, the
whole mass forming a valuable body of informa-
tion and criticism. Much of this material
(especially when it took the form of official
reports) Dr. Harris, the Commissioner of Edu-
cation, reproduced in a more or less abridged
form in his Report for the year of the Great
Exposition. One of the documents that he so
treated was the Report of Dr. E. Schlee, Direc-
tor of the Real Gymnasium at Altona, Ger-
many, who had put his finger thus firmly upon
the spot where, in his view, American schools
fail most :
“If in every office the chief factor is the man, and in
school the teachers, we have come to the weakest point
in the American school system: professional teachers
are wanting. That is to say, that most teachers are
deficient in the requisite scientific and pedagogic pre-
paration for their vocation. The greatest number are
women, and comparatively few make a profession of
teaching.
“According to the American way of looking at things,
no importance is attached to the technical preparation
for occupations and vocations or professions. Profes-
sions are changed according to advantages or oppor-
tunities. In annual reports we repeatedly meet with
complaints of the fact that the teachers, men and women,
have little or no normal or scientific education, and that
they must be appointed without regard to the necessary
knowledge and pedagogic preparation.”
Reviewing our facilities for providing quali-
fied teachers for the elementary schools, Dr.
Schlee said:
“On account of frequent resignations, the yearly
demand for teachers in America is astonishingly great;
one-third of the number needed annually can scarcely be
met by the Normal schools.”
His account of secondary teachers is hardly
more favorable.
“Teachers of high schools have, as a rule, graduated
from high schools; and for the most part have for a
time attended a college, a university, or a normal school,
before taking the teacher's examination. Generally


142
[March 1,
THE DIAL
speaking, however, the situation is about the same with
them as it is with those of the lower schools.”
That Dr. Schlee's view is the one commonly
held by the most competent experts who visit
us from abroad, and that it is also the view
taken by our own most competent judges, is too
well known to call for more than the slightest
mention.
How admirably the German specialist puts
it ! “If in every office the chief factor is the
man, and in school the teachers, we have come
to the weakest point in the American school
system : professional teachers are wanting.”
This judgment involves two main points.
One is the great lack of our teachers, as a body,
in respect to academical and professional pre-
paration; and the other, the rapid and cease-
less changes in the body itself. The two defects
are more closely connected than some may
think. Poor preparation leads assuredly to
keeping the body in a state of ceaseless motion,
while such motion is very unfavorable in itself
to good preparation.
The value of the good teacher is one of the
lessons that mankind has been very slow to
learn. From the days of Plutarch, we have a
continuous stream of testimony bearing on this
point. Again, the good teacher is not as highly
appreciated in the United States as he is in the
well-educated countries of Europe. It may
seem a paradox, but it is the truth, to say that
American teachers as a class, and the Ameri-
can people as a whole, earnest as both are, have
never taken the teacher's calling, as such, very
seriously. The vast majority of teachers, in
fact, do not look upon it as a calling at all, but
only as an episode lying between school and a
calling or as a prelude to the main action of life.
It is often said that there are no highly.civil-
ized people in the world who place so low an
estimate as we Americans do upon expert
knowledge and skill of any kind. This is per-
fectly true, although Dr. Schlee indulges in
some exaggeration in his putting of the case;
and it is impossible to tell how much we suffer in
consequence. Causes that are perfectly famil-
iar to students of such matters, have operated
to produce in our country a type of character
that is remarkably efficient and versatile, so
much so, in fact, that it is hard for us to believe
that we cannot do anything we may undertake
to do, no matter whether we have prepared our-
selves to do it or know much about it or not.
That great friend of our country, John Stuart
Mill, once spoke of this tendency as one of the
serious defects in our character. That it stands
in the way of our achieving the highest results
in many lines of activity, is beyond all question.
Once more there is reason to believe that we
have a lower estimate of practical pedagogical
ability than of any other highly specialized
form of ability. Upon what other serious call-
ing do we look so lightly 2 Certainly not upon
medicine, the bar, or the ministry. That
teaching—the formation of the bodies and
minds, the manners and the morals, of children
and youth — is a refined and delicate art, call.
ing for much skill and high excellence of char-
acter, ought to be too plain to make serious
argument on that point necessary.
I do not for a moment forget three things
that are essential to a just view of the subject:
(1), that many of our teachers do look upon
the work as a calling, although the number is
relatively small; (2), that the number of such
teachers is increasing steadily, if not rapidly;
and (3), that many persons who have done a
few years' work at teaching, on their way to a
calling, have rendered the public excellent
services. Nevertheless, the fact cannot be too
much emphasized that the United States will
never become an educational state of the same
rank as Prussia or Saxony until teaching as-
sumes a position and a dignity among us that
it has never yet known. -
One of the facts that give Massachusetts
her preeminence as an educational state is the
high standard of attainment that is required
of teachers. In 1888-89 the teachers in her
common schools who had attended a normal
school were 83.3 per cent. of the total number,
while the graduates of such schools were 26.6
per cent. In 1897-98 the corresponding per
cents were 38.5 and 33.5. That is, at the first
date about a quarter of the teachers were nor-
mal school graduates; and at the other date,
about a third. The Secretary of the State
Board of Education, Mr. Frank A. Hill, gave
this account of the 61.5 per cent who had not
attended a normal school: A few have prob-
ably been appointed without reference to their
preparation or fitness for the work; some had
had a little preliminary experience in local
schools for the purpose; some. had begun to
teach before normal school preparation had
attracted the attention of school committees as
an important prerequisite; while some were
College graduates. This is certainly an encour-
aging showing, compared with the day when
Horace Mann said, in substance, that outside
of the city of Boston there were not more than
two hundred teachers who could be said to


1900.] THE
DIAL 143
follow teaching as a calling in that state. It
is also encouraging in comparison with the
showing that any other American state could
make. But it is distinctly discouraging when
considered in connection with Prussia or
Saxony.
Statistics that would fully reveal the exact
state of things, the country over, are, unfor-
tunately, not attainable. We know that a
great army of teachers is employed, that this
army is rapidly increasing in numbers, and that
the average term of service is a short one. In
1897-98 this army counted 409,193 teachers,
which was 5,860 more than the year before.
Again, if ten per cent. of these teachers go out
of the service every year (a very moderate
estimate), 41,000 new teachers are required
to keep up the wastage. Putting the facts
together, it is safe to say that the annual de-
mand for common-school teachers at the present
time is 50,000. Where does the supply come
from ?
For the year 1897-98 the Commissioner of
Education found 67,538 students in teachers'
training courses of all kinds, reaching from the
high school to the university. He also found
11,255 graduates from normal schools – be-
tween a fifth and a fourth of the total number
of the recruits required to keep the ranks full.
This is a liberal view to take of the matter.
President Schurman, of Cornell University,
has calculated, from data furnished by the
Bureau of Education, that in 1891-92 the total
annual increase in the number of teachers em-
ployed in the schools was less than two per cent.
of the whole number,