age of Professor
Royce. This reminds one of St. Thomas's fam-
ous argument for the existence of God. “It
has been asked,” says St. Thomas, “if there
is a God, whence comes Evil? We should
rather conclude thus: If there is Evil there is
a God, for Evil would have no existence with-
out order in the Good, the privation of which
is Evil. But there would not be this order if
God did not exist.” Professor Royce holds that
Job's problem is insoluble upon Job's presup-
position, which is that God is an external
creator and ruler, for in this case God is either
cruel or helpless. Only when one regards God
as the essence and fulness of all Being, abso-
lutely one with humanity, suffering in its pain
and triumphing in its victory, can there be any
satisfactory solution of the problem. God is
not the Infinite One beyond the finite imper-
fections, but the being whose unity determines
the very constitution, the tension and relative
disharmony of the finite world, and so the ex-
istence of Evil is not only consistent with the
perfection of the universe, but is necessary for
the very existence of that perfection.
To the student of Hegel, this theory of the
justification of Evil is not new ; nor does Pro-
fessor Royce offer it as such. The merit of the
essay is that the most difficult of problems is
handled in a clear and masterly way, and the
solution given is in accordance with the views
of some of the ablest thinkers of the present
time.
Professor Royce again states his fundamental
theory in an essay on “Tennyson and Pessim-
ism.” He defends the position that “Locksley
Hall Sixty Years After,” although artistically
inferior to the first “Locksley Hall,” is ethi-
cally higher, and, contrary to general opinion,
far more satisfactory. The complaint is made
by the author that while Tennyson is one of the
most devout of men, he gives as his ideal some-
thing that can be realized only through a more or
less complete separation from the world of con-
crete life. The God in whom Tennyson believes
is a God that hides himself, or shows himself
only on rare or romantic occasions to the devout.
In no sense is he the God of the present. He
is the God of the future. This is shown in the
first “Locksley Hall.” The young man is in
the old romantic world on a quest for the ideal.
He has nothing to do with the commonplace.
His business is important, but vague and inde-
scribable. Its prominent feature is that it
takes him away from earthly relations to move
forward, and neither he nor anyone else knows
exactly where. This romantic idealism Pro-
fessor Royce claims leads eventually to pessim-
ism; and the pessimism of the second “Locks-
ley Hall,” so far as it is pessimistic, is the
explicit statement of what is implied in the first.
The thought is, Unless God is here, how do
you know he is elsewhere? Unless the present
has divine meaning, What proof is there of a
far-off divine event? It is the recognition of
this thought, and the absence of a vain roman-
ticism, that gives a value to the later poem.
For here Tennyson recognizes that if this is
God's world, then these struggles, sins, striv-
ings, and loves must be the expression of God's
will: a truth which Browning repeats over and
over again. Like various other forms of Evil,
pessimism is not to be regarded as a final ill.
On the contrary, “the best man is the one who
can see the truth of pessimism, can absorb and
transcend that truth, and can be nevertheless
an optimist, not by virtue of his failure to
recognize the evil of life, but by virtue of his
readiness to take part in the struggle against
this evil.”
One of the most interesting, as well as most
original, of these essays is “The Case of John
Bunyan.” The religious experiences of the
great writer, as given in his remarkable Con-
fessions, “Grace Abounding to the Chief of
Sinners,” are summarized by Professor Royce,
and then interpreted, not in terms of the soul
and its relation to God, but in the language of
the latest school of empirical psychology. The
story of Bunyan's religious life offers a rare
object-lesson to the student of normal and ab-
normal mental processes. Bunyan was what
psychologists would call a good visualizer. He
was also an expert in the dialectics of the inner
life, and a born genius as to the whole range of
language functions, good and bad. Describing
his early youth, he tells us that he frequently
felt himself tempted to curse and swear, or
speak some grievous thing against God. These
and other insistent morbid impulses—such as
wavering hopes, gloomy doubts and question-


1899.] THE
TXIAL 123
º
ings, all of which Bunyan subsumes under the
name Tempter — are more or less inhibited by
other automatic mental processes, the result of
a close study of the scriptures; for a text con-
demning or encouraging was sure to come to
his mind whenever the oath came to his lips or
the doubt to his consciousness. A chaos of
motor processes was the result. Noting these
and similar trains of morbid association, Pro-
fessor Royce follows them through their various
stages, as reported in the wonderfully clear
and definite autobiography, marking the corre-
spondence between periods of low physical con-
dition and certain religious depressions. Finally
the great change came, when, under a skilful
self-imposed mental regimen, Bunyan had no
return of the more deeply systemized disorders,
although always a prey to elementary insistent
temptations and depressions. The study of
Bunyan's Case is of value as typical of morbid
processes which have gone on in many brains
less exalted than that of Bunyan without Bun-
yan's power of vivid description. While Pro-
fessor Royce has chosen to state the case in
psychological terms, he is careful to say that
this does not in any wise impair its worth as an
ethical study; for the problem to Bunyan was
one of moral struggle, a struggle in which he
came out victorious, recognizing in his victory
the value of the Tempter as well as the Com-
forter.
The remaining essays in the volume bear
upon other aspects of the relation of Good and
Evil, and serve to illustrate the author's funda-
mental theory that Evil is essential to the real-
ization of Good; that it is the living strife in
the midst of which and by which God main-
tains Himself in the world.
CAROLINE K. SHERMAN.
THE annual volume for 1898 of the “Proceedings and
Addresses” of the National Educational Association has
just been published under the editorship of Mr. Irwin
Shepard, secretary of the Association, and preserves for
the members all of the papers and discussions of the
meeting held last July in the national capital. It is a
thick octavo of more than eleven hundred pages, and the
contents relate to almost every conceivable phase of the
educational problem. An elaborate index makes these
contents readily available for reference. We should
add that a considerable section of the volume is devoted
to the Chattanooga meeting, held in February, of the
Department of Superintendence. The papers here
printed are, of course, greatly varied in their value, and
we cannot help wishing that the general effect were not
quite so scrappy — that the longer papers might be
longer, and many of the shorter ones suppressed alto-
gether.
RECENT FICTION.”
“Ashes of Empire” is the third in order of pub-
lication of the series of romances in which Mr.
Robert W. Chambers has sought to write a pictur-
esque history of the Année Terrible. Its predeces-
..sors are “The Red Republic” and “Lorraine.” It
will be followed by a fourth, dealing with the oper-
ations of the Army of the Loire. We are compelled
to say that “Ashes of Empire” is distinctly the
poorest, as “Lorraine” is distinctly the best, of the
three books thus far published. The author's inven-
tion seems to be flagging, and his sentimentalism to
have become exaggerated. Still, the gift of romantic
story-telling is his in so marked a degree that one
may derive a good deal of pleasure from the new
book, which begins with the news of Sedan and the
escape of the Empress, tells the pitiful story of the
siege, and ends with the entry of the victorious
Prussians into the capital. Meanwhile, we are
made to realize by ominous mutterings the gather-
ing of the storm soon thereafter to break in the
Commune, of which Mr. Chambers has already
written in “The Red Republic.” Upon a previous
occasion, in speaking of these books, we have had
to regret the author's propensity to disfigure them
by the introduction of caricatures of some of the
best of Frenchmen. But the prejudices hitherto
made manifest in the treatment of Thiers and
Gambetta and Hugo seem feeble in comparison
with that now excited by Renan, who is caricatured
in the present volume so offensively that one feels
nothing but disgust for a novelist who could so per-
*AsHEs of EMPIRE. A Romance. By Robert W. Cham-
bers. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
THE RoAD To PARIs. A Story of Adventure. By Robert
Neilson Stephens. Boston: L. C. Page & Co.
THE Count's SNUFF-Box. By George R. R. Rivers.
Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.
A HERALD of THE WEST. By Joseph A. Altsheler. New
York: D. Appleton & Co.
MANDERs. By Elwyn Barron. London: John Macqueen.
THE Associate HERMITs. By Frank R. Stockton. New
York: Harper & Brothers.
ExILED For Liese MAJESTÉ. By James T. Whittaker.
Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings.
WITH Bought Swords. A Tale of a Spanish-American
Republic. New York: M. F. Mansfield & Co.
THE BATTLE of THE STRoNg. A Romance of Two King-
doms. By Gilbert Parker. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
HER MEMORY. By Maarten Maartens. New York: D.
Appleton & Co.
THE CHANGELING. A Novel. By Sir Walter Besant.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
THE ADVENTURERs. A Tale of Treasure Trove. By H. B.
Marriott Watson. New York: Harper & Brothers.
THE RED AxE. By S. R. Crockett. New York: Harper
& Brothers.
GRACE O'MALLEY, PRINCEss AND PIRATE. By Robert
Machray. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.
AdventurEs of THE ComTE DE LA MUETTE DURING THE
REIGN of TERROR. By Bernard Capes. New York: Dodd,
Mead & Co.
THE ScourtGE of God. A Romance of Religious Persecu-
tion. By John Bloundelle-Burton. New York: D. Appleton
& Co.


124
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
vert the truth. This blot so darkens “The Ashes
of Empire” that its real merits are likely to be
overlooked.
“The Road to Paris” is a long one, if we take
the new romance by Mr. R. N. Stephens for a guide
and cicerone. The story begins at Culloden with
the flight into exile of the hero's father. The hero.
himself is born in the wilds of Pennsylvania, in time
to grow up into a Revolutionary soldier, and take
part in the fray on Bunker's Hill. He then, after
escaping from imprisonment, joins the expedition
to Quebec, and makes the long march through Maine
to the St. Lawrence. In Quebec he appears as a
spy, escapes detention, and gets carried away to
England as a prisoner of war under the supposition
that he is somebody else. Ethan Allen is one of
his fellow-prisoners upon this unwilling voyage.
Escaping from his English prison, he becomes in
turn a strolling juggler, a gardener's assistant, and
a fine gentleman of the town in Bath and London.
Newgate, Vauxhall, and Hyde Park all make his
acquaintance, and, after a surprising series of
intrigues and adventures, he finds his way across
the Channel in a smuggling boat, and seems at last
to be really upon the road to Paris, the goal of his
boyhood's ambition. But before he enters the city,
he becomes engrossed in a sentimental episode with
the precocious young daughter of Necker (who was
afterwards to become the author of “Corinne”),
and is also unwillingly mixed up in an organized
plot for the assassination of that famous Minister.
In consequence of all this, our hero's first entrance
into Paris makes him a guest of the Bastille, where
he languishes in captivity for a year or so. Escap-
ing again (he always escapes), he makes his adven-
turous way into Germany, and becomes a personage
at the court of Hesse-Cassel. Here he takes part
in a conspiracy against the Landgraf, barely escapes
with his life, and carries off his lady-love in triumph
to Paris, which he really enters at last in the fashion
to be desired. The lady in the case, it should be
added, has figured in his life both in New England
and in Quebec, so we know she is bound to appear
at the end and make his story all that a romance
should be. Here, indeed, is a tangled skein of ad-
venturous experiences, and the reader hardly knows,
when all is over, whether to admire the more the
author's easy and animated narrative manner, or
the astonishing ingenuity displayed by him in mak-
ing so many historical scenes and situations take part
in the shaping of the hero's destiny.
Mr. Elwyn Barron, who some years ago left
America for an English sojourn of indefinite dura-
tion, is now favorably recalled to the memory of
his old circle of readers by what may fairly be
called one of the most charming novels of the sea-
son. “Manders” is a Europeanized production, —
almost as much so as the later stories of Mr. Henry
Harland, which it somehow suggests, and it strik-
ingly illustrates, when compared with Mr. Barron's
earlier writing, the broadening influences of life in
the great centres of European civilization. Manders
is the name of a little boy, and he is ostensibly the
hero of the story, but in fact he interests us less
than his widowed mother — a professional model in
the Quarter—and her vacillating but not unsym-
pathetic lover, an American art student of ample
means. Mr. Barron's success with his heroine is
akin to Du Maurier's success with a certain girl
whom we need not name: it is the successful por-
trayal of a woman who remains pure at heart amid
surroundings that at least are not encouraging to
purity. There is also an American heroine of pro-
nounced and attractive type, besides the necessary
complement of minor characters. The author has
shown much skill in realizing these figures for us,
besides doing it in a style that is excellent on its
own account. He has a form of expression that is
crisp and effective, subtly humorous upon occasion,
but always ready to rise to the demands of a seri-
ous situation. The book is not exactly a strong one,
but it is exceptionally pleasing, and it rings true.
As every reader of Mr. Stockton's books is aware,
the stories that they tell cannot possibly be retold in
abstract. “The Associate Hermits” is no exception
to this rule, and an outline of its plot would give
no notion whatever of the quaint humor, the nov-
elty of situation, and the general whimsicality, which
make this book a worthy companion of its many
predecessors. About the only idea that can be de-
tached without losing its essential flavor is the one
with which the story opens—the idea of a newly-
wedded couple who, instead of starting on a wed-
ding journey themselves, persuade the parents of
the bride to do it for them. This is as Stocktonian
a notion as can be; to tell what follows shall be his
affair, not ours.
Two historical romances which stand rather above
the usual level of merit have for their subject the
War of 1812. Mr. George Rivers, the author of
“The Count's Snuff-Box,” has taken the episode
of the Henry letters for a starting-point, and the
“Count” of the title-page is the imposter who posed
as one Edward de Crillon upon that critical occa-
sion. Mr. Rivers supplements what is known his-
torically of that imposter by embellishments of the
usual romantic sort, and makes an agreeable story
of the whole affair. The scene is laid partly on the
shore of Buzzard's Bay and partly in Washington,
the burning of the capital by a horde of British ruf-
fians affording a thrilling climax to the work.
The burning of Washington also appears in “A
Herald of the West,” by Mr. Joseph Altsheler, but
midway in this case, for the Battle of New Orleans
provides the climax. Mr. Altsheler's book is more
closely historical than the one before mentioned,
and those who have read his two earlier romances of
American history do not need to be told that he is a
writer of real power. In these days, which are
witnessing a recementation of the ties that should
and must bind together the English-speaking peo-
ples, we are apt to forget how real were the griev-
ances that brought on the War of 1812. These the
author recalls to us in plain terms, with perhaps just


1899.] THE
DIAL 125
a touch of the bitterness that should by this time
have disappeared altogether, but certainly with no
harboring of the old rancor. The story is well-knit,
varied of interest, thrilling upon occasion, and dis-
tinctly to be praised.
“Exiled for Lèse Majesté” is a taking title for
a book, and when a glance at the pages shows it to
be a story of Russian despotism and imprisonment
in Siberia, a certain pleasurable anticipation is
aroused. But the expectation is doomed to disap-
pointment upon further examination, for the story
proves but a tenuous thread upon which the author
hangs a heavy burden of miscellaneous information
concerning all subjects under the sun (and others).
Interminable conversations of a semi-didactic sort
are the substance of the book, while the romantic
interest is lost like a rivulet in the desert. We can-
not help being amused at the audacity of the writer
in making his characters discuss (in the time of
Nicholas — that is, in the early fifties) such subjects
as Darwinism and the marvellous growth of Chicago,
and quote from FitzGerald's Omar and the later
poems of Longfellow. No such trifling matter as
an anachronism is going to stand in the way of this
writer's fancy; if he wishes to point a moral, he is
evidently not to be deterred by any consideration
of what the mere facts will justify.
“With Bought Swords” is a Spanish-American
romance of revolution and intrigue, in which the
author has by no means made the most of his mate-
rials. The effect is too sketchy to be in any way
impressive. Over and over again, situations that
might have been worked up excitingly are merely
hinted at, and one follows the story with some dif-
ficulty. We fear that this book must be character-
ized as a bit of amateurish effort undeserving of
serious attention.
Those who expected the new novel by “Maarten
Maartens” to be a work of such elaborate interest
as “My Lady Nobody” or “God's Fool” will be
disappointed. It is so long since the author last
came before the public that such an expectation was
reasonable, but instead of fulfilling it, he now pre-
sents us with what is little more than a sketch. The
book is called “Her Memory,” and is the study of
a man's sorrow when bereft of a beloved wife, and
left to face an existence made solitary save by the
presence of the little girl who is left him. How the
passionate soul of the man rebels, and how the first
poignancy of grief gradually becomes tempered into
endurance, how the lives of both father and child
develope under the influence of the tender memory
that remains to them, and how existence in the end
comes once more to take on its wonted aspect; all
these things are imparted to our sympathies rather
than to our intellect by the writer's graceful art.
Few novelists have so marked a temperament as this
Anglicized Dutchman of genius, and the tempera-
ment is such as to suggest Thackeray in more than
one way, although there is back of it no such wealth
of intellectual resource as was possessed by the
author of “Vanity Fair” and “Henry Esmond.”
“Her Memory” is a welcome visitor to our table, but
we cannot help wishing that it were ampler in dimen-
sions and richer in content.
“In any case this tale has no claim to be called
a historical novel,” says Mr. Gilbert Parker in a
note appended to “The Battle of the Strong.” We
shall take the liberty of qualifying this assertion to
a certain extent. Admitting the fact that the char-
acters concerned are wholly the creations of the
author, it must yet be said that a novel may be
historical even if no actor on the stage of actual
history treads its boards. The setting must be taken
into account, the manners and customs depicted,
the truthfulness to the larger historical facts of the
period and the place concerned. In these particu-
lars, the book is a historical novel in a high and fine
sense, just as Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” is a
historical novel, and would remain one without its
description of the battle of Waterloo. There are
more reasons than one for the suggestion, in the
present connection, of the great French masterpiece.
It is made inevitable by the fact that Mr. Parker's
book is a romance of Jersey, for no one may write
of the Channel Islands without suggesting the writer
who lived among them during nearly twenty years'
voluntary exile. There are, furthermore, among
Mr. Parker's pages not a few which in manner, in
epic breadth of treatment, and in poetic envisage-
ment of an impressive scene or situation, constantly
recall to the mind this or that page of “Quatre-Vingt-
Treize" and “Les Travailleurs de la Mer.” Nor is
the comparison an unworthy one, for Mr. Parker
here approves himself to be of the great race of story-
tellers, and has produced a work that must be reck-
oned among the masterpieces of recent fiction. The
scene is Jersey, for the most part, although an im-
portant section of the romance takes us to the Duchy
of Bercy, and the time that of the Revolution. The
island itself remains almost undisturbed during these
stormy years, but echoes from Paris, and La Vendée,
and the high seas where English and French are
pitted against each other, reach the scene from
time to time, and bring the action into relief against
an impressive historical background. Still, its inter-
est, which runs the entire gamut from the lightest
comedy to the deepest tragedy, is essentially domes-
tic, and concerns the lives of a few Jerseymen and
Jerseywomen. Among these the heroine, Guida
de Landresse, shines like a star in the purity of her
womanhood, and about her are grouped three men
who love her—one less than his ambition, another
with a too dumb and dog-like devotion, a third, to
whose life her gracious presence gives renewed no-
bility of purpose, and who wins her in the end, after
she has sounded all the depths of grief, and felt to
the full the chastening influence of suffering. The
story is one in which strength and sweetness are so
subtly commingled that each intensifies the other.
Mr. Parker has made judicious use of a vast amount
of material collected for his work. The history,
the customs, the dialect, the folk-lore, and the insti-
tutions of the island are drawn upon most effectively.


126
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
and when the climax is reached, it is an ancient
legal formula that provides the keynote to an
intensely dramatic situation. When the wronged
Guida appeals for justice to the Cour d'Héritage, it
is with the old Norman cry: Haro, haro / a l'aide,
mon Prince, on me fait tort / The effect, as con-
trived by Mr. Parker, is simply overwhelmning.
We might go on almost indefinitely in praising this
book—which is an advance upon even “The Seats
of the Mighty”—but enough has been said to make
it clear that here is a work to be reckoned with, and
to persuade our readers of the pleasure that is in
store for them.
Sir Walter Besant has written so many novels
that some of them must be poorer than the others,
and there is no doubt that “The Changeling ” is
one of the least successful of them all. It is more
discursive than usual, more obviously artificial, and
has more resort to situations and coincidences of the
kind that strain the credulity. It tells of a mother
who, losing her infant child, seeks to spare its father
the grief of the loss by putting another child in the
vacant place. How this sin finds her out after many
years, and how the history of the substituted child
proves heredity to be stronger than environment,
are the two main themes of this story, which is
rather bewildering in its complications, and unim-
pressive in its outcome.
A few months ago, we noticed an extraordinary
romance entitled “The Lake of Wine,” by Mr.
Bernard Capes. It will possibly be remembered
that this title was derived from the fanciful name
of a great ruby, for the discovery and possession of
which many men ventured (and some of them lost)
their lives. In reading “The Adventurers,” by Mr.
Marriott Watson, we find the same story, in its gen-
eral outline, retold. The treasure in this case is gold
and not jewels, but otherwise the similarity is strik-
ing. There is an ancient country house in England,
and the treasure which it conceals is eagerly con-
tended for by the owner of the house and the des-
perate gang of cutthroats who have learned of its
existence. In both cases, also, the hiding-place of
the treasure is as unknown to the one party as to
the other. The chief difference is in the style of
the two narratives, for that of “The Adventurers ”
is as plain and straightforward as that of “The Lake
of Wine’’ is affected and tortuous. It is a rather
daring thing, for either writer, thus to have framed
in the setting of the nineteenth century conditions
in a civilized country an action so full of lawlessness
and bloody violence that it belongs rather to Turkey
or to the sixteenth century. The story is certainly
interesting, and its plot is mostingeniously contrived.
In “The Red Axe,” Mr. Crockett departs from
his wonted scenes and his well-worn Scots, to write
of the robber barons of mediaeval Germany. For
once, he has for us no moss-hags and no stern Cov-
enanters, but instead, Gothic towers and ruthless
bands of the rough riders of several centuries ago.
The book is very “bluggy.” The hero is the son
of the hereditary justiciar to the Dukes of the Wolf-
mark, and is himself called upon, in the due course
of events, to take up the axe of the executioner.
Thrills occur upon nearly every page of this story,
which is so swift in its action that one gasps for
breath in trying to keep up with it. There is a love-
story, too, as tender as any that the author has
imagined, and, altogether, the book affords much
exciting entertainment.
“Grace O'Malley, Princess and Pirate” is surely
a fetching title, and the covers of the book add pic-
torial effect to verbal by a poster-portrait of the
heroine. The story turns out to be a wild history
of love and revenge in Elizabethan Ireland, with
the historical figure of the Earl of Desmond set
among those drawn by the writer from his imagina-
tion. The story is related in the first person, and
with the usual affectation of an archaic form of
speech. But, despite the author's endeavor, his
book is a rather dull one, and he misses the romantic
touch of which such men as Mr. Bloundelle-Burton,
for instance, know the secret so well.
The “Adventures of the Comte de la Muette dur-
ing the Reign of Terror” is an interesting romance
of a rather conventional sort, which tells how an
aristocrat, by means of disguise, escaped massacre,
and how he also saved the life of a fair aristocratic
damsel, who naturally became his wife when their
adventures were over. It is a picturesque and
thrilling narrative, with the proper infusion of sen-
timent, studied from the memoirs of the period, and
told with considerable dramatic effect.
Mr. Bloundelle-Burton is rapidly taking the place,
if he has not already taken it, that clearly belongs
to him among writers of historical romance. Few,
if any, of his living fellow-workers in this field have
a finer sense of the requirements of this form of
fiction, or a better equipment for its production. In
“The Scourge of God,” he has taken for his theme
the Huguenot persecutions that followed the Revo-
cation. The scene is laid among the Cévennes, and
the desolation wrought in that fair region by the
Most Christian King's endeavor to stamp out a
pestilent heresy is pictured with vivid and terrible
effect. The monarch who was so justly called the
“Scourge of God” does not appear personally in
these pages, and the “femme funeste et terrible”
at whose behest he acted appears only in two brief
scenes; but, in a certain sense, these two personages
dominate the history, and their figures ever loom
up in the background of the imagination. The story
is one of the best in style, construction, information,
and graphic power, that have been written in recent
years. WILLIAM MoRTON PAYNE.
A “History of the World from the Earliest Histor-
ical Time to the Year 1898,” is the title of a volume
prepared by Mr. Edgar Sanderson for “The Concise
Knowledge Library” (Appleton). One rather gasps at
the thought of such a book, but series have to exist, and
volumes must be made to fit them. Mr. Sanderson is
a careful historical scholar, and his book commands
approval.


1899.] THE
DIAL 127
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
New England There are some things that would
letters and lead one to keep separate in the
***** mind Mr. W. C. Lawton's “New
England Poets” (Macmillan) and Mrs. Harriet H.
Robinson’s “Loom and Spindle” (Crowell). The
latter book will be of value to the economist and
the historian: Mr. Carroll D. Wright, who contri-
butes an Introduction, adds his authority on this
point. The former, as will be inferred by the read-
ers of Mr. Lawton's recent book on Homer, will be
useful mainly to the literary student. But the two
books came to us at the same time, and they con-
nect themselves in our mind. Mr. Lawton's book
is a good statement of the position and the work of
Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell,
and Holmes. Mrs. Robinson's is a very interest-
ing account of the life and characteristics of the
Lowell mill-girls half a century ago. Mr. Lawton,
as one may see from his title, emphasizes the idea
that these poets were New England poets: that
their lives and work was conditioned by their being
born and living in New England. Now, New En-
gland in the middle of this century was certainly not
all factory-life in Lowell,—and yet the change is not
very severe from Lucy Larcom's “New England
Girlhood " to Dr. Edward Everett Hale's “New
England Boyhood.” It is not that Emerson and
Holmes, for instance, were of the stock of which
mill-hands were made. But the old families from
which they sprang never held themselves very far
above the old families from which the mill-girls
came, and in very many forms of thought and modes
of feeling they never separated themselves at all.
Everywhere the same church, the same school, the
same town-meeting served for both, and much the
same careers were open to both. The Brahmin
caste was really not a caste, properly speaking, at
all, for it never shunned communion with others.
Of course these poets were of the picked New En-
gland stock, picked over in some cases for genera-
tions. That is true; but who picked them, and for
whom were they picked? Who was it that was to
understand them,--who did understand them, if it
comes to that? Not more the mill-girls of Lowell
than the students of Harvard, doubtless; but who
were they? The old Lowell factory-life is especially
interesting because particular circumstances gave
the opportunity for presenting in great purity the
type of New England, the worker, the worshipper,
the lover of the things of the mind. This is seen
in Mrs. Robinson's book, which is of these two the
more interesting, for it deals with matters which
are to the most of us half familiar; it opens a door
into the past, as Lowell says, into a room that we
have heard of but never entered; it tells us of a
life eminently characteristic and now wholly passed
away. But its interest, to us at least, is greatly
heightened by the fact that it enables us to read
the other book so much more understandingly. We
rather wish that Mr. Lawton had been able to read
it before writing his own book. It makes one under-
stand, better than before, all the six that he writes
of except Hawthorne, and perhaps even Hawthorne.
They are rightly called “New England ” poets.
But what is, or rather was, New England? That
is something which we need not try to say just here.
There are a hundred books to answer those that
cannot remember, but the list will not be complete
until it includes Mrs. Robinson's simple record of
a phase long gone forever.
France to-day, convulsed by the
Dreyfus matter, presents a curious,
a humiliating, yet a not altogether
hopeless spectacle of national retrogression: curious
to the social pathologist, humiliating to the opti-
mistic champion of free institutions, not altogether,
or indeed by any means, hopeless to those who
understand the transient and superficial character
of these periodic outbreaks of French, or per-
haps more accurately speaking, Parisian hysteria.
Broadly speaking, the Dreyfus case and the popular
hallucinations attending it are the result of the
momentary ascendency of forces which the Revolu-
tion overthrew but unhappily could not extirpate.
There were diseased parts in the national body
which the rude and sometimes misapplied surgery
of the soi-disant regenerators of France failed to
cut away, and which could not have been quite cut
away by far more skilful operators. Now a portion
of the poisonous virus has worked its way to the
surface; and the civilized world looks on in amaze-
ment at the spectacle of Jesuitry, bigotry, caste-
tyranny, working their infamous will on an innocent
man, quite as in the days of Calas and La Barre;
while a populace that a decade ago celebrated the
centenary of the fall of the Bastille stands by ap-
plauding and supporting the outrage. Unhappily,
there is now no Voltaire to smite the evil. But the
mind of France is saner and her conscience more
sensitive than in the days when the “intellectuals”
of Voltaire's century fought the battle against the
foes of right and reason that M. Zola and his col-
leagues are fighting to-day; and there is good ground
of hope that Frenchmen are even now shaking off
the degrading hallucination that condemns the un-
happy Dreyfus and the heroic Picquart to shame
and torture, while the reptilian Esterhazy and the
monstrous Drumont go unwhipt of justice. If there
be to-day any rational being, outside of France, who
is still unconvinced of the fact that Esterhazy is the
man who ought to be where Dreyfus is, that he is
the writer of the bordereau and the seller to the
German attaché of the military secrets therein listed,
we earnestly commend to him Mr. F. C. Conybeare's
concise and conclusive little book entitled “The
Dreyfus Case” (Dodd). Through the presentation
of documents, facsimiles of handwriting, etc., and
through its well-marshalled history of the successive
stages and phases of the case, it puts beyond the
shadow of a doubt the facts of the innocence of
Dreyfus and the guilt of Esterhazy. The volume
France as
elucidated by
the Dreyfus case.


128
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAT,
is well furnished with portraits of the chief actors
in this remarkable cause célebrè, beginning with the
noble Picquart (one of the brightest names in the
annals of contemporary France), and ending with
Esterhazy, whose vice-seared face is a safe passport
to the material hell of his antiquated faith.
Admirable productions of their kind
are the “University Addresses” de-
livered before the students of the
University of Glasgow by the late Principal John
Caird, and now reprinted by the Macmillan Co. in
a neat volume of 380 odd pages, under the editorial
supervision of Professor Edward Caird of Balliol
College, Oxford. The addresses here collected are
of two kinds: those customarily delivered by Prin-
cipal Caird at the beginning of each session, on
some subject connected with the studies of the Uni-
versity, or on the life and work of some great author
with whose name one or other of these studies is
representatively connected; and those addresses on
some general topic of University Education which
Principal Caird was in the habit of delivering to
the graduates at the end of the session, after the
graduation ceremonies. Of the former and more
important class of addresses, the volume contains
twelve. Of the graduation addresses, only two are
given: “The Personal Element in Teaching,” and
“General and Professional Education.” Principal
Caird, in one notable passage, pays a tribute to the
universities of Scotland that may be quoted here as
suggesting a useful ideal not, we think, kept so fully
in view as it should be in the great educational
foundations of our own country: “It is the glory of
our Scottish universities that they have never been
made places of education for a class, that no costly
arrangements render access to them possible only for
the rich, and that when once he has crossed their doors
a young man finds himself in a community where
intellectual resource is the only wealth that wins re-
spect, brain power the only power that tells, and
where honor and distinction await the ablest and
worthiest, and await these alone.” This special tribute
which Principal Caird felt in conscience justified in
paying to the universities of his own country applies,
we think, with equal justice to those of Germany
and France. That any superiorities other than
those of mind and character should, in an institution
of learning, be the marks of its acknowledged aris-
tocracy, seems anomalous enough; but we fear the
anomaly is not unknown in republican America.
Educators especially should find these sane and
earnest addresses useful and stimulating.
We confess we find little in Mr. G.W.
Steevens’s “With Kitchener to Khar-
tum” (Dodd) that seems to us to
justify the lavish encomiums heaped upon it by the
higher class of English reviews. We can easily see
why the ordinary newspaper should laud Mr. Stee-
ven's book to the skies; for it contains just the sort
of “hot stuff” that the ordinary newspaper has been
University
addresses by
Principal Caird.
The recent
bloody business
in the Sudan.
for the past year or so especially desirious of get-
ting, and would have at almost any price. If war
should break out to-morrow (which God forbid!)
the enterprising owners of our “live up-to-date.”
newspapers might well put Mr. Steevens's book into
the hands of the “bright young men” they pro-
posed sending to the front, and say to them: “This
is the kind of thing we want.” Mr. Steevens's book,
in fine, is a clever and well-spiced piece of war-time
reporting, made in a hurry on the spot and meant
for immediate home consumption: but it is nothing
more than that. Its vogue with the British public
is easily explained. The Sirdar is just now the
British public's especial hero, and Mr. Steevens tells
what he did and lauds him without stint or reserva-
tion for doing it; the British public, too, is for the
first time in a quarter of a century or more unques-
tionably in a fighting mood, and Mr. Steevens's
battle-pictures give it much the same sort of grati-
fication that our own public gets from “kineto-
scope” views of the more crucial and historic pugi-
listic events. Reading Mr. Steevens's cheery and
often even jocular account of the Sudan campaign
is almost as good (or as bad) as seeing the thing
itself. Mr. Steevens has the knack of describing
things vividly, and we don't mean to carp at him
for giving his employers and the public their money's
worth of gore and grewsomeness. But he might, it
would seem, without loss of cash or credit, have
written less flippantly, and with a more apparent
sense of the fact that this tragic, if perhaps una-
voidable, Sudan business—this scientific butchery
of a half-armed mob of half-savage religionists —
is a dark and deplorable episode in the history of
the territorial conquests of Western civilization.
Mr. Steevens, we are glad to note, appears to recog-
nize the fact that, when the day of Omdurman was
done, the palm of valor lay, not (broadly speaking)
with the men who had been behind, but with those
who had been before, the guns. The volume is
supplied with maps and plans, and serves to convey
a tolerably good idea of General Kitchener's meth-
ods of dealing with the problem his predecessors
had so egregiously failed to solve.
Probably there is but one religious
foundation in this country whose his-
tory, adequately told, would require
more than a duodecimo volume of three or four
hundred pages. That one is the Parish of Trinity
Church, New York City. It is a notable parish in
many respects. Its annals are closely connected
with those of the city in which it exists. The du-
ties and responsibilities of its rector are greater than
those of some of the bishops. It celebrated its
bicentennial in 1897, and the elegant volume set-
ting forth the proceedings in the nine churches com-
prised in this immense city parish seems to have
whetted the appetite of the parishioners for more
history. So records running back to the early years
of the seventeenth century have been ransacked,
and the Rev. Dr. Dix, Rector, has begun the prepa-
Parochial history
extraordinary.


1899.] THE
DIAL 129
º
ration of a complete history of the parish. The
result thus far is a royal octavo volume of over
500 pages, bringing the narrative down to 1783,-
that is to say, down to the close of the Revolutionary
War and the opening of the history of the parish
under new ecclesiastical relations. All this is given
with the promise of an indefinite number of volumes
in the future to bring the history down to the pres-
ent time. The history is considerably more than a
transcript of musty records. It contains some val-
uable contributions to general history. The author
(who, because the task of research was necessarily
committed to others, modestly claims to be merely
an editor) is not a thresher of old straw. He pur-
sues an independent course, corrects some errors
which have crept into general history, notably con-
cerning the character of Governor Fletcher and that
of Leisler; and even corrects errors into which he
confesses himself to have been drawn in previous
historical writings. The volume is handsomely
printed, and illustrated with full-page portraits and
facsimiles of documents. The publishers (G. P.
Putnam's Sons) announce that 750 copies of this
edition have been printed for sale.
A volume on “The Rivers of North
America” (Putnam) is offered mod-
estly by its author, Professor Israel
C. Russell of the University of Michigan, as a “read-
ing lesson for students” of physiography or geology.
It proves to be a well-digested thesis upon the effects
of rivers in fashioning the surfaces of the regions
where they are generated or through which they
flow. Each drop of aerial water does its work,
infinitesimal though it may be. With its fellows, it
takes certain substances into solution; others it
holds in suspension; manifold more it pushes along,
as, in obedience to gravity, it pursues its devious
way toward a distant sea, ever wearing the chan-
nels through which it flows. Even if, sooner or
later, it should be lifted again by evaporation, it
will have contributed something, if it be only to lay
down in another place the atom which its solvent
power seized elsewhere. In time, such drops will
have carved the mountains, filled and seamed the
valleys, eroded the cañons, and transformed all the
contours of the earth's surface; in time, no coun-
teracting upheaval occurring, they will have re-
moved all elevations, and restored old ocean's vast
and solitary reign. Professor Russell's logical and
lucid treatment of his subject makes his “reader”
attractive for both scientist and layman. — Another
volume from the same publishers, “Earth Sculp-
ture,” by Professor James Geikie of the University
of Edinburgh, describes the configuration of the
earth's surface as the resultant of every variety of
physical activity, whether working internally or
externally. The work includes the results of the
latest geological surveys, notably those within the
western half of the United States. The author has
addressed the great body of intelligent readers not
professionally versed in geology.
Two recent books
on Physiography.
Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer's
“Scrap-Book of the French Revolu-
tion” (McClurg) is made up of ma-
terial gotten together by the author in the course of
her work as a lecturer on the French Revolution.
The book is frankly a compilation, and as such it
has the distinctive merit that its contents are to a
considerable extent drawn from unfamiliar and
comparatively inaccessible sources. Of especial
interest are the excerpts from the series of mono-
graphs on the events of the Revolution published
in the Paris “Figaro” during the years 1893,
1894, and 1895. The volume opens with some
rather interesting reminiscences of an American,
Thomas Waters Griffith, who resided in Paris from
1791 to 1799, and was an eye-witness of many dra-
matic Revolutionary episodes. He saw, for instance,
both Louis XVI. and his unhappy consort passing
through the streets on their way to the scaffold—
the former in “court-like dress’’ in “a handsome
coach,” the latter in “a common cart” like an or-
dinary malefactor, and attracting comparatively
little attention from the populace. It is greatly to
be regretted that Mr. Griffith was not a keener ob-
server, or, at least, that he did not more fully realize
the great historical and dramatic interest of the
remarkable scenes he skims over so carelessly in
his too cursory narrative. Mrs. Latimer's book
contains a good deal of curious, suggestive reading,
and deserves its popularity. There are twenty-nine
portraits in half-tone, including an interesting one
of the Rev. Eleazer Williams, the alleged “lost
Dauphin,” whose singular story is given in the
closing chapters on “Louis XVII.”
Scrap-book
of the French
Revolution.
Mr. A. G. Newcomer is one of those
professors of rhetoric who believe
that a writer should consider first
what he would say, and only when that is settled
should he consider what particular words to use.
This obvious view is not common among our writers
on rhetoric, although Mr. Newcomer’s “Elements
of Rhetoric" (Holt) is by no means the only book
in recent years which has been based upon it. The
older writers — Professor Bain, for instance, or
Professor A. S. Hill—prefer to begin with a study
of words. The latter especially did great things in
the cause of diction. Their influence has been such
that most people (even in college faculties) think
that there is no rhetorical fault worse than misspell-
ing or bad grammar: such, at least, are the only
faults ever mentioned. The newer practise is really
not new : it has the authority of every rhetorician
who ever put pen to paper, from the days of Korax
and Tisias down to the time that Dr. George Camp-
bell, with his speculations on Good Usage, knocked
the classical rhetoric into a cocked-up hat, so far as
authority was concerned. We do not mean that
Mr. Newcomer is a neo-Aristotelian, or any other
such creature: his earlier book, which had some-
thing to do in bringing about the change of heart
that is gradually taking place, was a very simple
** The New
Rhetoric.”


180
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
talk to schoolboys and schoolgirls as to what they
could write about best. It said nothing about Aris-
totle: but then, it had nothing of Campbell either.
The present work, founded on the right theory, and
the result of individual work of some years on the
right lines, has a great deal in it that is direct and
practical. We are glad to see it, and hope we may
help it a bit toward a wide circulation.
It has been long years since a thor-
oughly up-to-date one-volume Bible
Dictionary made its appearance. The
numerous discoveries of recent years in Bible lands
and adjacent lands, the new investigations in Bib-
lical archaeology and in Biblical criticism, have de-
manded a re-writing of nearly every article in the
Bible Dictionaries of a quarter of a century ago.
Professor John D. Davis of Princeton Theological
Seminary, with the coöperation of two of his col-
leagues, Drs. Warfield and Purves, and after three
years of incessant labor, has produced the book that
is needed (Westminster Press, Philadelphia). It is
a volume of 800 pages, covering the whole range of
Biblical themes, and of the First Book of Maccabees.
It aims to confine itself to facts, and to facts of the
Scriptures and of records and things which throw
light on the Bible. It very wisely leaves out spec-
ulation about the Bible, which is usually short-lived
and always of uncertain value. It is amply, almost
profusely, illustrated with pictures, not of the imag-
ination, but of the actual things themselves. Several
up-to-date maps, based on the most recent discov-
eries and authorities, were prepared especially for
this work. The articles are well-proportioned in
length and fulness of treatment. Their position is
that, not of a hide-bound conservative, but of a pro-
gressive and safe leader in the interpretation of the
facts of the Bible. The up-to-date character, the
fulness of illustration, the wealth of maps, the pro-
gressive position, and the cheapness of the volume
ought to make this the one-volume Dictionary of the
Bible for many years to come.
In “The Wonderful Century "
(Dodd), Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace
discusses in two aspects the scientific
achievements of the century now closing. In one
group he enumerates the theoretical discoveries
with the practical invention resting thereupon. His
list includes twelve examples of the first — such as
the conservation of energy, organic evolution, the
ground theories of chemistry; and twelve of the
second—as railways, telegraphs, photography, and
the use of anaesthetics and antiseptics. With this
list he compares all the discoveries of preceding
ages, of which he names fifteen — as gravitation
and the circulation of the blood, the art of printing,
the mariner's compass, and the telescope. In a con-
trasted group of what he calls the failures of the
century, the author enumerates subjects as to which
he insists that the scientific world has fallen into
lamentable errors, either by underrating or by
A new one-volume
Bible Dictionary.
A review of
the century.
wholly ignoring their real significance and value, as
in the neglect of phrenology and the opposition to
hypnotism and psychical research; or by over-
valuing what he holds to be delusive and mischiev-
ous, as vaccination and militarism, which latter he
calls the curse of civilization. The book has an
interest as illustrating the excursions of a distin-
guished naturalist into fields outside of his specialty.
The first part of it almost any well-informed scien-
tist might have written; the second part scarcely
any such person would have written.
We are glad to have an English
Ferdinand - -
Brunetière translation, and one which has been
in English. made with unusual skill, of M.
Ferdinand Brunetière’s “Manual of the History of
French Literature” (Crowell). The work is so
masterly an example of such a history, so solid in
its scholarship and so attractive in its setting-forth,
that it is valuable both on its own account and as a
model of how such a thing ought to be done. The
plan is rather original. The text is a philosophical
essay in the author's familiar manner, while the
erudition is relegated to the footnotes which occupy
about half of each page. The author calls his work
“an application of the doctrine of Evolution to the
history of a great literature.” The translation
bears the assumed name of “Ralph Derechef.”
Sixteen portraits illustrate the volume. —We are
glad also to welcome in this connection the volume
of “Brunetière's Essays in French Literature,”
selected and translated by Mr. D. Nichol Smith,
and imported by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons.
The volume includes seven of the author's most
characteristic essays, and a special preface written
by him for this translation.
Sir Edward W. Hamilton's thought-
ful and commendably temperate
monograph on Gladstone (Scribner)
has the prima facie recommendation of being from
the pen of a man who knew the great statesman
well for nearly forty years, and was closely asso-
ciated with him during a considerable portion of
that period. Sir Edward aims to convey to his
readers a just notion of Mr. Gladstone the man,
through describing some of his intellectual powers,
characteristics, and accomplishments, some of his
ways, aims, and objects, his likes and dislikes, and
his general turn of mind. The little book is well
worth reading, and while it cannot be said to throw
any special new light on Mr. Gladstone's singularly
complex character, its observations are in general
just, well-weighed, and discriminating.
A minor
biography
of Gladstone.
It would have been singularly im-
proper to have had a “Famous
Scots” series without a life of Sir
William Wallace: scarcely a Scot is more famous.
Yet it was no easy task to write that life. Too
little is known of Wallace, for one thing; and for
another, too little is known by the general reader of
the history and general life of Scotland at the be-
Biography of
a famous Scot.


1899.] THE
IDIAL 131
ginning of the fourteenth century. At any rate, one
gets but a hazy notion of the hero or of his oppor-
tunity, in the volume by Professor Murison (im-
ported by Scribner). The chief figure is shadowy;
the circumstances are like those of a dream. The
result may be imagined: killings and burnings,
victories and defeats, plottings and betrayals, we
get a confused vision of such matters, but no clear
understanding. This volume is hardly as interest-
ing as most of the series, a matter not entirely
chargeable to the author. It gives us something of
an account of a simple and violent career in a troub-
lous and complicated time. We think most readers
will know more of Wallace after they have read it
than before; but further it would be rather hard to
go in the way of praise.
M. de Saint-Amand’s “The Court
of the Second Empire, 1856–1858."
(Scribner) is a rather exceptionally
animated and interesting number of the sub-series
of this brilliant writer's popular historical studies
now current. The three years bridging the time
from the Crimean War to the Italian war of 1859
form the epoch covered in this book. The salient
episodes treated are the coronation of the Czar
Alexander II., the Orsini attempt, and the diplo-
matic preludes to the war which led immediately to
the liberation from Austrian rule of northern Italy.
Separate chapters are devoted to Walewski, De
Morny, and Cavour. There are four portraits.
Court of
the Second
Empire.
BRIEFER MENTION.
“The More Excellent Way” (Oxford University
Press) is a volume of brief selections in verse and prose,
all relating to the “Life of Love,” compiled by the
Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton Gell. The very wide range of au-
thors represented would seem to bear out the statement
that “a poet without love were a physical and moral
impossibility.” The selections are admirably classified
under appropriate readings, and have been chosen with
great art and taste. Less, however, is to be said for
the taste of the publishers. The combination of dark
blue cover with pale-green edges makes a homely exte-
rior; the same combination within, used for type and
decorative designs, makes a striking but not beautiful
printed page.
Mr. W. E. H. Lecky's “Democracy and Liberty”
(Longmans) has just passed into a second edition, and
the author avails himself of the opportunity thus pre-
sented to discuss, in a special introduction of some fifty
pages, “the experience of the last eventful years.” In
the light of this experience, the outlook seems even
gloomier than it did before, and the new introduction,
to say nothing of the book itself, is far from cheerful
reading. But the problems which it raises are to be
solved only by facing them bravely and squarely; and
no writer of our time brings to their discussion a more
penetrative insight or a riper wisdom.
Judging from the example we have seen, the novel
“Color Prints” of Miss Pamela Colman Smith should
meet with considerable favor. The term “print” as
applied to these pictures seems to us ill-advised and
misleading, as it naturally suggests the use of litho-
graphy or some other method of mechanical reproduc-
tion. In reality, the outline only of the picture is
printed, this being then filled in by hand in water-color
and retouched by the artist. The colors are chosen with
taste, and are carefully applied, and the effect of the
finished work is both artistic and pleasing. Five sub-
jects have been issued, varying in price from two to
five dollars each,-remarkably cheap, when the amount
of work involved is considered. The prints are pub-
lished by Mr. R. H. Russell.
Mr. Austin Dobson's fondness for the eighteenth cen-
tury is shown once more in his volume of “Miscellanies”
(Dodd). Nearly all of its thirteen papers concern them-
selves with books or authors of that period—as Gold-
smith, Steele, Dr. Johnson, Gay; others have to do with
London of that date or earlier. “Old Whitehall,” with
a reduced ground-plan of the Royal Palace as it was in
the year 1680, and “Changes in Charing Cross,” looking
back to the time of Queen Elizabeth, are chapters to
delight the antiquary; for of Dobson, as of his favorite
Goldsmith, it may be said, “He touches nothing that he
does not adorn.
A fifth edition of the late Professor Martin’s “briefer
course” in “The Human Body,” revised by Dr. George
Wells Fitz, has just been published by Messrs. Henry
Holt & Co. The work still has the perfunctory chapter
on narcotics, without which it could not be used in the
schools of a number of States, but Dr. Fitz takes pains
to state that this chapter “is retained against the best
judgment of the reviser, who believes that the questions
involved are ethical and not physiological.” The book
is, of course, aside from this defect, one of the best
elementary manuals of human anatomy and physiology
that have ever been written. In another text-book of
the same subject, written by Dr. E. Franklin Smith,
and published by Mr. William R. Jenkins, the chapter on
narcotics volunteers the delightful statement that “tee-
total drinks” contain from six to fourteen per cent of
alcohol, coming somewhere between claret and cham-
pagne in the list. -
“Where to Educate,” published by Messrs. Brown &
Co., Boston, is described as “a guide to the best private
schools, higher institutions of learning, etc., in the United
States.” It is a volume of nearly four hundred pages,
and is edited by Miss Grace Powers Thomas. She sup-
plies a good deal of information that may give the book
value for reference, but she has not always been on her
guard. Among the Illinois institutions which are
included we find, to our amazement, one of the chief
offenders in the matter of fraudulent degrees, the estab-
lishment which more than any other has led to the pro-
posed legislation which we discuss in the editorial pages
of this issue.
Miscellaneous reading-books for the young are of all
sorts nowadays. Among the more recent of them we
mention “Uncle Robert's Geography” (Appleton), ed-
ited by Mr. F. W. Parker and Miss Nellie L. Helm;
“Our Country's Flag and the Flags of Foreign Coun-
tries” (Appleton), by Dr. Edward S. Holden; “Poetry
of the Seasons” (Silver), compiled by Miss Mary I.
Lovejoy; “Historic Boston and Its Neighborhood”
(Appleton), by Dr. Edward Everett Hale; “Heroes of
the Middle West” (Ginn), by Mrs. Mary Hartwell
Catherwood; and “First Steps in the History of Our
Country” (Silver), by Messrs. W. A. Mowry and A. M.
Mowry.


132
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
LITERARY NOTES.
“Paul et Virginie,” edited by Professor Oscar Kuhns,
is one of the latest of the French texts published by
Messrs. Henry Holt & Co.
A teacher's manual of “United States History in
Elementary Schools,” by Mrs. L. L. W. Wilson, is
published by the Macmillan Co.
“Plane and Solid Germany,” by Dr. James Howard
Gore, is an elementary text-book, just published by
Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co.
“The Attic Theatre,” by Mr. A. E. Haigh, has passed
into a second and considerably enlarged edition, which
comes to us from Mr. Henry Frowde of the Oxford
Clarendon Press.
A “Critique of Some Recent Subjunctive Theories,”
by Mr. Charles Edwin Bennett, forms No. IX. of the
“Cornell Studies in Classical Philology,” published by
the Macmillan Co.
“A Complete Latin Grammar,” by Professor Albert
Harkness, is the final product of many revisions and
much teaching experience. The American Book Co.
are the publishers.
“The Rig-Veda Mantras in the Grhya Sutras” is
a doctor's dissertation prepared for the Johns Hopkins
University by Mr. Edwin W. Fay, and published at
Roanoke, Virginia.
As a valentine to their friends, the “Brothers of the
Book” have issued a beautifully-printed leaflet con-
taining Mrs. Rosamund Marriott-Watson's poem, “Old
Books, Fresh Flowers.”
“The Principles of Agriculture” (Macmillan), by
Mr. L. H. Bailey, is a “text-book for schools and rural
societies,” written from the widest knowledge of its
subject, and admirably adapted for its purpose.
Miss Bertha Ellen Lovewell has edited “The Life of
St. Cecilia” from a number of Middle English manu-
scripts, and the monograph is published by Messrs.
Lamson, Wolffe, & Co. in the series of “Yale Studies
in English.”
Miss Emma Helen Blair has prepared a valuable
“Annotated Catalogue of Newspaper Files in the Library
of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.” The work,
which is a pamphlet of nearly four hundred pages, ap-
pears as a state publication.
“A Short History of France” and “A Short His-
tory of Germany,” both by Miss Mary Platt Parmele,
are now published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons
in new editions, uniform with the similar volumes upon
England, Spain, and the United States.
Messrs. Allyn & Bacon publish two volumes of En-
glish texts: “Select Essays and Poems” of Emerson,
edited by Miss Eva March Tappan; and “Three Nar-
rative Poems” (“The Ancient Mariner,” “Sohrab and
Rustum,” “Enoch Arden”), edited by Mr. George A.
Watrous.
Mr. F. C. Burnand, the editor of “Punch,” has con-
sented to write a series of articles giving personal remi-
miscences of most of the authors and artists connected
with that famous periodical during the last twenty-five
years. The articles will appear in the “Pall Mall
Magazine.”
A series of “Ethno-Geographic Readers” (Heath),
by Mr. Frederick Starr, is to consist of three volumes —
“Strange Peoples,” “American Indians,” and “How
Men Do.” The first and third of these are still in pre-
paration, but the second has been issued, and proves to
be a very readable account of the North American
Indian, written in simple language, and attractively
illustrated. The reading-lesson should be welcome to
the boy who takes it from such a book as this.
The late A. H. Green of Oxford left the manuscript
of an unfinished text-book of elementary geology, and
his widow commissioned Mr. J. F. Blake to prepare it
for publication. The result is a volume called “First
Lessons in Modern Geology,” published by the Oxford
University Press.
The publishers of the Old South Leaflets have just
issued two numbers entitled respectively “Lafayette in
the American Revolution” and “Letters of Washington
and Lafayette.” The publication is most timely in view
of the Lafayette monument, the gift of the American
people, to be erected in Paris next year.
Mr. John B. Dunbar has edited Cooper's “The Last
of the Mohicans,” for the series of “Standard English
Classics" published by Messrs. Ginn & Co. It makes
an attractive volume of more than five hundred pages,
and the boy who has it for a school-book will surely
think that his lot is cast in pleasant places.
“The Technology Review” is a new quarterly peri-
odical published by the Association of Class Secretaries
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is mod-
elled rather closely upon the “Harvard Graduates Mag-
azine,” which amounts to saying that it is a dignified
and creditable production which we shall welcome to
our table.
The volume of “Studies in American History” just
published by Mr. J. H. Miller, Lincoln, Nebraska,
includes the ten pamphlets of “source extracts” made
by Mr. Howard W. Caldwell, which we have mentioned
from time to time as they have come to us, and for
which we are happy to find a word of renewed com-
mendation.
“The Uncommercial Traveller,” with four illustra-
tions by Mr. Harry Furniss, has been added to the hand-
some “Gadshill” edition of Dickens, imported by
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. The spirit of Cruik-
shank and “Phiz" seems to have caught successfully
by Mr. Furniss in his pictures, the frontispiece portrait
being especially good.
Pending the construction of a new and modern build-
ing, which will be planned to meet the needs of their
constantly increasing business, the Western Methodist
Book Concern will occupy the large corner store of the
Edson Keith Building, Wabash Avenue and Monroe
Street, a region that seems likely to become the “book-
sellers' row” of Chicago.
“The World's Painters and their Pictures” (Ginn),
by Mr. Deristhe L. Hoyt, is an elementary descriptive
and historical manual intended for school use. It is
little more than a compendium of the barest facts and
the most condensed critical judgments, supplied with
enough process illustrations to save the text from being
absolutely meaningless to a young student.
The total destruction by fire of Messrs. A. C. McClurg
& Co.'s fine Chicago bookstore, which occurred on the
12th inst., is an event not measurable by the money
loss alone, although this approaches the sum of half a
million dollars. The store was renowned as one of the
largest and best in the world, and its vast stock con-
tained many rare items that cannot be replaced, auto-
graph copies, books in exquisite foreign bindings, treas-
ures of the bookhunter and bibliophile, by whom the


1899.] THE
I)IAL 183
loss will be especially deplored. We are glad to an-
nounce that the firm already occupies new quarters at
the corner of Wabash Avenue and Monroe Street, one
square south of the old location.
We have received from the Century Co. the two
bound volumes of “St. Nicholas” for 1898, as well as
the volume of the “Century Magazine” for the half-
year ending last October. There is a good deal of war
in these volumes, which is natural enough, but there are
also other features of interest, including (as far as the
“Century” volume is concerned) Dr. Mitchell's “Fran-
çois” and a half dozen of Mr. Cole's superb wood-
engravings.
The death of Archibald Lampman, on the tenth of
this month, at the early age of thirty-eight, is no small
loss to Canadian literature and English poetry. His
two volumes, “Among the Millet” and “Lyrics of
Earth,” together with his many contributions to the
periodicals, gave him a high place among that remark-
able group of young Canadian poets whose work has
made us here in the United States look somewhat search-
ingly to our own laurels.
Professor William Morris Davis, with the aid of Mr.
William Henry Snyder, has prepared a school “Physical
Geography” which is published by Messrs. Ginn & Co.
It is a volume of ordinary dimensions—not the extra-
ordinary ones that used to be associated with text-books
of this subject–very abundantly illustrated, and thor-
oughly praiseworthy in its presentation of theories and
facts. The name of Professor Davis, indeed, is all the
guarantee of excellence that such a work needs.
That readable literary magazine, “The Bookman,”
announces the publication in its pages of Mr. Paul
Leicester Ford's historical novel of the American Rev-
olution, “Janice Meredith,” the first instalment to ap-
pear in the March number. This story has already, we
believe, been running for several issues in “Collier's
Weekly.” The “syndicate” method of publication, it
would thus appear, is to be extended to the monthly
magazines, – a doubtful experiment, as it seems to us.
A considerable quantity of French lyrical poetry, in
which the most recent singers are fairly represented, is
given us in the volume of “French Lyrics” which
Professor Arthur Graves Canfield has edited for Messrs.
Henry Holt & Co. Upwards of sixty poets are included,
with an average of four pieces each, although the space
given to Hugo, Lamartine, Musset, Leconte de Lisle,
and M. Sully-Prudhomme makes this statement one to
be taken with allowances. The book is excellent in
every way—in taste, scholarship, and sense of propor-
tion.
The Committee on Libraries and Schools of the
National Educational Association is at present engaged
in collecting materials for a report to be made next
July. The subjects under consideration include the
preparation of graded lists of books suitable for chil-
dren, the correlation of public library and school work,
normal school work in the use of books by teachers, and
other related topics. There is a wide field of usefulness
before this Committee, and the coöperation of all inter-
ested persons is solicited by the chairman, Mr. J. C.
Dana, Springfield, Mass.
Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons announce the publica-
tion of “The American Anthropologist,” a new quar-
terly journal established under the auspices of the
anthropological section of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science. The Board of Editors
comprises such men as Messrs. D. G. Brinton, F. W.
Putnam, W. H. Holmes, Franz Boas, and J. W. Powell
—in a word, the most distinguished American scholars
in this branch of science. Each number will contain
two hundred pages of text and illustrations. Four dol-
lars is the annual subscription.
The Association of Collegiate Alumnae has recently
added to its publications a “Magazine Number” which
we have examined with much interest. No announce-
ment is made of its continuation as a serial publication,
but we wish that such an undertaking might prove prac-
ticable, for a monthly, or even a quarterly, periodical of
this character would be a welcome addition to our edu-
cational literature. The contributors include such
women as Mrs. Alice Upton Pearmain, Miss Abby
Leach, Miss Marion Talbot, Miss Emily James Smith,
Miss M. Carey Thomas, Miss Louise Brownell, and
Mrs. Paul Shorey. Mrs. Shorey's interesting paper
upon “The Collegiate Alumnae and the Public Schools
of Chicago.” affords a typical illustration of the sort of
work the Association is doing, good unobtrusive work of
a kind that might accomplish much for the betterment
of public education. The publication is issued from
Richmond Hill, New York.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
[The following list, containing 65 titles, includes books
received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
HISTORY.
The Story of France. From the earliest times to the Con-
sulate of Napoleon Bonaparte. By Thomas E. Watson.
Wol. I., To the End of the Reign of Louis XV. 8vo, gilt
top, uncut, pp. 712. Macmillan Co. $2.50.
The Story of the Civil War. ByJohn Codman Ropes, LL.D.
Part II., The Campaigns of 1862. With maps and plans,
large 8vo, uncut, pp. 475. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50.
America in Hawaii: A History of United States Influence.
in the Hawaiian Islands. By Edmund Janes Carpenter.
{ "sº gilt top, uncut, pp. 275. Small, Maynard &
1.50.
Second Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Com-
mission of the American Historical Association. Large 8vo,
uncut, pp. 679. Government Printing Office. Paper.
Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union. By
Frank Greene. Bates, Ph.D. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 226.
“Columbia College Studies.” Macmi Co. Paper.
A Short History of France, and A Short History of Ger-
many. By Mary Platt Parmele. 12mo. Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons. Each, 60 cts. net.
BIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS.
My Inner Life: Being a Chapter in Personal Evolution and
Autobiography. By John Beattie Crozier. Large 8vo,
uncut, pp. 562. Longmans, Green, & Co. $4.50
John Sullivan Dwight, Brook-Farmer, Editor, and Critic
of Music. By George Willis Cooke. With portrait, 8vo,
uncut, pp. 297. Small, Maynard & Co. $2.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth
Century. By Henry A. Beers. 8vo, gilt top, uncut,
pp. 455. Henry Holt & Co. $2.
Plains and Uplands of Old France: A Book of Verse and
Prose. By Henry Copley Greene. Illus., 16mo, gilt top,
uncut, pp. 139. Small, Maynard & Co. $1.50.
Théophile: A Miracle Play. By Henry Copley Greene.
With frontispiece, 16mo, uncut, pp. 32. Small, Maynard
& Co. $1. net.
Fireside Fancies. By Beulah C. Garretson. 16mo, gilt top,
uncut, pp. 220. J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.25.
Adobeland Stories. By Werner Z. Reed.
pp. 179. Richard G. Badger & Co. $1.
If Tam O'Shanter'd Had a Wheel, and Other Poems and
Sketches. By Grace Duffie Boylan. Illus., 12mo, uncut,
pp. 222. E. R. Herrick & Co. $1.25.
12mo, uncut,


134 THE
DIAL [Feb. 16,
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
Complete Works of Robert Browning, “Camberwell ?”
edition. Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke.
In 12 vols., with photogravure frontispieces, 24mo, gilt tops.
T. Y. Crowell & Co. Boxed, $9.
Eighteenth Century Letters. Edited by R. Brimley
Johnson. In 2 vols., with phot vure portraits, 12mo,
gilt tops, uncut. Henry Holt º: Per vol., $1.75 met.
The Virginians. By W. M. Thackeray. “Biographical”
edition, with Introduction by Anne Thackeray Ritchie.
Illus., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 809. Harper & Brothers,
$1.75.
POETRY.
Wessex Poems, and Other Verses. By Thomas Hardy;
illus. by the author. 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 210. Harper
& Brothers. $1.75.
Along the Trail: A Book of Lyrics. By Richard Hovey.
16mo, pp. 115. Small, Maynard & Co. $1.50.
FICTION.
The Open Question: A Tale of Two Temperaments. By
C. E. Raimond. 12mo, pp. 523. Harper & Brothers. $1.50.
The Wheel of God. By George Egerton. 12mo, pp. 364.
G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.; paper, 50 cts.
Windyhaugh. By Graham Travers (Margaret G. Todd,
M.D.). 12mo, pp. 418. D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.
The Archdeacon. By L. B. Walford. 12mo, pp. 274.
Longmans, Green, & Co. $1.50.
God's Prisoners. By John Oxenham. 12mo, pp.314. Henry
Holt & Co. $1.25.
A Writer of Books. By George Paston. 12mo, pp. 344.
D. Appleton & Co. $1.; paper, 50 cts.
Sundown Leflare. Written and illustrated by Frederic
Remington. 12mo, pp. 115. Harper & Brothers. $1.25.
That Gay Deceiver! By Albert Ross. 12mo, pp. 306.
G. W. Dillingham Co. $1.; paper, 50cts.
Van Hoff; or, The New Faust. By Alfred Smythe. 12mo,
pp. 322. G. W. Dillingham Co. Paper, 50 cts.
TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
Spinifex and Sand: A Narrative of Five Years' Pioneering
and Exploration in Western Australia. By the Hon.
David W. Carnegie. Illus., large 8vo, gilt top, uncut,
pp. 454. M. F. Mansfield & Co. $5.
A Gold Hunter's Experience. By Chalkley J. Hambleton.
16mo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 116. Chicago: Privately printed.
SCIENCE.
The History of Mankind. By Professor Friedrich Ratzel;
trans. from the 2d German edition by A. J. Butler, M.A.;
with Introduction by E. B. Tylor, D.C.L. Vol. III.,
completing the work. Illus, in colors, etc., large 8vo,
gilt top, pp. 599. Macmillan Co. $4.
The Foundations of Zoëlogy. By William Keith Brooks,
Ph.D. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 339. “Columbia Univer-
sity Biological Series.” Macmillan Co. $2.50 met.
A Guide to the Study of the Geological Collections of the
New York State Museum. By Frederick J. H. Merrill,
Ph.D. Illus., º 8vo, pp. 262. Albany: University of
the State of New York. Paper, 40 cts.
POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC
STUDIES.
Democracy and Liberty. By William Edward Hartpole
ky. New edition; in 2 vols., 12mo, gilt tops, uncut.
Longmans, Green, & Co. -
Democracy: A Study in Government. By James H.
Hºp. Ph.D. 12mo, pp. 300. Charles Scribner's Sons.
1.50.
Slav or Saxon: A Study of the Growth and Tendencies of
Russian Civilization. By William Dudley Foulke. Sec-
ond edition, revised; 12mo, pp. 141. “Questions of the
Day.” G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.
Social Settlements. By C. R. Henderson. 18mo, pp. 196.
New York: Lentilhon & Co. 50 cts.
History of State Banking in Maryland. By Alfred Cook-
man Bryan, Ph.D. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 144. “Johns
Hopkins University Studies.” Paper.
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.
The Study of Holy Scripture: A General Introduction.
By Charles Augustus Briggs, D.D. Large 8vo, pp. 688.
Charles Scribner's Sons, gº net.
Religion in Greek Literature: A Sketch in Outline. By
Lewis Campbell, M.A. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 423. Long-
mans, Green, & Co. $5.
The Kingdom (Basileia): An Exegetical Study. By George
Dana Boardman. 8vo, pp.348. tº: Sons. $2.
Morality as a Religion: An Exposition of Some First Prin-
ciples. By W. R. Washington Sullivan. 12mo, uncut,
pp. 296. Mºin Co. $2.
The Conception of Priesthood in the Early Church and in
the Church of England: Four Sermons. By W. Sanday,
D. 12mo, uncut, pp. 128. Longmans, Green, & Co. $1.
Suggestive Illustrations on the Gospel of John. By Rev.
§: Nºt D.D. 12mo, pp. 543. E. R. Herrick &
o, $1.25.
ARCHITECTURE. – MUSIC.
The Georgian Period: Being Measured Drawings of Colo-
nial Work. By various architects. In three parts, large
4to. Boston: Am. Architect and Building News Co. $9.
By the Way: Being a Collection of Short Essays on Music
and Art in General. By William Foster Apthorp. In
2 vols., 18mo, uncut. Copeland & Day. $1.50.
REFERENCE.
General Index to the Library Journal, Wols. 1–22 (Sep-
tember 1876, to December, 1897). Large 8vo, pp. 130.
New York: The Library Journal.
Where to Educate: A Guide to the Best Private Schools
and Higher Institutions of Learning in the United States.
Edited by Grace Powers Thomas. Illus., large 8vo, pp. 382.
Boston: Brown & Co. $3.
EDUCATION.—BOOKS FOR SCHOOL AND
COLLEGE.
Discussions in Education. By Francis A. Walker, Ph.D.;
edited by James Phinney Munroe. Large 8vo, uncut,
pp. 342. Henry Holt & Co. $3. net.
German Higher Schools: The History, Organization, and
Methods of Secondary Education in Germany. By James
E. Russell, Ph.D. 8vo, pp. 455. Longmans, Green, &
Co. $2.25.
The World's Painters and their Pictures. By Deristhe L.
Hoyt. Illus., 12mo, pp. 272. Ginn & Co. $1.40.
The Principles of Agriculture: A Text-Book for Schools
and Rural Societies. Edited by L. H. Bailey, Illus., 16mo,
pp. 300. “Rural Science Series.” Macmillan Co. $1.25.
The Human Body: A Text-Book of Anatomy, Physiology,
and Hygiene. By H. Newell Martin, D.Sc. #ifth edition,
revised by George Wells Fitz, M.D. Illus., 12mo, pp. 408.
Henry Holt & Co. $1.20.
Elements of Rhetoric: A Course in Plain Prose Composition.
By Alphonso G. Newcomer. 12mo, pp. 382. Henry Holt
& Co. $1.
French Lyrics. Selected and edited by Arthur Graves
Canfield. 16mo, pp. 382. Henry Holt & Co. $1.
Sainte-Pierre's Paul et Virginie. Edited by Oscar Kuhns.
16mo, pp. 160. Henry Holt & Co. 50 cts.
Elements of Grammar and Composition. By E. Oram
Lyte, A.M. 12mo, pp. 224. American Book Co. 50 cts.
American Indians. By Frederick Starr. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 227. D. C. Heath & Co. 45 cts.
A Primary Arithmetic. By A. R. Hornbrook, A.M. 12mo,
pp. 253. American Book Co. 40 cts.
Elementary English, By E. Oram Lyte, A.M. Illus.,
12mo, pp. 160. American Book Co. 35 cts.
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, etc. Edited by Tuley Francis
Huntington, A. M. With portrait, 18mo, pp. 109. Mac-
millan Co. 25 cts.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The Attic Theatre: A Description of the Stage and Theatre
of the Athenians, and of the Dramatic Performances at
Athens. By A. E. Haigh. M.A. Second edition, revised
and in part rewritten. Illus., large 8vo, uncut, pp. 420.
Oxford University Press, $3.10.
Li Livres du Gouvernement des Rois: AXIIIth Century
French Version of Egidio Colonna's Treatise "De º:
ine Principum,” Now First Published from the Kerr MS.
Edited by Samuel Paul Molenaer, A.M. With frontispiece,
8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 461. Macmillan Co. $3. net.
Studies in International Law. By Thomas Erskine Hol-
land, D.C.L. Large 8vo, uncut, pp. 314. Oxford Univer-
sity Press. $2.60.


THE
DIAL
3 &tmi-ſºlonthlg 3ournal of 3Literarg Criticism, HBigtuggion, amb Information.
THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of
each month. TERMs of SUBscRIPTION, 82.00 a year in advance, postage
prepaid in the United States, Canada, and Merico; 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. Advertisng RATEs furnished
on application. All communications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, 315 Wabash Ave., Chicago.
MARCH 1, 1899.
No. 305. Vol. XXVI.
CONTENTS.
- page
THE LITERARY LIFE . . . . . . . . . . 143
LITERARY STANDARDS. R. W. Conant . . . 145
COMMUNICATIONS . . . . 147
School Legislation for Large Cities and Small.
Aaron Gove.
The Renaissances in Japan. Ernest W. Clement.
An English Version of “Barbara Freitchie.”
J. G. M.
“Death to the Spanish Yoke.”
THE MEMORIALS OF LORD SELEORNE. E. G. J. 149
THE SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Charles H. Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . 151
THE FUNCTIONS AND REVENUES OF GOVERN-
MENT. Mar West . . . . . . . . . . . 153
TWO GREAT. EVANGELISTS. Hiram M. Stanley 154
TRAVEL IN MANY LANDS. Ira M. Price . . . 156
Conway's With Ski and Sledge.—Hyne's Through
Arctic Lapland. – Robertson's Chitral. — Mrs.
Armstrong-Hopkins's Within the Purdah. — Little's
Through the Yangtse Gorges. – Rathborne's Camp-
ing and Tramping in Malaya.--Stoddard's A Cruise
under the Crescent. – Rose's With the Greeks in
Thessaly.— Burrows's The Land of the Pigmies.
Alexander Jessup.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . 158
More history of the Royal Navy.—Story of the Union
of Italy. — “Trimalchio's Dinner.” — Twelve cen-
turies of British history.-C. A. Dana's Recollections
of the Civil War.—Newly discovered early poems of
Shelley.—Social life and requirements in the British
Army.—Modern German culture.— Growth and curi-
osities of South London. — Foundations and mutual
relations of the sciences. – American essays and ad-
dresses.—Historic Pilgrimages in New England. —
With De Soto in Florida.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
LITERARY NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS . . . . . 163
LIST OF NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . 164
THE LITERARY LIFE.
There are many deserving persons to whom
“The Pen and the Book” — for thus is Sir
Walter Besant's latest pronouncement entitled
— will bring cheer. They are the persons who
fondly imagine themselves to be leading, wholly
or in part, the Literary Life, yet who find the
public looking somewhat askance at their pro-
fession, and inclined to subject their pretensions
to a considerable discount. They are haunted
by the fear that their efforts will be disparag-
ingly dubbed journalism; or, even if it be ad-
mitted that they produce what are to outward
seeming books, that the harsh world will clas-
sify these productions among the biblia a-biblia
of Charles Lamb's famous catalogue. Smart-
ing under such cynical thrusts, these worthy
souls may take heart again at the words,
“When, therefore, we speak of the Literary
Life, it should include all those who produce
literature.” And, lest any modest scribbler
should still be in doubt as to whether this
definition is catholic enough to cover his own
product, the assurance quickly follows: “I
include the whole of current printed work—
good and bad, the whole production of the
day — whatever is offered.” Being thus con-
vinced that he is leading the Literary Life —
of which he may even have had no suspicion
up to this time — our supposititious writer will
be pleased to read a little farther on, that “the
Literary Life may be, in spite of many dangers
and drawbacks, by far the happiest life that
the Lord has permitted mortal man to enjoy.”
This is warming to the cockles of the heart,
and he would be a morose penman indeed who
could fail to catch something of the glow of the
author's cheery optimism.
Sir Walter's roseate imagination is at its best
when he is engaged in a statistical presentation
of the reading public, or when he is contrasting
the Literary Life of the eighteenth century with
that of the nineteenth or twentieth. “Look here,
upon this picture, and on this,” he seems to say
as he pens the following contrasted passages:
“Come back with me for a moment to the middle of
the eighteenth century. . . . Everybody proclaimed in
some way or other by his appearance the nature of his
calling: and everybody enjoyed in this way such dignity
and respect as belonged to his calling. How did the
poet appear? He was to be seen every day and all day


144
[March 1,
THE DIAL
long: he haunted the coffee-houses, the eating-houses,
and the taverns of Fleet Street and its neighborhood.
Alone among men he had no uniform. Yet he could be
recognized by his rags. Everybody knew the company
of wits in the tavern: they were notoriously, horribly
poor; notoriously they had neither principles nor honour;
nor dignity: for a guinea, it was said, they would write
satires, epigrams, anything for or against either side or
anybody. Since the people only saw the ragged side,
they supposed that the whole army was in rags; it
seemed to them the only profession whose normal or
customary condition was one of rags.
“Let us consider next what is the kind of life led
daily by the modern man of letters—not a great genius,
not a popular author: but a good steady man of letters
of the kind which formerly had to inhabit the garrets
of Grub Street. This man, of whom there are many—
or this woman, for many women now belong to the pro-
fession—goes into his study every morning as regu-
larly as a barrister goes to chambers; he finds on his
desk two or three books waiting for review; a MS. sent
him for an opinion; a book of his own to go on with –
possibly a life of some dead and gone worthy for a
series; an article which he has promised for a magazine;
a paper for the “Dictionary of National Biography’;
perhaps an unfinished novel to which he must give three
hours of absorbed attention. This goes on, day after
day, all the year round. There is never any fear of
the work failing as soon as the writer has made himself
known as a trustworthy and an attentive workman. The
literary man has his club: he makes an income by his
labour which enables him to live in comfort, and to ed-
ucate his children properly. Now, this man a hundred
years ago would have been — what you have seen—an
object of contempt for his poverty and helplessness: the
cause of contempt for Literature itself.”
The picture thus outlined for us of the life of
the professional literary worker of our own
times is certainly a pleasant one, and it does
not seem to us overdrawn, except possibly as to
the practical certainty of continuous employ-
ment. It is, however, a life that is possible
only in a very small number of the largest
centres of population and publishing enterprise.
In the United States, for example, it is unques-
tionably possible in New York, precariously
possible in about three other cities, and prac-
tically impossible anywhere else.
If Sir Walter works no great wonders with
his descriptions, he certainly does with his
figures. We may possibly allow his estimate
that twenty thousand persons in England are
to-day, wholly or in part, leading the Literary
Life, although to do this the words “in part"
must receive much emphasis, since the census
returns show less than six thousand actually
classified as authors, editors, and journalists.
For the United States, we should have nearly
to double these figures; and we reflect, not
without amusement, that even the lesser num-
ber provided by the census must include the
editors of country newspapers and the compilers
of city directories. Still, we may admit that in
this country forty thousand persons may pos-
sibly, at some time or other, do some kind of
writing for publication in books or periodicals.
But when we come to Sir Walter's notion of
the reading public, the imagination fairly balks
at the figures offered for our acceptance. First
of all, he estimates that in 1750 the “possible
readers or inquirers after new books” numbered
thirty thousand in the three kingdoms. Eighty
years later, in 1830, this number may have
increased to fifty thousand. So far, so good.
These figures are certainly conservative enough.
But when the author contemplates the reading
public that to-day awaits the new English books,
he loses the sense of proportion. Because one
hundred and twenty millions of people all over
the earth are able to read the English language,
he assumes that most of them are eagerly fol-
lowing the literary developments of the period.
For seventy years ago, he will allow only one
person in about five hundred to have been
“interested in new books.” Now, owing to the
spread of popular education, he thinks of the
whole five hundred (including children in
arms) as readers. In other words, while mak-
ing excessive reductions for the earlier years
selected for comparison, he allows no deductions
at all for the present and the future. This
statement will seem so astonishing as to need
a quotation in verification. Here it is: “In
fifty years' time, unless some check — some
everwhelming national disaster — happens to
this country, or the United States, or to our
colonies, the population of the English-speaking
race will be more than doubled. There will be
at least two hundred and fifty millions — all of
them, on an average, far better educated than
at the present moment, and all readers of
books.” We are willing to allow an enormous
increase in the present ratio of readers to non-
readers, as compared with the ratio of 1830;
but if the latter be taken as one to five hundred,
the former can hardly be taken as larger than
twenty-five to five hundred.
The sort of arithmetic wherewith Sir Walter
seeks to enhance the opportunities of the Lit-
erary Life of the present day must be illus-
trated more specifically. We are willing to be
liberal, and to accept, for example, the conclu-
sions of the following sentence: “Sixty years
ago there was no Chicago at all: now there is
a city with two million inhabitants, of whom
one-half are decently educated and read books,
and quite one hundred thousand are interested
in new literature.” Observe, however, that this


1899.] THE
IXIAL 145
is a ratio of only one to twenty, as compared
with the author's ratio for 1830, and is a very
different thing from the claim that nearly
everybody belongs to the audience upon which
a new writer can count. This is simply an
appeal from Philip drunk with optimism to
Philip sober in the presence of facts. But we
cannot find much sobriety in the author's no-
tions of the number of readers to be reckoned
for each individual copy of a book or periodical.
He actually counts an average of twenty readers
for every copy of a magazine and five hundred
for every copy of a book. To say that these
estimates are wild is to use moderate language.
One of the most popular of our American
monthlies some years ago claimed a million
readers on the strength of an average circu-
lation of two hundred thousand copies. We
thought this claim of five readers to a copy
excessive, and the publishers obviously went as
far as they dared in making it. But Sir Walter
would give them four millions of readers instead
of a poor single million. As for the five hun-
dred readers that Sir Walter counts for each
copy of a popular novel, we must insist upon a
discount of at least ninety-five per cent.
Twenty-five readers would be a generous esti-
mate, and we doubt if a circulating-library
copy ever got up to the five hundred mark.
Most books would be in tatters after going
through the hands of one hundred, or at the
most two hundred, readers.
It is evident that the above remarks are not
to be taken as a review of “The Pen and the
Book.” Indeed, we have not touched upon its
main contents, which embody an elaborate
setting-forth of the commercial aspect of author-
ship, although we may take up this subject in
the near future. As a champion of the writer
in his relations with the publisher, Sir Walter
has been a stout fighter for many years past,
and in this book he presents the results of a
thorough, practical investigation of the methods
of publishing and the cost of producing books.
He has made many enemies by his work in this
field, and his assertions have occasioned a great
deal of acrimonious debate. We have read a
considerable quantity of this controversial mat-
ter, and are bound to say that Sir Walter is
armed cap-a-pie to meet his assailants, and that
he usually has the best of the argument. We also
wish to say that writers inexperienced in deal-
ing with publishers will find profitable reading in
“The Pen and the Book,” to say nothing of the
pleasure to be got from its skilful literary pre-
sentation of a subject of much general interest.
LITERARY STANDARDS.
When and where is to appear the true Prophet of
the Literati, - he who is to stand and cry, Behold
the ideal taste, the perfect writer, the Ultimate
Authority | We hear much about the “best literary
taste,” and the conscientious toilers of the pen, those
who have not yet reached the comfortable conclu-
sion that they know it all, spend many an anxious
hour in self-examination, more or less illuminated by
the feeble “glims” of favorable or adverse critics.
What a help and comfort it would seem to be,
alike to writers, readers, and publishers, if some
literary Mahomet might arise to declare with con-
vincing power, “There is but one Standard, and I
am its Prophet !” Then all of us — or at least all
afflicted with a conscience — might give o'er the
weary search for the ideal, for we would know just
what to write about and how ; and readers who
valued their mental and moral status would know
just what to read; and the world's shelves would
groan no more under the load of books which infal-
lible publishers have brought to an ill-conceived
birth.
But would we? Even though a literary angel
should come from Heaven with unimpeachable cre-
dentials, would it make any appreciable difference?
Would the number of false and foolish books be
seriously diminished? Would the millions leave
off soddening their none too nimble wits in a steep
of sickly sentiment and vapid thought? I fear not.
And yet every writer who has high ideals, and
has, besides, the saving grace to feel dissatisfied with
his own accomplishment, has moments when he
longs for one clear, sure voice amid the cackle of
conflicting criticism, one bright, fixed polestar in
the uncertain sky. He has tasted the “classics,”
only to be more fully persuaded how wisely and
wittily Mark Twain has described them. He sam-
ples modern models, only to find many men, many
minds. Each author has his constituency of ad-
mirers; to others he is either indifferent or alto-
gether anathema. One is too psychological, another
is all “fight and love” stories; one is naughty with-
out being nice, another too nice to be either naughty
or interesting; here one discusses “problems,” there
it is a problem that he is discussing; this one ser-
monizes, that scandalizes; one is too smart, another
too simple; this one buries his little grain of thought
in a bushel of verbiage, that one sends forth the
children of his brain too scantily clothed for de-
cency; alike in the dense air of realism and in the
rarified air of hyper-idealism we gasp for breath:
and so it goes.
In such a state of things, what is the writer and
reader to do who is ambitious to improve his style
and cultivate his taste: is he to go with the crowd,
calling all things good which others call good, or is
he to lay himself open to the charge of conceit and
presumption by daring to exercise his independent
judgment, even of the Immortals? Is it all a delu-
sion, anyhow, this talk about higher and lower


146 THE DIAL
[March 1,
taste, – the distinction being as valid as that well-
known difference between orthodoxy and hetero-
doxy? If there is no absolute standard, how shall
one taste be higher or another lower P Perhaps,
after all, it is only a matter of time, circumstance,—
and luck.
- Worse yet, the past sheds no light on the present
or the future. The books which delighted the
fathers excite in us either distaste or the very gentle
interest of the “classicist.” Books change and we
change with them; but is it up or down? In short,
is there any real literary evolution?
There is but one way out of this fog of other
people's tastes and opinions: to see that our ques-
tion is only one phase of a much larger one. That
question is world-wide and world-old: Pontius Pilate
was not the first to ask it; it knows no bounds
of time or space. The whole literary, moral, and
social order, nay, even the universe itself, ravels
out into a pitiful reductio ad absurdum unless we
assume the existence of an Absolute Standard of
truth and beauty. This is a necessity, not of reli-
gion only, but of sanity as well.
A second postulate is equally imperative: the
soul of man is made in the image of that Standard,
and its normal growth is along the lines of eternal
verities.
These two postulates being granted, things begin
to clear up. Now we are less anxious to know what
A, B, and C think of the thoughts we have written,
than to know they are true. Now we can go on
bravely and hopefully, our only concern being the
normal development of that germ of the Infinite
within us. Now we know that all distortions of
truth, all affectations of beauty, being violations of
eternal laws, must come to naught; whatever vogue
they may have at first, they are ephemerae.
But the path, though clearer, is still far from
easy. Eternal vigilance is the price of sanity. The
beginnings of error are as infinitesimally insidious
as the microscopic germs which infect the body;
and the mind has a fatal facility for repeating an
error once begun, until it becomes a bias, then a
habit, and finally a characteristic. Life is a Sisy-
phean task of sifting and weighing, of making
errors and correcting them, but ever “approximat-
ing nearer and nearer to the limit of the variable,”
as the mathematicians say. That limit is Perfect
Judgment. That is the goal and rest of all this
fitful fever.
In all this struggle to approximate the truth, of
course the wise will not neglect the help to be derived
from others’ taste and judgment; but once the evi-
dence on any point is all before us, it is ourselves who
must decide. Of course we shall make mistakes,—
that, all are bound to do in any case; but better
sometimes wrong than always servile. Let us go
forward bravely, in the full assurance that the laws
of our being are the laws of Infinite Right.
But there is one essential condition, without it
there is no progress and no sanity: we must be abso-
butely honest with ourselves. How can he know
truth who lies even to his own soul! He (or she)
who, for love of gain or fame, cajoles himself to
believe that wrong is right; who, for pride or con-
ceit of opinion, will not allow himself to see his
error; who twists the truth to fit a story or a theory;
who from love of ease seeks not to know the truth,
or stifles it for fear of others' criticism, -none such
need ever hope for perfect judgment or perfect taste.
Truth is the oxygen of the soul. While they im-
agine they are clever, they are fools, for they are
asphyxiating their own souls to an eternal death.
But would not the subjection of all literature to the
test of truth be a long step backward, reducing us to
sermons and scientific theses? By no means,—even
granting that sermons and theses are invariably ves-
sels of truth. Broadly speaking, all literature which
makes for the betterment of man, either directly,
or indirectly through saneful wit and humor, is true
literature. It need not be professedly moral, but
its influence must not be immoral. To that extent,
Tolstoi is right. All literature which presents ideas
with which the facts do not agree; which excites
silly, morbid, or vulgar feelings and aspirations;
which makes a jest of that which is sacred, shame-
ful, or revolting; which vulgarizes by too great
familiarity with vulgarity; which makes the wrong
appear the better reason; which apotheosizes vice
or calls buffoonery humor, – all such literature, of
infinite variety of shade and grade, is either dis-
tinctly vicious or at best is trashy. No wonder that
such fatal and fantastic notions of life and happi-
ness shock the world by working out their logical
and inevitable conclusions in crime and suicide from
the flood of trash literature continually poured forth,
even through our public libraries, to glut the morbid
appetite of those least able to discriminate.
But is there any best literary style? The best
style is any style which best subserves the ends of
true literature. It is a mistake to take for granted
that there is no longer room for originality in style,
treatment, or subject. Well worked though the
field now seems to be, there are doubtless undiscov-
ered tracts of virgin soil only awaiting the pioneer
pen to laugh back with as rich a harvest, as has
ever yet been seen. To the fathers, who found per-
fect satisfaction in “Rasselas ”or “The Vicar of
Wakefield,” it doubtless seemed that the Ultima
Thule of popular literature had been reached; now
those literary superlatives are relegated to the dig-
nified and dubious limbo of “classics.” The varia-
tions of the written thought, as of all things human,
are the variations of the human soul; and they are
infinite.
Three examples out of many illustrate this point
of originality: Carlyle, Emerson, Kipling. Each
had an independent mind, which, boldly desert-
ing the trodden paths, struck out for itself into the
woods an original line of thought and style. At
first the world, always shy of truth in unaccustomed
guise, refused to follow; now it hails them gladly
to Parnassus.
But these were geniuses. Verily; yet we who,


1899.] THE
DIAL 147
alas, are only common clay, may profit by their ex-
ample. We too are free to try new paths in style
and subject; perchance even we can find something
to write about fresher than the worn-to-death rela-
tion of the sexes, and tell it in a best way of our
own devising. Mr. Stephen Crane made the attempt
gallantly enough, but only half-successfully. His
well-praised, well-execrated little book holds a few
gems of expression which glisten like diamonds in
a dreary waste of sand. Mr. Crane's psychology
is positively painful; but in “The Red Badge of
Courage” he really struck a new lead in flashlight
word-pictures which is worth developing; some day
the man or woman is coming who will do it, if he
does not.
Poets are born, publishers are made: writers
must be both born and made. None need lose
heart, for none can say what is in him until he has
done his best. But right here is the danger point.
That Best is no Jonah's gourd, but a plant of slowest
growth, fed by thought, study, and experience,—
mayhap watered by tears and watched with care,
only to bloom as the westering shadows lengthen.
But whether or no it bloom in this world is a minor
matter; the great matter is, Have we written our-
selves down as a part of the Truth and the Beauty
which are Eternal? “Let each paint the thing as
he sees it, for the God of things as they are.”
R. W. ConANT.
COMMUNICATIONS.
SCHOOL LEGISLATION FOR LARGE CITIES
AND SMALL.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
Recent and current school legislation for cities is
rightfully attracting attention. With the illustration of
the Cleveland law and its six years of trial, sufficient
evidence is presented of the efficacy of at least some of
the changes thereby accomplished. The discussion and
presentation of the subject so far contemplates and
provides for the conduct of schools in large cities only.
The measures presented by the Chicago Commission,
also of the Detroit Committee, are quite similar. In a
general way, the belief that they suggest needed reforms
is generally accepted. For the thirty cities in the
country reported by the Commissioner of Education as
exceeding one hundred thousand population, the propo-
sition stated must be accepted as pointing to a more
efficient school administration. Provision for these
thirty cities, if applicable to them alone, leaves nearly
six hundred other cities with a population exceeding
eight thousand, the schools of which are all at least of
equal importance to the country with those of these great
cities.
It will be found that the two chief features of the
proposed reform are: first, the divorce of the board of
education from executive duty, and confining it to leg-
islation; second, the placing of the direct personal
responsibility where a strict account for acts can be de-
manded and easily given.
While it is possible that the framers of the proposed
legislation have in mind primarily, as the Chicago Com-
mission announces, that organization which shall be best
for a given city, it will be found that a city which for
any reason is unable to provide and maintain two dis-
tinct departments in administration — namely, business
and educational—if the board confine itself to legisla-
tion, can unite the two under one executive officer.
The superintendent of schools in smaller cities is able,
or should be able, to execute not only efficiently on the
educational side but also on the business side. Observa-
tions of several smaller cities in the country illustrate
that where this has been the practice for a series of
years the schools have been accorded a measure of
reputable standing. While modifications will be de-
manded of the Detroit, St. Louis, or Chicago plan, for
cities of fifty thousand people, they will be slight; but
the erection of divers departments in other than large
cities will bring embarrassment financially, and ulti-
mately an unsatisfactory outcome.
As Dr. Hinsdale said in your last issue, it may be that
no single type of system will follow the present interest
in this subject. To my mind it is reasonably certain
that a general type of management of schools in cities
will be found to existere long, not only in the thirty great
cities of more than one hundred thousand people, but also
in the cities of less size. It is not so great a misfortune
that thought and study has been exclusively for the great
communities; but, after all, if a commission similar to
the Chicago Commission should undertake to formulate
a plan for cities in the neighborhood of fifty thousand
people, more communities would be directly benefitted
than at present. AARON Gove.
Denver, Colo., Feb. 20, 1899.
THE RENAISSANCES IN JAPAN.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
It is a trite but none the less true saying, that “his-
tory repeats itself.” The capture of Constantinople by
the Turks in the fifteenth century scattered the learned
men of the East and their learning over the West, and
produced throughout Europe a Renaissance whose vast
influence has never yet been accurately measured, and
which was undoubtedly one of the chief elements in
modern civilization. Again, it was Tartar hordes, which,
about two hundred years later, overthrew the reigning
native dynasty of China, and unwittingly produced in
the neighboring land of Japan a Renaissance which led
ultimately to the Restoration of 1868, and was evidently
one of the chief elements in the civilization of New
Japan. For, as the Greek scholars, fleeing from Con-
stantinople, took refuge in various countries of Europe,
likewise many patriotic Chinese scholars fled from their
native land and took refuge in Japan. Or, as the fugi-
tive Greek savants stirred up throughout Western Eu-
rope a revival of learning, in like manner the fugitive
Chinese scholars aroused in Japan a deeper interest in
Oriental learning.
The influence exerted in Japan by the learned Chi-
nese refugees, especially by one named Shu Shun-sui, was
considerable. This one man was in 1665 invited by
Mitsukuni, the famous Prince of Mito, to take up his
abode with that clan. The Mito Prince was at the time
engaged in the preparation of the “Dai Nihon Shi,” or
“Great Japanese History,” which “had so powerful an
influence in forming the public opinion which now up-
1 holds the Mikado's throne”; and he invited the assist-
ance of at least one of these Chinese scholars in correcting
this work, which was written in Chinese. And although
there is no positive evidence that this assistance extended


148 THE DIAL
[March 1,
beyond textual correction, yet it is not at all improbable
that even this slight opportunity was utilized for teach-
ing loyalty to the central authority.
But, besides the direct and indirect literary work of
these learned refugees, we must not lose sight of the
deeper interest which, by their very presence, was nat-
urally aroused in the study of Chinese literature and
philosophy. It is, of course, a difficult matter to trace
clearly the extent of such influence; but it is generally
admitted by those who have studied the subject, that
the presence of Chinese literati in Japan did give a
greater impetus to learning. It is, indeed, true that the
revival of learning had, before their arrival, begun un-
der the auspices of Iyeyasu himself, who, after he had
conquered a peace, reorganized the Empire on the fuedal
basis, and practically settled upon the policy of seclu-
sion and crystallization, “determined also to become
the architect of the national culture.” He encouraged
study, especially of the Chinese classics, and stimulated
education. It is, therefore, no wonder that the Chinese
savants received a warm welcome; and it seems, under
the circumstances, as if they had “come to the king-
dom for such a time as this.”
But this Renaissance had a still wider influence, which
extended even to political affairs. There were, in fact,
three lines along which the Japanese were gradually led
back to Imperialism. One line was Confucianism, which
taught loyalty; another was historical research, which
exhibited the Shogun as a usurper; and a third was the
revival of Pure Shinto, which accompanied or followed
the second. But the Japanese so modified Chinese
Confucianism as to substitute loyalty for filial duty as
the most important element. “The Shinto and the
Chinese teachings became amalgamated in a common
cause, and thus the philosophy of Chu Hi, mingling with
the nationalism and patriotism inculcated by Shinto,
brought about a remarkable result.” To change slightly
the figure used above, the Japanese were led over three
roads from Feudalism to Imperialism. There was the
broad and straight highway of historical research: on
the right side, generally parallel with the main road,
and often running into it, was the path of Shinto; on
the opposite side, making frequently a wide detour to
the left, was the road of Confucianism; but eventually
all these roads led to Kyoto and the Emperor.
It seems as if, with the aid of Chinese savants, the
famous Mito Prince, Mitsukuni, the “Japanese Maece-
nas,” a scholar himself and the patron of scholars, set
on foot a Renaissance in literature, learning, and poli-
tics, and has been appropriately styled “the real author
of the movement which culminated in the Revolution of
1868.” And the effects of this Renaissance are still
being felt in another Revival of Learning, this time along
Occidental lines. To what will this new Revival lead 7
ERNEST W. CLEMENT.
Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 1, 1899.
AN ENGLISH VERSION OF * BARBARA
FREITCHIE.”
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
In his admirable work on “Stonewall Jackson and
the American Civil War,” the author, Colonel Hender-
son, says of his hero: “So general was the belief in his
stern and merciless nature, that a great poet did not
hesitate to link his name with a deed which, had it actu-
ally occurred, would have been one of unexampled
cruelty. Such calumnies as Whittier's ‘Barbara Frit-
chie,” etc. (Vol. I, p. 80.)
The point is not important—but one wonders where
the “calumny” is in Whittier's poem, or what sort of
a version of it circulates in England. The poem merely
says that when Jackson rode up the street of Frederick
City at the head of his troops, and “the old flag met
his sight,” he ordered his men to blaze away at it, which
they did; but later, when the owner of the flag, Dame
Barbara, appeared on the scene and snatched the fallen
flag, and leaned far out o'er the window-sill and shook
it forth with a royal will, Jackson announced that any-
one who touched a hair of her gray head should die like
a dog, or words to that effect.
The facts on which the poem is based have been dis-
puted, and the whole thing is perhaps a little apochry-
phal; but it is hard to see where the “unexampled
cruelty” would come in, were everything actually true
that is stated in the poem. J. G. M.
Cleveland, Ohio, Feb. 24, 1899.
“DEATH TO THE SPANISH YOKE.”
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
Apropos of the various discussions of war poems that
have appeared in THE DIAL, I would like to call your
attention to one which has no greater defects than many
which have been exploited as the war poems of the cen-
tury. Its publication was anonymous.
The verses contain, at least, elements of what Stev-
enson calls “the fervid participation of the moment.”
Whether they exhibit any marked poetic talent, the
reader may judge for himself.
ALEXANDER JESSUP.
Westfield, Mass., Feb. 16, 1899.
[Our correspondent's letter makes us anxious to
have it understood that the discussions, and not the
war poems, are what have appeared in THE DIAL.
We print this war poem, however, and with it the
lines from which it is clumsily and impudently
cribbed, in order that “the reader may judge for
himself” as to its “poetic talent,” and especially
its quality of “fervid participation of the moment”
which our correspondent discerns in it. It is a hard
thing to say of our Jingo poetry, that this is no worse
than most of it; but we fear it is true. We do not
wonder it was published anonymously.—EDR. DIAL.]
American Jingo poet.
Where shall the Spaniards rest,
Whom our shots sever,
From all that life holds best
Parted forever?
Where our shots thickly fly,
Death is their pillow,
As all true Spaniards die,
Under the billow.
There on Manila bay
Cool waters are laving,
There on the crested spray
Our shots are paving
Death to the Spanish yoke,
Parted forever,
Never again to wake,
Never, oh never!
Her wings shall the sea-bird flap
O'er the false-hearted,
Their * blood the waves shall
ap
Ere life be parted;
Shame and dishonor sit
By their side ever,
Victory shall hallow it
Never, oh never!
sir WALTER scort.
Where shall the lover rest,
Whom the fates sever,
From his true maiden's breast
Parted forever?
Where thro' groves deep and high
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die
Under the willow.
There through the Summer day
Cool streams are laving;
There while the tempests sway
Scarce are boughs waving;
There thou thy rest shall take
Parted forever,
Never again to wake,
Never, oh never !
Her wing shall the eagle flap
O'er the false-hearted,
His * blood the wolf shall
ap
Ere life be parted;
Shame and dishonor sit
By his grave ever,
Blessing shall hallow it
Never, oh never!
*


1899.] THE
TXIAL 149
Čbe #tto $ochs.
THE MEMORIALs of LORD SELBORNE.*
The concluding instalment, in two sizable
volumes, of the late Earl of Selborne’s “Me-
morials” is mainly a restatement of the author's
views on the major public questions which arose
during the period covered (1865–1895), and
an explanation of his professional and official
courseregarding them. Some of the chapters are
rather freely diluted with matter that will inter-
est Lord Selborne's relatives and closer friends
rather than the public at large; but the volumes
on the whole may safely be pronounced solid and
informing, if not especially animated or graphic,
additions to the large and growing stock of
reminiscences of Victorian times. Lord Sel-
borne's gifts and temperament were hardly such
as to qualify him to shine as a writer of memoirs
of the lighter personal and reminiscential order,
a species of writing in which many a social
trifler equipped with a lively pen and a taste
for gossip might easily have excelled him. Of
chat about notable contemporaries, therefore,
the volumes will seem to many readers to con-
tain disappointingly little.
That Lord Selborne, where the subject was
an imposing one and where his sympathies were
deeply engaged, was no mean hand at painting
a portrait and defining a character, his strong
and refreshingly independent characterization
of Gladstone conclusively shows. Now that
Mr. Lecky has, in a recent preface, calmly pro-
nounced “the texture of Mr. Gladstone's intel-
lect” to have been of the “commonplace”
order, we may confidently look to see the inev-
itable reactionary tide of disparagement of the
Grand Old Man of liberalism and parliament-
ary manoeuvre fairly set in. Much evil has of
course been spoken of Mr. Gladstone in the
past by his political foes, who, not content with
attacking his policy, have impugned his motives,
and even attempted to injure his character by
the foulest aspersions. But detraction of that
sort is politics, not criticism; and we suspect
that the recent verdict of Mr. Lecky himself
regarding the quality of Mr. Gladstone's intel-
lect is tinged by his known opinion of the
quality of Mr. Gladstone's measures, more
especially his Irish agrarian measures; for it is
difficult for even a philosopher to admit that a
*MEMORIALs, PERsonAL AND PoliticAL, 1865–1895. By
Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne. In two volumes. With
portraits, New York: The Macmillan Co.
fruit he happens to personally dislike can spring
from any but an inferior and weakly tree. Lord
Selborne disagreed pretty sharply with Mr.
Gladstone on some points, almost from the first
years of their connection; and he was very far
from keeping pace with his early oracle and
paragon in the latter's dramatic yet gradual
and deliberate advance from the one extreme
to the other of British opinion. This advance
(the term is perhaps open to criticism as a
question-begging one) Lord Selborne, who had
himself gathered caution and conservatism with
ripening years in the usual and normal way,
must have inwardly regarded as a sort of intel-
lectual and political Rake's Progress on the
part of the once “rising hope” of all that was
venerable and established in England. Nor
does he refrain from using language of some
bitterness when he comes to speak of the clos-
ing phase of Mr. Gladstone's career. If it be
true, says Lord Selborne, that down to the end
of June, 1886, Gladstone “kept the great con-
troversy on the heights,” it was certainly not
long afterwards that he ceased to do so, his
power of self-persuasion affecting his moral
judgments in a way that would have been
deemed impossible in earlier years. In the con-
stant stress and turmoil of electioneering since
1886, in which he played the leading part, there
was little to remind men of the Gladstone of
old, save the old eloquence, energy, and daunt-
less courage, qualities more remarkable than
ever when displayed by the man past eighty.
“A new “transmigration of spirit” came over him;
he accepted it with as much alacrity and apparent self-
satisfaction as if it had always been so; he invested it
with the authority of his age, his name, his character;
and under its influence the statesman was transformed
into the demagogue. Mr. Parnell became, for four years,
until he himself broke the spell, the special object of his
admiration; and other violent spirits of the ‘League'
were glorified as heroes and martyrs. . . . He became
the apologist of the methods by which his new allies
carried on their warfare against landlords and the law
in Ireland. . . . All sorts of schemes for parliament-
ary interference with rights of property, and with
the freedom of capital and labor, budded and blos-
somed under the capacious shelter of the new Liberal
“umbrella,” not without a sanguine hope that, in the good
time coming, they would be entertained by the great
leader “with an open mind': and there was no ‘plain
speaking’ to discourage that hope. What the final
issue of these things may be, cannot be foretold; but if
it should be the decay and degradation of British states-
manship, and the triumph of anarchical forces, hostile
to the life of freedom, “while they shout her name,” Mr.
Gladstone will have contributed to it more than any
other man.”
Searching history for a parallel to Mr. Glad-
stone's peculiarities as a statesman, Lord Sel-


150
[March 1,
THE DIAL
borne hits, not infelicitously, upon the Emperor
Joseph II., as drawn by Mr. Lecky.
“Ambitious, fond of power, and at the same time
restless and impatient, his mind was to the highest de-
gree susceptible to the political ideas that were floating
through the intellectual atmosphere of Europe; and he
was an inveterate dreamer of dreams. Large, compre-
hensive, and startling schemes of policy, — radical
changes in institutions, manners, tendencies, habits, and
traditions,— had for him an irresistible fascination.”
Impatient of opposition to his opinion of the
moment, Mr. Gladstone's opinions were in a
constant and continuous state of flux and de-
composition. His view of any given question
of importance was changing, even while he was
maintaining it with the zeal and apparent con-
viction of a prophet. “With great appearance
of tenacity at any given moment, his mind was
apt to be moving indirectly down an inclined
plane.” Mr. Gladstone could be quoted against
Mr. Gladstone on almost any leading or funda-
mental public question whatever. To find a
powerful and convincing plea against what
Mr. Gladstone was urging to-day, you had only
to turn back to what Mr. Gladstone was urging
yesterday. Agrarian schemes that yesterday
were stigmatized as “rapine” and “plunder”
were extenuated and even justified to-day as
quite excusable and useful moves in a patriotic
Plan of Campaign. “Boycotting,” that in
1882 was denounced as “combined intimida-
tion, made use of for the purpose of destroying
private liberty of choice by fear of starvation,
—inflicting ruin, and driving men to do what
they did not want to do, and preventing them
from doing what they had a right to do,” be-
came, after 1886, under the magic of Mr. Glad-
stone's faculty of self-persuasion and matchless
dialectic, mere “exclusive dealing,” or a form
of trades-unionism that was “the only available
weapon for the Irish people, in their weakness
and poverty, against the wealthy and powerful.”
It would be easy to go on quoting from the
tale of Mr. Gladstone's thousand and one
“magnificent inconsistencies” (as his hardier
admirers called them) in proof of the, to our
thinking, not very damaging fact that the au-
thor of them was as different as could be from
the more common type of man who goes through
life a complacent slave to the faith he was born
in. But Lord Selborne's strictures clearly go
deeper than the charge of mere inconsistency.
If we are to accept his view unreservedly (which
we do not), Mr. Gladstone became in his later
years of political activity “a demagogue,”
an inflamer of popular animosities, of class
hatreds and class cupidities, – all this for the
sake of personal popularity and party advan-
tage. He degenerated into a sort of “Sand
Lots” haranguer of genius, the more dangerous
because of his genius. He was not honest,
either with himself or with others.
“He had a wonderful power of not seeing what he
did not like. He was a master of the art of throwing
dust into the eyes of those who were proper subjects for
that operation; and he could practise it not less skil-
fully upon himself.”
Let us turn for a moment to the lights of Lord
Selborne's by no means altogether or intention-
ally disparaging portrait of his former chief.
The secret of Mr. Gladstone's great popularity
he finds in the opinion generally entertained of
the purity of his motives, the elevation of his
character, in his sympathy with the people and
desire for their good, rather than in his energy,
eloquence, and intellectual gifts. Humanity
turned to him naturally, as to a friend, as to
one who felt more than other men of like gifts
and station the common kinship of all.
“His private life was indeed without a flaw. . . . He
preferred misconstruction to missing opportunities of
doing good. . . . His interests were wide and cosmo-
politan; his acquirements were multifarious, and all at
his command. He was a lover of music, poetry, the
drama, and the fine arts. . . . He spoke more than one
European language almost as easily as his own. He
was very high, if not first, in the first rank of modern
orators;—an orator of the diffuse florid kind, Ciceronian
rather than Demosthenic, lofty when dignity was neces-
sary, and at all times fluent and animated; abounding
in illustration and metaphor; every word in the right
place, every sentence well turned.”
American readers will be particularly inter-
ested in Lord Selborne's account of the
“Alabama’” arbitration. He was consulted
professionally by his government during the
negotiations prior to the Treaty of Washington,
and he acted as counsel for Great Britain be-
fore the Geneva Tribunal. The maltreatment
of this country by the British authorities dur-
ing the Civil War, in the matter of the Con-
federate privateers, is now res adjudicata and
admitted and deplored matter of history. But
Lord Selborne, with an advocate's obstinacy,
still endeavors to put America in the wrong.
If we won our case at Geneva it was mainly
through our bluster and chicane, through the
bias of arbitrators, through the generous for-
bearance of Great Britian, – that is the spirit
of his contention. He intimates that our nego-
tiators at the outset felt the importance of
“either complicating the question by irrelevant
issues, or to some extent prejudicing it by the
terms of reference.” He hints darkly at the
“wiles and subtleties” of the American law-


1899.] THE
DIAL 151
yers, at the “loaded dice” with which America
was allowed by the Rules to “play the game of
hazard.” With a wooden insensibility to the
essential fact that in the eyes of America the
trial at Geneva was symbolic, - that America
stood at the bar of the Tribunal, not as a mere
claimant of so many dollars and cents in a suit
for damages, but to demand moral satisfaction
and moral reparation in the sight of the world
for a great wrong, — Lord Selborne sneers at
the feeling injected into the American “Case.”
Its tone, he complains, “was acrimonious, totally
wanting in international courtesy.” Perhaps it
was. Perhaps the American “Case” was es-
sentially such that not to state it in strong
language would be tantamount to not stating it
at all. Perhaps a nation still smarting under
the recollection of the jeers, contumely, and
material damage inflicted upon it by a “neu-
tral” power, while its own hands were tied by
civil war, was justified in revealing a sense of
wrong even in a formal statement of its griev-
ances. The question is often asked, “Why does
America dislike England?” and ingenious ex-
planations are offered. But there is a plain
and sufficient answer to that question, and that
is, “Because England has shown in the past
so often and so offensively that she disliked
America.” She never showed it so conclusively
as during our Civil War, when our difficulties
absolved her from the immediate need of cau-
tion. The “Alabama’’ incident was but a
flagrant episode in the painful story of the atti-
tude toward us of the British Government and
the British cultured and influential classes dur-
ing that period. Russia alone stood our friend,
our friend in need; and to forget that now
would be the blackest ingratitude.
What was the “Alabama”? Let us answer
that question in the words of a distinguished
Englishman, Mr. W. E. Forster, the friend
and colleague of John Bright, who stood the
eloquent champion of the North, while Mr.
Gladstone was complacently proclaiming that
Jefferson Davis “had made an army, had made
a navy, and, more than that, had made a na-
tion.” Said Mr. Forster: “The ‘Alabama’ was
a British ship, built by British ship-builders,
and manned by a British crew; she lured prizes
to destruction under a British flag, and was
paid for by money borrowed from British cap-
italists.” All the logic-chopping and learned
technicalities of Lord Selborne at Geneva could
not obscure those facts. During her two-years
cruise the “Alabama” took some seventy North-
ern vessels, and literally drove our commerce
from the seas. As an English historian says:
“She went upon her destroying course with the cheers
of English sympathizers and the rapturous tirades of
English newspapers glorifying her. Every misfortune
that befell an American merchantman was received in
this country with a roar of delight.”
Let us add that when the “Alabama,” in
her first encounter with an antagonist of any-
thing like her own class and armament, was
shot to pieces after a brief engagement, her
fate was mourned sincerely and patriotically by
a chagrined British public. It was the last
action between a British and an American
vessel.
The student of the questions of church and
law reform dealt with in these concluding vol-
umes will find Lord Selborne's reflections
thereon of no little value. The correspondence
with which the work is freely interspersed is of
fair interest, and the author's occasional devia-
tions from the dignified, if somewhat diffuse,
exposition of his own political views into the
lighter paths of reminiscence will be welcomed
by the average reader. The editing has been
conscientiously done by Lady Sophia Palmer,
Lord Selborne's daughter and literary trustee.
The volumes are notably well made and con-
tain several portraits. E. G. J.
THE SECOND YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR.”
Mr. Ropes is giving to the world what seems
likely to be the standard history of our great
Civil War. As we took occasion to say when
his first volume appeared, he approaches his
work in the spirit of a historian and not as an
advocate of any general or any policy. Now
that a third of a century has elapsed since the
close of the war, the leading actors have all
passed off the stage, and the country has en-
tered upon a new era of its history, there seems
to be no reason why a really impartial and
authoritative narrative of that period cannot be
written; and there is much to warrant the
opinion that Mr. Ropes has produced that nar-
rative in its broad lines and its general judg-
ments of individuals and of movements and
campaigns.
The volume opens with the startling victory
at Forts Henry and Donelson, which broke the
Confederate line and recovered Kentucky and
Tennessee for the Union. The incapacity of
*THE STORY OF THE Civil WAR. By John Codman
Ropes. Volume II. The Campaigns of 1862. New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons.


152 THE DIAL
[March 1,
General Halleck is shown at the outset, and
continuously through the whole volume. It
becomes clear that he undertook this campaign
recklessly, without the knowledge of his supe-
riors and without the coöperation of his asso-
ciate commanders in the West. Mr. Ropes
asserts that Halleck “had no scheme in his
mind,” and that jealousy was a probable mo-
tive of his precipitate action. The administra-
tion was planning a campaign in East Tennes-
see; Halleck was afraid that his command
would be absorbed in that of Buell, so he
plunged into his campaign and compelled the
government to follow his lead. It was probably
the wisest move he could make; but the man-
ner of making it, and the way in which it was
followed up, deserve the severest censure.
The next step shows the “great reckless-
ness” of General Grant at Pittsburg Landing.
It was known to him and to his superior officer,
General Halleck, that the enemy was near in
great force; yet the army was retained in an
exceedingly faulty position, with no outposts,
no preparation to receive the enemy, no line of
battle or defense. The various camps were
established without system or plan of coöpera-
tion. “All the well-known maxims of war
applicable to such a position were absolutely
unheeded by General Grant. Probably there
never was an army encamped in an enemy's
country with so little regard to the manifest
risks which are inseparable from such a situa-
tion.” The Union generals estimated the ene-
my's forces at eighty thousand, against forty
thousand of their own forces; yet they were
blissfully unexpectant of an attack, and when
it came it was a complete surprise. Grant was
not on the field for several hours after the en-
gagement opened, and even after he came every
general acted for and by himself. He is de-
clared to have been at that time “incapable of
assuming the entire control and direction of a
great battle,” and “not equal to an emergency
of this magnitude.” The opportune arrival of
Buell's troops enabled Grant to win a great
victory the second day; but then came his
lamentable failure to follow up and destroy the
demoralized enemy. There was no reason why
he should not have done so, but “he utterly
failed to seize the opportunity,” “he entirely
failed to rise to the height of this occasion.”
If he had done what he might have done, the
Confederacy would have been irretrievably
weakened by the annihilation of one of its two
great armies. Evidently, Grant had not yet
found himself.
We cannot follow the interesting discussion
of the several campaigns of the eventful year
of 1862, and must content ourselves with stat-
ing a few of Mr. Ropes's judgments of men
and events. It is interesting to contrast his
estimates of the leading Federal generals with
those of the enemy. Those of the North, with
the simple exception of Buell, are shown to
have been failures more or less complete. Hal-
leck, McClellan, Pope, and Burnside make a
poor showing beside A. S. Johnston, J. E.
Johnston, and Lee. The appointment of Hal-
leck, though the natural one at the time, was as
bad as could have been made. He was without
insight to detect the crisis of a campaign, or
energy to strike when the moment of advan-
tage came. He is shown, in this impartial nar-
rative, as a weak man, self-confident, greedy of
power, ready to assume responsibility, unwill-
ing to coöperate generously with his associates,
guilty of disastrous blunders. He was not a
soldier by temperament or ability, though he
had written a highly esteemed.book on the art
of war and was accounted an authority on mili-
tary questions.
In his discussion of General McClellan and
the famous Peninsular Campaign, Mr. Ropes is
much less harsh than most writers, though the
General's weaknesses are plainly indicated.
His constitutional slowness, his excessive cau-
tion, his inability to estimate his enemy's power
and his consequent failure to take advantage of
his opportunities to strike a fatal blow, - all
these well-known defects are clearly shown.
But his skill as a tactician and organizer, and
as a leader of men, are also set forth; and
though his career as a whole is shown to be a
failure, and his defects the cause of the loss of
many thousands of lives and of the prolonga-
tion of the war, the reader feels that full jus-
tice has been done him. He, too, had oppor-
tunities, during this eventful year, to inflict a
fatal blow upon the enemy; but he failed to
use these opportunities, and hundreds of thou-
sands of lives were the penalty of his incompe-
tency. As for Pope and Burnside, there is no
need of taking space to show that Mr. Ropes
agrees with all other writers in declaring them
almost absurdly incompetent for the high posi-
tions to which they were appointed.
So, while the administration was groping
about for competent leaders for its armies, it
was training them, at fearful cost, for future
victories. Meanwhile, the civilians at the head
of the government, having little confidence in
their military agents, interfered and directed,


1899.] THE
DIAL 153
and made the bad conditions worse. It is a sad
story, but may as well be frankly told.
The Confederates, on the other hand, were
able to find at the outset competent leaders for
their armies. These, too, made blunders, and
many of them; but they were able men, and
used the forces committed to them wisely and
on the whole successfully. Of General Lee
Mr. Ropes says:
“In intellect it may be doubted whether he was supe-
rior to the able soldier whom he succeeded; . . . but
in that fortunate combination of qualities — physical,
mental, and moral — which go to make up a great com-
mander, General Lee was unquestionably more favored
than any of the leaders of the Civil War. . . . Lee's
position was unique; no army commander on either side
was so universally believed in — so absolutely trusted.
Nor was there ever a commander who better deserved
the support of his government, and the affection and
confidence of his soldiers.”
Lee was undoubtedly reckless, astonishingly so,
in his operations during this year, and gave
many opportunities to his enemies. But he
knew the calibre of the men opposed to him,
and that he could take liberties with them
which he could not have taken with competent
generals; and the results justified his reckless
boldness. He depended greatly, too, on his
able subordinates, especially Stonewall Jack-
son, who never but once failed him.
A portfolio of excellent maps accompanies
the volume. We shall look with interest for
Mr. Ropes's next volume, which will deal with
the stirring campaigns of Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg in the East and Wicksburg in the
West. CHARLEs H. CoopFR.
THE FUNCTIONS AND REVENUES OF
GOVERNMENT.”
The word “finance” has been persistently
used in English, both in everyday usage and
to some extent even in the works of economic
writers, as a general term referring rather
indefinitely to the whole range of monetary and
commercial affairs. But the Science of Finance,
in the more correct sense in which Professor
Adams uses the term, has to do only with pub-
lic expenditures and public income, and the
relations necessarily involved in their consid-
eration; it “undertakes an analysis of the wants
of the State and of the means by which those
*THE SCIENCE of FINANCE. An Investigation of Public
Expenditures and Public Revenues. By Henry Carter Adams,
Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy and Finance at
the University of Michigan. (American Science Series—
Advanced Course). New York: Henry Holt & Co.
wants may be supplied.” Problems of money,
currency, and banking, which have to do merely
with the mechanism by which financial opera-
tions are carried on, are not admitted to a place
in the science; much less are questions of
“private financiering,” such as have to do with
the management of business corporations. It
was natural enough that the same word should
be popularly applied to the revenues of states
and cities and to the funds of private corpora-
tions, but this double use of the word has led
to no little confusion.
Nearly all writers on the Science of Finance
devote comparatively little attention to expendi-
tures, or else neglect that side of the subject
altogether; and the result in either case is un-
satisfactory. It would seem that public expendi-
tures, considering the variety and importance of
the objects for which they are incurred, might
well receive even more attention than the man-
ner of meeting them; but the science of public
expenditures is as yet undeveloped, except as a
mere introduction to the study of revenues.
Professor Adams has, indeed, done not a little
to develop it, first in his “Relation of the
State to Industrial Action” and to some extent
in his “Public Debts,” and now in his more
comprehensive “Science of Finance.” He says
that “the Science of Finance has no opinion
respecting the question of the proper limit of
public duties,” but his actual treatment of the
subject is by no means so inadequate as this
disclaimer might lead one to expect. A few
passages by way of illustration:
“It is futile to urge disarmament, and the consequent
extinction of the military budget, so long as there con-
tinues to be a conflict of legal ideas. . . . It is no acci-
dent that the first approach to a successful tribunal for
the arbitration of international disputes should rest upon
negotiations for a treaty between England and the
United States, for these peoples practise the same sys-
tem of jurisprudence. Their theory of rights, and the
method by which they aim to enforce those-rights, are
the same. A standing international tribunal resting on
agreement between England and Russia, however, or
between the United States and China, is beyond the
range of reasonable expectation at the present time; for
it is only upon the basis of a common system of juris-
prudence that a system of international law can be
developed which shall render the preparation for war
unnecessary.”
“A local government may very properly enter upon
a more comprehensive line of activities than the national
government, since the more restricted the territory over
which a government has jurisdiction, the greater likeli-
hood will there be of community of interests among its
citizens.”
“It seems probable, when one regards the social evils
wrought by corporations in certain industries of collec-
tive interests, that local governments at least will ex-


154 THE DIAL
[March 1,
pand rather than contract the sphere of government
administration.”
“It is essential for the modern State to support pub-
lic instruction, because there is no other way to guard
against the fading of its own ideals through the rise of
an aristocracy of learning. It is natural that institutions
that look to the wealthy for further endowments should
be influenced in their administration by the interests of
the wealthy class; . . . and it requires no great insight
to perceive that the final result of exclusive reliance
upon private benefactions for any phase or grade of ed-
ucation will be that the instruction provided will not
only reflect the interests of a class, but will be confined
to a class. . . . A State which aims to perpetuate de-
mocracy cannot decline to make ample provision at
public expense for all phases and forms of education.
In no other way can a system of public instruction, which
is by far the most potent agency in shaping civilization,
be brought to the support of democracy.”
Again, we are told that the normal law of
public expenditures for the enforcement of fac-
tory legislation, and for public commissions, is
that such expenditures will continue to increase
until industrial development has run its course,
or until the character of government itself shall
have been changed by some great upheaval;
that governments must continually increase the
amount of money at the disposal of their statis-
tical service; that expenditures for forestry,
irrigation, and public improvements for the ben-
efit of commerce will also increase with the
growth of society; but that, on the other hand,
expenditures for the protective functions of the
State, as distinguished from its developmental
functions, tend to decrease in proportion as the
protective service of the State succeeds. There
is here at least the foundation of a science of
public activities.
Professor Adams rejects the statistical method
of studying public expenditures, and confines
himself to a theoretical discussion, because the
former could not be satisfactorily applied, and
because the latter is essential in any case. But
besides the a priori method on the one hand
and the purely statistical method on the other,
there is the historical-comparative method,
which is often applied to particular problems
of public economy, and might be employed in
developing the science as a whole. A theoret-
ical treatment, even when so philosophical as
that of Professor Adams, is not wholly satis-
factory, because the considerations which de-
termine governmental action are of an eminently
practical nature, and may easily vary from
place to place; while at the same time a merely
statistical study would not be enough, chiefly
because the more important results of govern-
mental action are incapable of quantitative
measurement. Neither political philosophy nor
statistics, therefore, ought to be expected to
determine what are the proper functions of
government.
The consideration of public revenues also
involves a study of certain governmental activ-
ities, which Professor Adams classifies into
industries undertaken for the purpose of secur-
ing revenue, those in which revenue is incidental
to service, and those undertaken primarily for
service; and for each class a distinct rule is
given for the adjustment of charges. The main
division of the work, however, is devoted to
Taxation. Here, after elucidating the princi-
ples, and approving progressive rates as being
most in accordance with individual ability, the
author devotes a chapter to “Suggestions for
a Revenue System.” He would assign to the
federal government the taxation of interstate
commerce, in addition to the customs and ex-
cise duties; to the States he would give taxes
on the business of corporations, other than
interstate commerce, and on inheritances; and
to the local governments he would assign taxes
on land, on professional incomes, on licenses,
and on municipal franchises. The theoretical
basis of this proposed arrangement is that each
government should tax those industries with
which it holds some fundamental or constitu-
tional relation.
Twelve years ago Professor Adams wrote
that “one of the chief difficulties under which
we in this country suffer, in our endeavors to
solve the problem of monopolies, arises from
the fact that our publicists and statesmen pro-
ceed in profound ignorance of the meaning and
purpose of the science of finance.” For that
ignorance they have no longer any excuse.
MAX WEST.
TWO GREAT EVANGELISTS.*
An evangelist, in a broad sense, is one with
a gospel message who goes about rousing men
to a higher and better life. Matthew Arnold
was a literary evangelist, proclaiming every-
where by word of voice and pen the gospel of
literary culture. Henry Drummond, as is evi-
dent from Dr. George Adam Smith's masterly
biography, was above all else a Christian evan-
gelist, filled with a glowing love, who stirred
men of all circles and conditions, by voice and
printed word. But Drummond's greatest work
*THE LIFE of HENRY DRUMMond. By George Adam
Smith. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.
NEwMAN HALL, AN AUTobiography. Illustrated. New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.


1899.] THE
DIAL 155
was with the educated classes, and particularly
with college students; and the movements which
he set on foot with them are still powerful and
progressive. Drummond's sincerity, open-
mindedness, intellectuality, and sympathy with
science, made him the friend and helper of vast
numbers whose religious life was being troubled
by doubts suggested by science. The enormous
success of his “Natural Law in the Spiritual
World,” and of many of his Addresses, lay in
his identifying Nature with Christianity, and
showing the natural foundation of Christianity
as a law of love. From whichever side we take
Drummond's position, as either naturalistic
Christianity or Christianized naturalism, it was
a gospel of a reconciliation of science and relig-
ion which appealed very powerfully to his read-
ers and hearers.
“To Henry Drummond, Christianity was the crown
of the evolution of the whole universe. The drama
which absorbed him is upon a stage infinitely wider than
the moral life of man. The soul, in its battle against evil,
in its service for Christ, is no accident or exception, thrown
upon a world all hostile to its feeble spirit. But the
forces it represents are the primal forces of the universe;
the great laws which modern science has unveiled sweep-
ing through life from the beginning work upon the side
of the man who seeks the things that are above.”
Professor Smith opens his work with a strong
sketch of the man in his winning personality.
“We watched him, our fellow-student and not yet
twenty-three, surprised by a sudden and a fierce fame.
Crowds of men and women in all the great cities of our
land hung upon his lips, innumerable lives opened their
secrets to him, and made him aware of his power over
them. When his first book was published, he, being
then thirty-three, found another world at his feet; the
great of the land thronged him; his social opportunities
were boundless; and he was urged by the chief states-
man of our time to a political career. This was the
kind of a trial which one has seen wither some of the
finest characters, and distract others from the simplicity
and resolution of their youth. He passed through it
unscathed; it neither warped his spirit nor turned him
from his accepted vocation as a teacher of religion. . . .
There was a never a glimpse of a phylactery nor a
smudge of unction about his religion. He was one of
the purest, most unselfish, most reverent souls you ever
knew, but you would not have called him a saint. The
name he went by among younger men was “The Prince';
there was a distinction and a radiance upon him that
compelled the title.”
While Professor Smith cannot easily and nat-
urally call a man who plays cricket and bil-
liards and enjoys a good cigar a “saint,” yet
he compares Drummond's influence to that of
a mediaeval saint. He was the confessor of
multitudes of men and women of all classes.
“They brought him alike their mental and phys-
ical troubles. Surest test of a man's love and holiness,
they believed in his prayers as a remedy for their dis-
eases and a sure mediation between their sinful souls
and God. It is with a certain hesitation that one asserts
so much as this, yet the evidence in his correspondence
is indubitable; and as the members of some great
churches are taught to direct their prayers to the fam-
ous saints of Christendom, so, untaught and naturally,
as we shall see, more than one have since his death
found themselves praying to Henry Drummond.”
Professor Smith traces and emphasizes Drum-
mond's progress from the strict orthodoxy of
his early life to his later more enlarged and
liberal views by which his evangelism gained
power with men of high education and thought.
Evolutionary Science and Biblical Criticism
came to have great weight with him, and he
gave up verbal inspiration, and found in rev-
elation an evolution.
A clear account is given of Drummond's
evangelism in Glasgow, with Moody and San-
key, and among British, American, and Aus-
tralian students. This book also includes letters
and diaries of travel in America, Africa, and
the new Hebrides. These are often bright and
vivid, as in this African sketch:
“At Zomba, on the Sabbath, we had a service for the
natives—the real “Missionary Record 'kind of a thing;
white men with Bibles under a spreading tree, sur-
rounded by a thick crowd of naked natives. We sang
hymns from a hymn-book in the native tongue to Scotch
psalm-tunes, and then spoke through an interpreter.
Unfortunately, the service was brought to rather an
abrupt conclusion. I had just finished speaking when
a tremendous shriek rose from the crowd, and the con-
gregation dispersed in a panic in every direction. A
hugh snake had fallen from the tree right into the thick
of them. A bombshell could not have done its work
faster, but no one was hurt, and the beast disappeared
like magic beneath some logs. The snakes rarely do
harm, and I have never heard of a serious case.”
While we cannot say that this book is over-
eulogistic, yet we miss the marks of common
and weak humanity. Drummond does not ap-
pear to have had a redeeming vice; we should
have felt better satisfied to have known, say,
that at least once in his life he got angry and
swore profanely. Peter and Paul and all the
saintly characters of Scripture have their fail-
ings, but Drummond stands out in these pages
as an admirable and perfect Crichton. But,
after all, we are glad to believe that here is the
highest type of Christian knight, sans peur et
sans reproche, an ideal soul, earnest, tender,
true, of noblest spirituality and deepest sincer-
ity. But we cannot esteem Drummond a great
man, nor yet that he attained his full stature
and maturity. We feel that here was a prom-
ising tree forced to too early and abundant
fruitage, and so exhausted for the most mature
and permanent work. Professor Smith has


156
[March 1,
THE I) LAL
certainly given us an able and interesting his-
tory of an eager, high-wrought soul, plunged
in the vortex of our later nineteenth century
life, moved by most manifold currents, and yet
attaining a most noble and useful life.
Another great evangelist, who resembled
Drummond in his power of Christian love, but
was more narrow in his interests and straighter
in his orthodoxy, was Newman Hall. We have
from his pen a chatty and pleasant “Autobi-
ography,” in which he seeks to keep out of
“the track of ordinary religious memoirs” in
not speaking exclusively of his public career
and religious experience, but also speaking
freely of himself in all his relations with the
men of his time, and narrating incidents of all
kinds. He tells a number of first-rate stories,
two of which we must quote. At Ferriby, -
“The old parish clerk one Sunday surprised the con-
gregation by announcing, in his usual monotone, “Let us
sing to the praise and glory of God, a psalm of my own
composing — a psalm of my own composing!' . . . In
a family of my church was a devoutly-behaved dog,
which regularly occupied its accustomed seat at family
prayers, and remained motionless till the “Amen” at the
close. One day when I was conducting the service, I
read the fifth chapter of the Revelation, and when I
came to the fourteenth verse, “And the four beasts said
Amen!’ the dog jumped from his chair and began bark-
ing as usual, as if all were over. This was too much
for the assembly’s gravity; host and hostess, servants
and friends, could not prevent laughter blending with
barking, and the service ended with the dog’s “Amen.’”
Dr. Hall gives a chapter to Gladstone, which
throws some light on that statesman's character.
There is also interesting mention of his ac-
quaintance with John Bright, Lord Shaftes-
bury, Dean Stanley, Spurgeon, and others.
Newman Hall's pastorates, both in Hull and
London, were thoroughly evangelistic in their
nature. It was at Hull that he composed the
tract “Come to Jesus,” which has circulated by
the million. During the Civil War, Dr. Hall
was influential as a friend of the North, and
his American evangelizing tours, of which he
gives a sketch, will be recalled by many. The
mild and gentle spirit, the fervid and simple
piety, of the author pervades his book, which is
of interest on many accounts, and has consid-
erable value for the religious historian.
HIRAM. M. STANLEY.
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. have put together
into a bound volume the six pamphlets of the “River-
side Literature Series” which constitute the “College
Requirements in English for Careful Study” for the
coming three years. Milton, Shakespeare, Addison,
Burke, and Macaulay are the authors selected for this
ingenious form of torture.
TRAVEL IN MANY LANDS.*
Arctic exploration has received a new impetus
within the last decade. The ice-bound lands in the
frigid zones have suddenly assumed a new import-
ance. Sir Martin Conway's experiences in Spitz-
bergen since the beginning of 1896 have done much
to set us right in our estimate of that country. The
results of his first adventures, in 1896, were em-
bodied in his “First Crossing of Spitsbergen.” The
present volume, “With Ski and Sledge over Arctic
Glaciers,” is to be regarded as an appendix to that
account. In company with Mr. E. J. Garwood, a
geologist and photographer, and two Norwegians,
this undaunted Englishman set out to investigate
many of the tremendous glaciers, ice fjords, and
lofty snow and ice mountains of this arctic land,
four hundred miles north of North Cape, and unin-
habited by any permanent population. To read
the crisp account of their tramps over ice gorges
and chasms, through blinding snowstorms, and on
their ski, or snowshoes, is close akin to enjoying
the same experiences. An expert's popular descrip-
tion of the movements of a great glacier, and of its
final crash into the waters of the bay, is a bit of
exceedingly good reading. The important result of
this brief two months' trip was the determination
of the fact that Spitsbergen is not, as held by earlier
explorers, covered with an ice-sheet. This term
does not describe the condition of things in arctic
lands, and should be expunged from the geograph-
ical vocabulary. The so-called ice-sheets are merely
glacial and mountain areas on either side of water-
sheds tending toward the sea. Neither do glaciers
excavate great valleys, as popularly held. The
familiar, easy method of telling his story inspires
confidence in the author's knowledge and his ability
to arrive at sound conclusions.
*WITH SK1 AND SLEDGE ovKR ARCTIC GLACIERs. With
Map and Illustrations. By Sir Martin Conway. New York:
M. F. Mansfield.
THRough ARCTIC LAPLAND. With Map and many Illus-
trations. By Cutcliffe Hyne. New York: The Macmillan Co.
CHITRAL: The Story of a Minor Siege. With Maps and
thirty-two half-tone Illustrations. By Sir George S. Robert-
son, K.C.S.I. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
WITHIN THE PURDAH : Personal Reminiscences of a Med-
ical Missionary in India. Illustrated. By S. Armstrong-
Hopkins, M.D. New York: Eaton & Mains.
THROUGH THEYANGTsK GoRGEs: or, Trade and Travel in
Western China. With Map and Illustrations. By Archibald
John Little, F.R.G.S. New York: Imported by Charles
Scribner's Sons.
CAMPING ANDTRAMPING IN MALAYA: Fifteen Years’ Pio-
neering in the Native States of the Malay Peninsula. With
Map and Illustrations. By Ambrose B. Rathborne, F.R.G.S.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
A CRUISE UNDER THE CREscENT: From Suez to San
Marco. With Illustrations in the Text. By Charles Warren
Stoddard. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co.
WITH THE GREEks IN THEssaLY. With twenty-three
Illustrations by W. T. Mand, Maps and Plans. By W. Kin-
naird Rose. Boston: L. C. Page & Co.
THE LAND of THE PIGMIEs. Profusely Illustrated. By
Captain Guy Burrows; with an Introduction by Henry M.
Stanley. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co.


1899.] THE
DIAL 157
In “Through Arctic Lapland” we have the nar-
rative of two daring Englishmen who set sail from
London to test their adventurous spirits in the far
north. They land at Vardø, on the north coast of
Finland, in early summer. Their goal is the Gulf
of Bothnia, four hundred miles overland toward the
south. To discourage them at the outset, they find
that in the summer no route of travel exists in that
direction; in fact, the frequency of lakes and
swamps makes such an adventure next to impossible.
But the doughty Englishmen push ahead, secure
short-route guides, travel double the straight-line
distance, wade through swamps, row across lakes,
float down rivers, tramp through forests, until, weary
yet wiser men, they hail the sails of a Swedish ves-
sel in the northernmost harbor of Bothnia. These
polyglot and much-travelled travellers show a prodi-
gious amount of pluck in enduring hardships, man-
aging obstreperous Lapps and Finns, fighting mill-
ions of vicious musquitos, and keeping good-natured
through it ill. The customs and habits of the peo-
ples of that almost solitary country are told in a
humorous and spicy narrative by Mr. Cutcliffe
Hyne, amply illustrated by the sketches of Mr.
Hayter, the author's companion.
Chiträl is located on the Chiträl river, one of the
sources of the Indus river, up in the district of the
Hindu Kush mountains. “The dominant note of
Chiträl,” says Sir George S. Robertson, author of
“Chitrál, the Story of a Minor Siege,” “is bigness
combined with desolation; vast, silent mountains
cloaked in eternal snow, wild glacier-born torrents,
cruel precipices, and pastureless hillsides where the
ibex and the markhor find a precarious subsistence.”
Down deep in the gorges of these oppressive and
ever-present mountains resides a restless and
wretched population of natives, controlled almost
wholly by the devotees of Mohammed. The con-
test for sovereignty among the native claimants to
the throne precipitated a revolution in the winter of
1894–95. Chiträl is almost on the borderland
between British India and Afghanistan, and was
under the protectorate of England. The assassina-
tion of the local ruler led to an attempt by the ruler
at Kabul to assume control of the district. The
British Indian troops which had gone to the rescue
were defeated, driven within their fort, and besieged
for nearly two months. In the meantime, detach-
ments of native soldiers under English officers were
hurrying, in the dead of winter, from the north and
from the south to rescue their comrades. Some of
these men were ambushed, others were taken by
treachery, and still others suffered untold hardships
in crossing snow-capped and snow-bound mountains.
The besieged gallantly held out, through great suf-
fering, until the approach of English troops caused
the flight of the besiegers and the rescue of the be-
sieged. This is a thrilling and tragical story, told
in chaste and forceful language by the commander
in the siege. Its political significance gives it a
value which far outranks that of ordinary books of
war or of travel.
The far-reaching influence of a medical mission-
ary, especially that of a wise woman, among the
vast populations of India, is shown with surprising
effect by Dr. Armstrong-Hopkins in her book en-
titled “Within the Purdah.” The down-trodden,
hopeless condition of woman, not only in the secluded
harems of princes but in open air everyday life, is
enough to make one either pessimistic or actively
energeticin inaugurating new means of relief. While
the British government has done much to mitigate
the deadly power of vicious customs, there is a wide
chasm between the woman of India and ordinary
comfort and freedom. This book shows where Great
Britain and other enlightened nations can accom-
plish marvels for this caste-enslaved and suffering
people. The native princes can be won by shrewd-
ness and skill of the right kind to banish heartless
and harmful rites, and to order themselves and their
subjects according to higher principles of govern-
ment and human right.
The Yangtse is to China what the Mississippi is
to the United States. It drains the heart of China,
embracing an area of 600,000 square miles, with
a population of about 180,000,000 of as industrious
and peaceful a people as are to be found on the
earth's surface. This area is now known as the
“British sphere of influence.” Its great river is
navigable by the largest ocean steamers as far as
Hankow — six hundred miles inland; then for five
hundred more by steamboats to Ichang. From this
point upwards it is almost one succession of gorges
and rapids, through a most picturesque and wild
country, though densely populated. English trade
on the banks of this river has reached enormous
proportions. Ten years ago, Professor A. J. Little,
author of “Through the Yangtse Gorges,” excited
his influence to push navigation farther up stream.
After the China-Japanese war he succeeded in se-
curing concessions of various kinds. Within the
past year he has himself conducted a steamer through
several dangerous series of rapids five hundred miles
above Ichang to Chung-king, the highest point of
steam navigation yet reached. In addition to a
clear and concise narrative of the methods of navi-
gation and difficulties encountered on the way, Mr.
Little shows by statistics the wonderfully rich re-
sources of this inland empire, this river empire. The
power of English diplomats and merchants is seen
in every gain made in the confidence of the China-
man. The book is full of rare incidents observed
by a wide-awake scholarly Englishman.
The Malay peninsula proper, extending south-
ward from Indo-China, is 850 miles long by 210 in
its widest part, —between 10°30' N. and 1° 22' N.
Its territory embraces about 82,000 square miles,
and its population is about 1,400,000. Its most
noted seaport is Singapore. Fifteen years in the
jungles, on the mountain sides, and in the malarial
plains of this little-known peninsula, form the basis
of Mr. Rathborne's book on “Camping and Tramp-
ing in Malaya.” In his brief preface, the author
acknowledges that he is more skilled in the use of


158
[March 1,
THE DIAL
the parang, to cut his way through the jungles, than
in the use of the pen. Mr. Rathborne takes his
own method of telling his story. He describes with
great detail many of his numerous tramps and trips
back and forth through the peninsula and along its
shore lines. Mingled with this description of the
immediate occurrences of his trip, we find frequently
little scraps of early history—as in the case of
Malacca, – accounts of curious habits of the wild
animals of the jungles, illustrated by some experi-
ence of his own, and of the character of the natives.
Incidentally, the resources, the products, the mixed
population, the dangers, and the prospects of the
country receive ample mention. The lack of good
roads, the thickness of the forests, the lurking wild
beasts, and the enemies of human life, on the land
and in the air, tested the patience and endurance of
this Briton. The English government, though able
to do much for the natives, has not lived up to its
opportunity (p. 126). It has not suppressed, but
rather has encouraged by licensing, some of the
worst vices in the land. In spite of these things,
the British forces have suppressed the state of an-
archy of two decades ago, and are gradually lifting
the natives up to a higher plane of living. The
whole story is enlivened by vigorous illustration.
Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard’s “Cruise under
the Crescent” is a chatty record of his tour along
the conventional route of travellers to Syria. In a
very familiar, off-hand style, he describes his jour-
ney from Port Said to Jerusalem, to Damascus, to
Baalbek, to Beirut, to Athens, to Stamboul, and so
on. The text is besprinkled with sketches, many
of them giving quite an adequate idea of the thing
represented. The observations of the author show
in an interesting way the impressions made upon
the acute mind of an intelligent traveller.
The Greco-Turkish war was short, sharp, and de-
cisive. But its results cannot be measured. Many
shrewd and acute correspondents were on the field
to note for permanent preservation the events of
each day. Mr. Rose, author of “With the Greeks
in Thessaly,” must have been, we judge, among the
best of these. This compact little volume testifies
to his activity and descriptive power. He was the
special war correspondent of Reuters, London, and
consequently had the best of opportunities for close
observation on the field. The political matters dis-
cussed are based, says the author, upon information
of men who were close to the political movements
of the day. The narrative preserves with great
faithfulness the exact form in which it was written
in the heat of conflict. The plans and maps help
one to secure a very vivid picture of that sudden
and, to the Greeks, disastrous plunge of the Turk-
ish army into Thessaly.
Central Africa has not ceased to be of genuine
interest, both to the diplomat and to the anthro-
pologist. In the heart of that Dark Continent are
many unexplored regions and unsolved mysteries.
Captain Burrows, author of “The Land of the Pig-
mies,” had many facilities, as an officer in the em-
ploy of Belgium, for wide observation. The char-
acter of the native tribes in different districts of the
Congo Free State are extremely interesting. The
cannibal natives are not all extinct, but rather flour-
ish, though in the presence of the white man they
endeavor to conceal their custom. The pigmies of
Central Africa, though occupying but small space in
this volume, are a unique little people, whom Cap-
tain Burrows had good opportunities for studying.
Many of the real problems of Central African trade
are yielding to the introduction of the railroad and
its increasing activities. Enough illustrations are
inserted in this book to make it a picture-volume of
Central African peoples and customs.
IRA. M. PRICE.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
With Volume III., now ready, Mr.
William Laird Clowes's monumental
and lavishly equipped history of
“The Royal Navy’’ (Little, Brown, & Co.) passes
the half-way stage in its progress toward completion
in the forthcoming fifth volume. The sufficiently
comprehensive and liberal lines on which the work
was projected we have already set forth somewhat
fully in our review of the opening instalment (THE
DIAL, Sept. 1, 1897). The present volume covers
the civil history of the Navy, the major and minor
operations of its military history, and the record of
voyages and discoveries, during the period 1714–
1792, inclusive. The contributors are Mr. William
Laird Clowes, Mr. L. Carr Laughton, Sir Clements
R. Markham, and Captain A. T. Mahan — Captain
Mahan's quota occupying about a third of the vol-
ume, and treating in that admirable naval writer's
usual masterly way of the major operations of the
War of the American Revolution. Owing to the
unexpected length of some of the articles, the editor
has been compelled to reserve Mr. W. H. Wilson's
chapter on the minor operations of the Revolution
for inclusion in the volume next forthcoming. Mr.
Clowes takes occasion to allude in his preface in
laudatory terms to the recent exploits of the Amer-
ican Navy at Santiago and “Manilla” (as he elects
to spell it), and to indicate a hope that when the
British sailor's turn at the laurels shall come he
will be found in no way inferior to his “brothers of
the New World.” It is to be feared that the British
sailor's professional anxiety to emulate the recent
achievements of these same long lost and newly dis-
covered American “brothers” may prove a not
inconsiderable stumbling-block in the way of disarm-
ament projects and peace ideals generally. Mr.
Clowes's work is not, and cannot reasonably be
expected to be, quite impeccable in point of minor
errors of detail that might have been rectified by
searching and constant reference to original sources.
We are inclined to admit the reasonableness of his
plea that “to be content with nothing short of abso-
lute completeness and finality in an undertaking of
More history of
the Royal Navy.


1899.] THE
DIAL 159
this kind” would involve the drawback that “neither
the initiator, nor, after his death, any of his suc-
cessors, would live long enough to finish the work.”
On the whole, the volumes thus far are so much
fairer, more accurate, and more comprehensive than
any former presentation of British naval history
that only critics of the captious sort will fail to be
truly grateful for them. The numerous illustrations
are well selected and handsomely executed, and
there is an index to each volume.
Mr. W. J. Stillman, since his retire-
Story of - - -
the Union ment from active service as Italian
of Italy. correspondent of the London
“Times,” has engaged himself busily in certain
long-projected literary undertakings. One of these
— the preparation of his memoirs — will doubtless
result in a book of the most readable sort, a book the
appearance of which we anticipate with much pleas-
ure. Meanwhile, Mr. Stillman has already com-
pleted another task which he was peculiarly well-
fitted to perform, and tells us, in a new volume of
the “Cambridge Historical Series,” the thrilling
story of “The Union of Italy” (Macmillan). Hav-
ing made this statement, we hasten to qualify two
of the words which it contains. Mr. Stillman is
certainly well-fitted to write of the Risorgimento,
but prejudice and the disillusionment of advancing
years have conspired to impair his powers of judg-
ment; the story itself is certainly thrilling, but Mr.
Stillman’s narrative is so matter-of-fact that it
would hardly help anyone unacquainted with the
great action which it chronicles to understand the
Italian poems of Mrs. Browning and Mr. Swinburne.
Still, we are much indebted to the author for what
he has done. He was a close observer of at least
the later phases of the revolutionary movement, in
which he himself all but participated, and he has
had a wide acquaintance with the men who were
conspicuous in that movement. Admiration for
Cavour has unfortunately had upon him the effect
that it has had upon some other historians of the
period: it has made him grossly unfair to Mazzini,
unfair mainly in the negative way of saying little
about him, but occasionally unfair in the more un-
pleasant ways of innuendo and contemptuous char-
acterization. That the Union of Italy was far more
the work of Mazzini than of Cavour is a proposition
that we hold to be beyond question, and no history
of that achievement in which Mazzini does not ap-
pear as the central figure can be more than a his-
tory of its externals.
Professor Harry Thurston Peck has
done much for classical scholarship,
and at the same time has shown a
breadth of culture and a versatility of mind very
commendable in this day of intense specialization.
His latest production — in the shape of a book at
least—is a translation of Petronius into very ver-
nacular English (Dodd, Mead & Co.), with a con-
siderable amount of editorial accompaniment. In
** Trimalchio’s
Dinner.”
his introduction, the editor has sketched briefly the
history of prose fiction in Greece and Rome. Prose
fiction, as opposed to theological myth, derives from
the beast fable, which is purely oriental in its origin.
The romance, historical and of adventure, the novel
of character, the novel of pastoral life, all find their
beginnings here. Lost to Western Europe in the
Dark Ages, these tales, blended with the traditions
of the Teutonic peoples, found their way into the
“Gesta Romanorum,” that “perfect mirage of odds
and ends,” the connecting link between the fiction of
classic times and the fiction of to-day. Following
this, we have a brief characterization of Petronius,
a history of the “Satira,” and a word of criticism,
or rather encomium, which closes with this dictum :
“To seek a fitting parallel for his strangely brilliant
fiction, we must pass over the intervening centuries
and find it only in our own century and in the lit-
erary art of modern France.” As a third feature
of the introduction, Professor Peck gives us a note
of presentation to Trimalchio himself, with a hint
of the riches in store for us. This very fittingly
leads to the dinner itself, where we have game made
out of pork, and peacock eggs cut from pastry. The
extravagant luxury of the table is typical of an age
when wealth came easily and the appetites were
men's gods. “Trimalchio's Dinner” is valuable as
a picture of the life of the Roman bourgeoisie. In
Trimalchio himself, we have the Roman freedman
who has accrued vast wealth suddenly. Proud of
his estates, well-meaning, generous to a fault, boast-
ful of his libraries in Greek and Latin, ignorant of
the very forms of his own tongue, he is a veritable
snob. To the scholar, the original, in the many little
details of life, is of archaeological value; and the
text offers much of linguistic interest to the gen-
eral reader as well. The book closes with a valu-
able bibliography of the primitive forms of fiction,
of Greek and Roman fiction, of Roman life in the
time of Petronius, of the text and translations. The
translation is well done, and the rollicking humor
of the original is sustained throughout. The Latin
slang finds equivalents in English which are cer-
tainly effective, although at times rather startling.
The illustrations are very helpful, and the entire
make-up of the book is commendable.
A satisfactory review of Sir James H.
Ramsay’s “Foundations of England”
(Macmillan) would require a mono-
graph in itself if the points of interest to the eager
historical student were to be adequately noted and
commented upon. The work is an authoritative
narrative, in two large volumes, of the history of
England from 55 B.C. to 1154 A. D. It is author-
itative in the sense that not a fact is given nor an
opinion expressed for which the writer does not cite
volume and page of the book or document from
which he has drawn his material. The style is in
no way remarkable, nor is there any novelty of
method to attract the reader of history who looks
for striking characterizations; but for reference
Twelve centuries
of British history.


160
[March 1,
THE DIAL
purposes, for convenience to the student in discov-
ering quickly what the best scholarship has deter-
mined in regard to the institutions of any particular
period, the work is simply invaluable. It will be
a standard work of reference in every college library
in the country. A point of somewhat unusual inter-
est is the location fixed upon for the battle of Mons
Grampius, or Groupius, as the author prefers to call
it. The view taken is that in the year 84 A.D.
Agricola advanced from Ardoch to Perth, from
Perth to Coupar Angus, and from Coupar Angus
to Delvine, situated on the north bank of the river
Tay some thirty-five miles northeast of Stirling.
This site agrees perfectly with the details of the
battle as given by Tacitus, and explains the neces-
sity for the curious cavalry manoeuvre which decided
the day in favor of the Roman army. The jutting
promontory of the Redgale Braes made it impossi-
ble for the Roman cavalry, after its first charge on
the Caledonian left, to wheel round the rear of the
enemy's position, and compelled it to pass back of
the Roman infantry in order to make the final and
decisive charge against the right. Two excellent
maps accompany the description of this battle.
The war articles by Charles A. Dana,
recently published in one of the mag-
azines, have been gathered into a
comely volume entitled “Recollections of the Civil
War” (Appleton). When read as a whole they
prove to be fascinating in the pungency of the style
and the clear directness of the story-telling. The
book is also important as a contribution to the his-
tory of the time, for the author's official position took
him into the heart of things, and he has secured the
accuracy which is apt to be wanting in reminiscences,
by reference to his almost daily reports of what he
saw and heard. Mr. Dana joined Grant's army in
March, 1863, commissioned to act as representative
in the field for the Secretary of War, and to report
everything that should be of interest to the govern-
ment at Washington. He was with the armies
through the whole Wicksburg campaign, through the
Chattanooga campaign from September to Decem-
ber, and through the Wilderness campaign of 1864.
During the intervals between these campaigns, and
during the last year of the war, he was in service
in the War Department at Washington, in intimate
relations with the leading men, especially President
Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. The mere state-
ment of these opportunities will show what the book
must be, written by a journalistic genius like Mr.
Dana. Its interest is all the greater from the ab-
sence of any formal narrative of the author's ser-
vice and adventures. He passes over the details,
giving striking incidents, brief character sketches,
interesting anecdotes, and vivid descriptions of such
events as the battles of Chickamauga and Chat-
tanooga, and Grant's death-grapple with Lee in the
Wilderness. His chapter on Lincoln and his Cab-
inet is one of the most satisfactory studies of the
great War President yet put into print, while nearly
C. A. Dana's
Recollections of
the Civil War.
the whole book is an indirect study of Stanton and
Grant. The book is one of the most readable, as
well as authentic, of those pertaining to the Civil
War. -
warly discovered It is a curious feeling with which one
early poems takes up the “all but facsimile re-
of Shelley. print,” just published by Mr. John
Lane, of the “Original Poetry by Victor & Cazire.”
Forty years ago Dr. Richard Garnett discovered, in
a rare periodical named “Stockdale's Budget,” that
a volume with the above title had been published by
Shelley in 1810, and that subsequently, after a few
copies had gone into circulation, the youthful poet
had destroyed the greater part of the edition. For
these forty years the possibility of unearthing one of
the few copies that escaped destruction had hovered,
as an elusive dream, over the fancies of Shelleians
in particular and bibliophiles in general. At last a
copy came to light, bound up with other pamphlets
in a book that had come down from the library of
the Rev. C. H. Grove, a brother of the Harriet
Grove to whom many of the poems were addressed.
To Dr. Garnett appropriately fell the task of editing
a reprint of this unique copy, and the result is now
before us, enriched by an editorial preface. These
pieces, written at the age of eighteen, add nothing
to Shelley's poetical reputation, and indeed the most
striking thing about them is the way in which they
illustrate the fact that a great poet may begin his
career in the most unpromising way. But they add
a necessary chapter to the poet's life, and it is a
great satisfaction to have discovered what seemed
so hopelessly lost. We have read a certain amount
of carping comment upon this republication, to the
general effect that it does no honor to the poet's
memory; but this seems to us curiously beside the
point. Dr. Garnett puts the matter in a nutshell
when he says of the question whether the book
should have been reprinted, that “the question ap-
pears pertinent, but only to the uninitiated.” It
certainly does not appear pertinent to us, and we
shall not discuss it.
Such a book as “Social Life in the
British Army” (Harper) serves two
useful ends. In Great Britain it is
a manual of etiquette and social usage, aiding those
ambitious of prestige in the Household Brigade in
learning what to do, to be, and to wear; in Amer-
ica it points out the marked differences between that
European army which is most like our own, and the
small but useful body of our fellow-citizens which
many Americans vaguely dread under the title of
“a standing army.” Nothing but such a book as
this, written by “A British Officer,” and illustrated
by Mr. R. Caton Woodville from drawings made
on the spot, could accent these differences, and ac-
cent them in a manner which leaves us better satis-
fied with our own military establishment. We learn
that a man must have an independent income of
no mean size if he is to hold his own in one of the
“crack” British regiments, the maintenance of a
Social life and
requirements in
the British Army.


1899.] | THE
IXIAL 161
stable for official duties in the cavalry comprising
also a number of polo ponies and racing horses,
with an occasional hunter, the original outlay run-
ning up into several thousands of dollars or their
British equivalents. Though England maintains
several military academies of the highest efficiency,
many of her officers pass through the hands of a
military “coach,” and, by undergoing a somewhat
severe examination, enter as commissioned officers
directly from civilian life. To obtain a commission
in the most desirable regiments, ascertained wealth
and social position are essentials; and the traditions
of the corps take the place of the American's edu-
cation at West Point in maintaining the reputation
of the army. It is evident that much can be said
in argument between systems so diverse. The book
is interestingly written, and replete with detail.
The man of culture of the present
day — as distinguished from the
scholar, the scientist, the philosopher
on the one hand, and the artist or the amateur on
the other — probably owes more to contemporary
France than to contemporary Germany. He has
more of it in him. Certainly taking the whole
century, French literature and French painting have
been more stimulating than German; French pol-
itics and French life have been on the whole inter-
esting to more people than German. We think
this is so in America, in spite of the large German
element with us; in spite of the number of our
own people, students and artists, who have worked
in Germany; in spite of the influence of German
music and musicians, of German philosophy and
German scholarship. You will find a dozen who
read a French novel to one who reads a German
novel, a dozen plays from the French to half a
dozen from the German, a dozen travellers familiar
with Paris to one who knows Berlin. But it is this
verything, to our mind, that gives a particular value
to Professor Kuno Francke's “Glimpses of Mod-
ern German Culture” (Dodd). It is a book which
may serve to open the way to a great many who are
now unaware how wonderfully rich is Germany to-
day in books, pictures, music, political ideas, in
things which when once known are as keenly inter-
esting to the cultivated mind as anything that can
be found in France. Without going into compari-
sons, a lover of French painting and poetry may
find something new and worth while in the pictures
of Boecklin and Thoma, in the poems of Johanna
Ambrosius and Gustav Falke. And if anyone
insists on comparing, we may say that there are no
French dramatists superior to Hauptmann and
Sudermann (Mr. Francke would probably add Wil-
denbruch, but we should not), no political forces
in France more interesting than Bismarck and the
Social Demokratie. As to music and scholarship,
nothing need be said except just to mention them
in filling out the idea of what is included in the
phrase “Modern German Culture.” So far as de-
tails are concerned, we differ here and there from
Modern
German
culture.
Mr. Francke : as to “The Sunken Bell,” for in-
stance, we hesitate to agree entirely, as to Bismarck
we are very doubtful, as to Wildenbruch we heartily
disagree. There are naturally differences of opin-
ion in such things: Mr. Francke probably would
have more to say for his views than appears here,
had he the occasion. In these essays he had to say
his say in small compass, for the papers are rather
short, many of them having been articles in “The
Nation” and other periodicals. We have been
somewhat exercised of late over breakfast-books.
If a man breakfasts alone, has a little time over his
breakfast and does not read the daily paper just
then, he will hardly find a better moment in the
day for a little reading. But of course it is not
every book that will do: one must select pretty
carefully. We rather think that Mr. Francke's
book would be a pleasant breakfast companion for
a fortnight: the essays are short and suggestive.
Afterwards one may go back to Gibbon’s “Mem-
oirs,” or Landor's “Conversations,” or any other
old stand-by.
Growth and
curiosities of
South London.
Sir Walter Besant has taken a nota-
ble interest in the history of what is
now London. He has already writ-
ten two volumes on London and Westminster, de-
scriptive of the origin and growth of those ancient
places, with their part in the modern London. He
now offers a volume on “South London” (Stokes).
It is not strictly a history, but a series of seventeen
chapters selected out of a vast mass of material on
the subject. He begins with Southwark marsh, and
takes up the growth of the place, the customs of the
people, numerous tragical and humorous incidents
in the life of those clashing times, and the growth
in the political ideas of his forefathers. This is
all done in the pleasing and graceful style of Mr.
Besant. The vividness and reality of the scenes
described are heightened by a great number of
choice illustrations, a result of the skill of Mr. Percy
Wadham. Londoners, and Londoners' descendants,
will find in this luxurious volume ample fascination
for several hours of very pleasurable reading.
In “The Groundwork of Science”
(Putnam), Professor St. George
Mivart discusses the common foun-
dation of all the sciences and the relationships exist-
ing between them. Epistemology is the science of
the sciences. After an enumeration of the sciences,
notable for some very proper omissions, his specific
topics are the objects and the methods of science;
the physical, psychical, and intellectual antecedents
of science; the relation of science to language; the
causes of science, and the nature of its groundwork.
The work is timely and is eminently suggestive. It
is itself an example of the clearness of thought and
of diction which should characterize all scientific
discussions. From the conclusion we quote, as a
fitting dominant chord: “The action of an all-
pervading but unimaginable intelligence alone
affords us any satisfactory conception of the uni-
Foundations and
mutual relations
of the sciences.


THE DIAL
[March 1,
verse as a whole, or of any single portion of the
cosmos which may be selected for exclusive study.”
—A work of somewhat similar purpose, issued by
the same publishers, is “The Sphere of Science,” by
Professor Hoffman of Union College. After open-
ing his subject by a method not widely different
from that used by Dr. Mivart, Dr. Hoffman gives
less attention to the purely metaphysical construc-
tion of an ideal edifice in which the various sciences
shall appear in their true and intimate relationships,
and more to the share which each has in the devel-
opment of human knowledge in its present stage of
forwardness. Particular interest attaches to the
author's discussions of the limitations of science,
and his resumé of the recent progress made in vari-
ous directions. The works of Dr. Mivart and Dr.
Hoffman are in a large degree complementary, and
may well be read together.
Dr. Mellen Chamberlain, whose essay
on “The Revolution Impending” is
so valuable a feature of the Revolu-
tionary history gathered into Winsor's “Narrative
and Critical History of America,” presents, under
the leading title “John Adams” (Houghton), a
series of essays and addresses which deal mainly
with American history and American leaders. Be-
sides the second President, Josiah Quincy and
Daniel Webster are considered in appreciative
sketches. Constitutional and institutional questions
are discussed, along with critical estimates of the
results of historical study as shown in the volumes
by Professor McMaster and Mr. Palfrey. In the
collection of seventeen papers much insight into
life is shown, and many thoughts are crystallized
into words for the inspiration of those who welcome
each addition to the store of volumes of essays bear-
ing upon American character and history.
American essays
and addresses.
New England history is an appar-
ently exhaustless fountain. However
much may be studied, some new
phase continually presents itself for examination,
and the apparently trivial things of daily life in the
olden time may be so described as to make enter-
taining and profitable reading. “Historic Pilgrim-
ages in New England” (Silver, Burdett & Co.) is
one of a rapidly increasing class of books given to
details of the homes and the customs of Americans.
The familiar plan of answering the questions of a
bright young companion is adopted, and much that
is valuable information is thus set forth. There are
many illustrations, some of them uncommon, some
very familiar; and the book will serve to while away
more than one hour with the fathers of New England.
Historic
Pilgrimages in
New England.
Those gay armored knights under
De Soto must have cut a queer figure,
roaming through the forests and
swamps of the southern country in search of gold,
or perhaps with a faint hope of finding the fabled
fountain of perpetual youth. There was little of
With De Soto
in Florida.
actual accomplishment for Spain, but there was a
great deal of romance, which culminated, perhaps,
in the death of the leader of the expedition and his
midnight burial in the river which so often is asso-
ciated with his name. “De Soto in the Land of
Florida” (Macmillan) is a very interesting book, in
the preparation of which Miss Grace King has
shown the same skill she manifested in “New Or-
leans” and in that story of Bienville which finds
place in the “Makers of America” series. It is
not too difficult for the pleasure and profit of youth,
nor is it so simple in narration as to fail to attract
the special student of American history.
BRIEFER MENTION.
“Harper's Scientific Memoirs” is the name given to
a new series of small books which aim to publish, in
careful English translations, what may be called the
original documents of science. Professor Joseph S.
Ames is to be the general editor of the series. The
following two volumes have appeared: “The Free Ex-
pansion of Gases” and “Prismatic and Diffraction
Spectra.” The former comprises papers by Gay-Lussac,
Joule, and Thomson; the latter the classical papers of
Joseph Fraunhofer. A few of the titles promised for
early publication are: “Röntgen Rays,” “Solutions,”
“Properties of Ions,” and “The Wave Theory of Light.”
“The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation” (Macmil-
lan), by Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman, has just passed
into a second edition, which has given the authoran oppor-
tunity to subject the work to a thoroughgoing revision.
It is so changed, both in its historical and positive parts,
as to be practically a new volume. Among the altera-
tions may be noted the fuller treatment of the early
English literature of the subject, the addition of a chap-
ter on the physiocrats, the rewriting of the chapter on
the mathematical theory, the closer study of import
duties and stamp taxes, and the added index and bibli-
ography. The work is thus made far more valuable
than before, and a still greater credit to American
scholarship in this difficult field.
“Bible Stories” is the title of a supplementary vol-
ume of “The Modern Reader's Bible” (Macmillan).
Like the rest of the series to which it belongs, this vol-
ume is prepared by Mr. Richard G. Moulton. It is
announced as a “children's number" of the series, and
contains stories from the Old Testament only. A sim-
ilar volume of New Testament stories is in course
of preparation. A much bigger book which deserves
mention in the same connection is Mrs. Harriet S. B.
Beale’s “Stories from the Old Testament for Children”
(Stone). Here the stories are frankly retold in simple
language, as in Lamb's “Tales from Shakespeare,”
whereas Mr. Moulton's volume does not depart (except
for omissions) from the revised scriptural text.
“The Arte or Crafte of Rhethoryke,” by Leonard
Cox, who was a preacher and schoolmaster in the reigns
of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., is the first text-book
of rhetoric in the English language. The date of its
first edition is uncertain, but it cannot have been far
from 1530. It is now reprinted under the editorship
of Dr. Frederic Ives Carpenter, with notes and a learned
introduction, and appears as a highly acceptable addition
to the series of “English Studies” published under the
auspices of the University of Chicago.


1899.] THE
DIAL 163
LITERARY NOTES.
The Macmillan Co. publish a volume of selections
from Pope's “Iliad,” edited by Mr. Albert H. Smyth
for school use.
Miss Beatrice Harraden, it is reported, will soon make
a second visit to the United States, with California for
her objective point.
“Der Letzte,” a story by Herr von Wildenbruch,
edited by Dr. F. G. G. Schmidt, is published by Messrs.
D. C. Heath & Co.
Mr. William Dudley Foulke's “Slav or Saxon” (Put-
nam), already twelve years old, now appears in a revised
edition. It is one of the “Questions of the Day,” just
as before.
A selection of “Scènes de Voyages de Victor Hugo”
(Holt), edited by Mr. Thomas Bertrand Bronson, makes
a very attractive little volume for school use. The ex-
tracts are from “Le Rhin.”
“The Story of the Cotton Plant,” by Mr. F. Wilkin-
son, is the latest addition to “The Library of Useful
Stories,” published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., and
already numbering more than a dozen neat volumes.
The series of articles on “Successful Houses,” which
have been appearing for some time in the pages of
“The House Beautiful,” are now published in a hand-
somely-illustrated volume by Messrs. Herbert S. Stone
& Co.
The first monthly number of “A Kipling Note Book,”
devoted to “illustrations, anecdotes, bibliographical and
biographical facts anent this foremost writer of fic-
tion,” is published by Messrs. M. F. Mansfield & A.
Wessels.
Lessing’s “Minna von Barnhelm,” edited by Mr.
A. B. Nichols, is published by Messrs. Henry Holt &
Co., and has the unusual feature (for a school book) of
a series of twelve illustrations from the etchings by
Chodowiecki.
“Our Nation's Peril: Social Ideals and Social Pro-
gress” is the title of a pamphlet by Dr. Lewis G. Janes,
just published by Messrs. James H. West & Co. It is
a scholarly and philosophical protest against the pre-
vailing spirit of imperialism.
A new novel by Count Tolstoy is to be published in
May. English readers will be more fortunate than
Russian, for they will get the complete work, whereas
it is reported that the Russian censor will reduce it
by one-third for home consumption.
Hereafter there is to be a special American edition
of “The Statesman's Year Book.” The section upon
the United States will be greatly enlarged, thereby
making what has always been an indispensable work of
reference even more indispensable than before. Mr.
Carroll D. Wright will be the American editor and the
Macmillan Co. the publishers.
In emulation of the plays of the “Hasty Pudding
Club” at Harvard and the “Students' Opera Company”
at Columbia, the students of the University of Chicago
will present a musical comedy entitled “The Deceitful
Dean,” on the evening of March 10, at the University
Gymnasium. The play has been written by local Uni-
versity talent, and the parts will be taken by fifty
persons.
The “Bulletin of the New York State Museum ” for
last November (a government publication) is “A Guide
to the Study of the Geological Collections of the New
York State Museum,” prepared by Dr. Frederick J. H.
Merrill. It is a very valuable work for students and
teachers of geology, having over one hundred full-
page photographic plates. To put it within the reach
of schools, it is supplied at the merely nominal price of
forty cents. In sending out this publication for review,
there goes with it the following note, which is so sug-
gestive of what other States might do that it deserves
reproduction: “The present director and his associates
are without exception warmly interested in securing a
more active coöperation of the Museum and its staff
with the teachers of science in the colleges and schools
of the State, which the peculiar circumstances of the
Museum have heretofore made impracticable, and will
be very glad of suggestions from teachers in any insti-
tution in the University. Science teachers ought to
feel some measure of responsibility for notifying the
Museum of matters of interest in their locality and act-
ing as associate or honorary members of the Museum
staff, the scientific officers of which will in turn be glad,
as far as practicable, to visit schools where their ser-
vices are requested, and give advice and suggestions
regarding collections, field work, and other matters of
interest.”
TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS.
March, 1899.
Alexander, John W. Harrison S. Morris. Scribner.
Alexander's Victory at Issus. B. I. Wheeler. Century.
British Experience in Governing Colonies. James Bryce. Cent.
Cable-Cutting at Cienfuegos. C. McR. Winslow. Century.
Chavannes, Puvis de. Marie L. Van Worst. Pall Mall.
Chinese Physicians in California. W. M. Tisdale. Lippincott.
Cranks and their Crotchets. John Fiske. Atlantic.
Cuba. Joseph A. Nunez. Lippincott.
Cuban Reconstruction, Young Leaders in. Review of Reviews.
Dickens Suppressed Plates. G. S. Layard. Pall Mall.
Egypt, Sketches in. C. D. Gibson. Pall Mall.
Eliot, Pres., as Educational Reformer. W. De W. Hyde. Atlan.
English Characteristics. Julian Ralph. Harper.
Farmer's Balance-Sheet for 1898. F. H. Spearman.Rev. of Revs.
Faure, M. Felix. Review of Reviews.
Forrest, Major-General, at Brice's Cross-Roads. Harper.
Fort Dearborn Massacre, The. Simon Pokagon. Harper.
Hoar, Senator, Reminiscences of. Scribner.
House, Modern City, Building of. Russell Sturgis. Harper.
Imperialism, an Estimate. Owen Hall. Lippincott.
Indian Prince, Court of an. R. D. Mackenzie. Century.
Kaiser, The, in Palestine. Frederick Greenwood. Pall Mall.
Kindergarten Child—after the Kindergarten. Atlantic.
Las Guasimas, Battle of. Theodore Roosevelt. Scribner.
Literature of Middle West. Johnson Brigham. Rev. of Revs.
Literature, Vital Touch in. John Burroughs. Atlantic.
London Lawyer, Recollections of a. G. B. Smith. Lippincott.
Manila, Capture of. Maj.-Gen. F. W. Greene. Century.
Mendicity as a Fine Art. Francis J. Ziegler. Lippincott.
Otis, Maj.-Gen. E. S. W. C. Church. Review of Reviews.
Philippine Types and Characteristics. Review of Reviews.
Philippines, Native Population of. Caroy Mora. Rev. of Revs.
Politics, Higher, A Wholesome Stimulus to. Atlantic.
Porto Rico, Condition of. W. H. Ward. Review of Reviews.
Railway Service, Heroes of the. Century.
Sherman, General, Diary of his Tour of Europe. Century.
Spanish Capital, Scenes in the. Arthur Houghton. Century.
Southern Mountains, Our Contemporary Ancestors in. Atlan.
Theatre, Business of a. W. J. Henderson. Scribner.
Theatre, Upbuilding of the. Norman Hapgood. Atlantic.
War Censor, Experiences of a. Grant Squires. Atlantic.
“Winslow,” The, at Cardenas. J. B. Bernadou. Century.
Woman, Modern, with Social Ambitions. Robt. Grant. Scrib.
Writers that are Quotable. Bradford Torrey. Atlantic.


164
[March 1,
THE DIAL
LIST OF NEW BOOKs.
[The following list, containing 59 titles, includes books
received by THE DIAL since its last issue.]
GENERAL LITERATURE.
Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett
Barrett. 1845–1846. With Prefatory Note by R. Barrett
Browning and Notes, by F. G. Kenyon, Explanatory of the
Greek Words. In 2 vols., with portraits and facsimiles,
8vo, gilt tops, uncut. Harper & Brothers. $5.
Mysteries of Police and Crime : A General Survey of
Wrongdoing and its Pursuit. By Major Arthur Griffiths.
In 2 vols., large 8vo, gilt tops, uncut. G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $5.
Three Studies in Literature. By Lewis E. Gates.
uncut, pp. 211. Macmillan Co. $1.50.
The Physician: An Original Play in Four Acts. By Henry
Arthur Jones. 16mo, pp. 114. Macmillan Co. 75 cts.
Thoughts. By Ivan Panin. Revised and augmented edition;
24mo, pp. 124. Grafton, Mass.: Published by the author.
BIOGRAPHY.
Life of General George Gordon Meade, Commander of
the Army of the Potomac. By Richard Meade Bache.
Illus. in photogravure, etc., 8vo, gilt top, uncut, pp. 596.
Henry T. Coates & Co. $3.
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
The Temple Classics. Edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A.
New vols.: Homer's Iliad, trans. by Chapman, 2 vols.;
History of the Holy Graal, trans. by Sebastian Evans,
2 vols.; Marcus Aurelius, 1 vol.; Little Flowers of St.
Francis, newly trans. by T. W. Arnold. Each with photo-
gravure frontispiece, 24mo, gilt top, uncut. Macmillan Co.
Per vol., 50 cts.
BOOKS OF VERSE.
Poems of Expansion. By John Savary.
F. Tennyson Neely.
Some Verses. By Helen Hay. 16mo, uncut, pp. 72. H. S.
Stone & Co. $1. -
16mo,
12mo, pp. 129.
FICTION. -
Ragged Lady. By William Dean Howells. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 359. Harper & Brothers. $1.75.
The Heart of Denise, and Other Tales. By S. Levett Yeats.
With frontispiece, 12mo, pp. 272. Longmans, Green, &
Co. $1.25.
The Story of Old Fort Loudon. By Charles Egbert Crad-
dock. Illus., 12mo, pp. 409. Macmillan Co. $1.50.
Short Rations: Short Stories. By Williston Fish. Illus.,
12mo, pp. 192. Harper & Brothers. $1.25.
The Knight of the Golden Chain. By R. D. Chetwode.
12mo, pp. 311. D. Appleton & Co. $1.; paper, 50 cts.
Mammy's Reminiscences, and Other Sketches. By Martha
S. Gielow. Illus., 12mo, pp. 109. A. S. Barnes & Co. $1.
TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
The Porto Rico of To-Day: Pen Pictures of the People and
the Country. By Albert Gardner Robinson. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 240. Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50.
Roman Africa: Archaeological Walks in Algeria and Tunis.
By Gaston Boissier; authorized English version by Ara-
bella Ward. With maps, 12mo, uncut, pp. 344. G. P
Putnam's Sons. $1.75.
The Cruise of the Cachalot: Round the World after Sperm
Whales. By Frank T. Bullen, First Mate. Illus., 12mo,
pp. 379. D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.
A Manual of Patrology: Being a Concise Account of the
Chief Persons, Sects, Orders, etc., in Christian History up
to the Period of the Reformation. By Wallace Nelson
Stearns, A.M.; with Introduction by J. H. Thayer, D.D.
Large 8vo, pp. 176. Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50 net.
The Profit of the Many: The Biblical Doctrine and Ethics
of Wealth. By Edward Tallmadge Root. 12mo, pp. 321.
F. H. Revell Co. $1.25.
Lights and Shadows of American Life. By Rev. A. C.
Dixon, D.D. 12mo, pp. 197. F. H. Revell Co. $1.
“Wherein 7": Melachi’s Message to the Men of To-Day.
By Rev. G. Campbell Morgan. 12mo, pp. 131. F.
Revell Co. 75 cts.
Stories from the Old Testament for Children. By Harriet
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THE
DIAL
% $emi-ſāonthlg 3ournal of 3Literarg Criticism, HBiscussion, amb 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 Copy on receipt of 10 cents. AdvKRTIsING RATEs furnished
on application. All communications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, 315 Wabash Ave., Chicago.
No. 306. MARCH 16, 1899. Vol. XXVI.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER . . . . . . . . 187
COMMUNICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
American Variants of Nursery Classics. Charles
Welsh.
Was Poe Mathematically Accurate? Albert H.
Tolman.
The Machine Theory of History. James F. Morton.
LEWIS CARROLL OF WONDERLAND. E. G. J. 191
ARISTOTELIANISM AND THE MODERN
SPIRIT. William A. Hammond . . . . . 193
SIR RICHARD BURTON'S POSTHUMOUS
PAPERS. Josiah Renick Smith . . . . . . 196
HISTORICAL TREASURE TROVE. James Oscar
Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
FAITH AND FANTASY. John Bascom . . . . . 198
Mrs. Humphry Ward's New Forms of Christian
Education. — Wenley's The Preparation for Chris-
tianity.— Bishop Potter's Addresses to Women En-
gaged in Church Work. — Halstead's Christ in the
Industries. – Wace's The Sacrifice of Christ.—
Andrews's Christianity and Anti-Christianity. -
Welldon's The Hope of Immortality.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS . . . . . . . . .
A survivor of the great Indian Mutiny. — The Ger-
man Emperor in private life.--Fur Trading on the
Upper Missouri...—A builder of Great Britain's colo-
nial policy.—A general index to the Library Journal
—Vase paintings as illustrating Greek tragedy.-An
English biography of Mirabeau.-The prose of a poet
laureate. — Afternoons in a college chapel. – The
lampblack school of biography. — A plea for the
Seminoles.
BRIEFER MENTION . . . . . . . . . . . 203
ANNOUNCEMENTS OF SPRING BOOKS . . . . 204
LITERARY NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER.
In our last issue, occasion was had to say
something of “the literary life” as seen through
the colored spectacles of Sir Walter Besant;
and it was hinted that the commercial aspects of
authorship, as viewed by that doughty defender
of the claims of literary property, might pro-
vide us with another subject for discussion,
drawn, like the former, from Sir Walter's recent
volume, “The Pen and the Book.” Since Mr.
Kipling is happily on the road to recovery from
his severe illness, and since no other matter of
pressing importance just now looms above the
bookman's horizon, we may as well as anything
else take our own hint, and say a few words
upon a subject that it is no longer possible,
thanks to Sir Walter's activities, for a literary
journal to ignore. Just six years ago, we took
for a subject of editorial discussion the work
done for men of letters by the English Society
of Authors and its distinguished chairman, and
were happy to pay our tribute of commendation
to the helpfulness and thoroughgoing character
of that work. Since then, both the Society and
its quondam chairman have been pegging stead-
ily away at their rather ungrateful task, and
the persistence with which they have impressed
upon the public the fundamental principles that
should govern authors in their business rela-
tions has had an easily appreciable effect, al-
though the work of enlightenment is as yet by
no means complete.
That these missionary labors still have much
to accomplish is evident, not merely from Sir
Walter's regretful admission that, in spite of
all that has been said upon the subject, “au-
thors as a rule know nothing” about the busi-
ness side of their profession, but particularly
from the “draft agreements” issued last sum-
mer by a representative committee of English
publishers. This document was so amazing in
its pretensions, so obviously grasping in its
claims, that even those authors least inclined
to be combative were startled out of their easy
acquiescence in the existing order of relations
between publishers and authors, and began to
ask themselves if, after all, there might not be
something worth their attention in this discus-
sion about the conditions of publication which


188
[March 16,
THE DIAL
they had hitherto regarded as so much noisy
and hollow clamor. The Society of Authors
must have chuckled rather audibly at seeing
the enemy thus play into their hands, for no
publication of the Society itself had ever af.
forded so powerful a support to its position as
this unabashed statement of what the publish-
ers claimed as fairly due to themselves. As
Sir Walter says:
“Whether these agreements are eventually with-
drawn or modified, or not, they will remain as a proof
that nothing that has been said as to the rapacity of
publishers as a class comes anywhere near the truth, if
this committee is representative. Every possible open-
ing for a fresh claim is eagerly seized upon: all the
charges and accounts, according to these agreements,
are to be over-stated as a right: percentages of any-
thing the publisher pleases are to be added: all sums
of money received are to be treated as belonging to
the publisher, less whatever royalties he may choose
to give : all rights whatever are to be theirs: they
even claim as their own the dramatic and translation
rights!”
Sir Walter's indictment against English
publishers is thus sustained, as far as some of
its counts are concerned, by the admission of
the publishers themselves. His accusation is
stated in the following general terms, which,
we need hardly add, he fortifies by matters
of actual fact that have come to his knowl-
edge.
“I have no hesitation whatever in alleging as a sim-
ple fact that has been brought home to me by ten or
twelve years of investigation into the commercial side
of literature, that many publishers, including some of
the great houses, have made it their common practice
to take secret percentages on the cost of every item :
to charge advertisements which they have not paid for :
and in this manner to take from the proceeds of the
book very much more than they were entitled to do by
the agreement.”
Now these charges are very serious, and are
not to be disposed of by calling people names.
Whatever may be thought of Sir Walter's
judgment — and that seems to us not infre-
quently at fault—no one can seriously impugn
his veracity, and we have no hesitation in ac-
cepting anything which he reports as fact,
whether it be the treatment of an author in
some particular case, or the actual estimates
given for cost of production, or the detailed
statement of some “custom of the trade”
which is used by publishers for the purpose of
increasing their share of the profits at the ex-
pense of the helpless writer of books.
Few authors realize the number of distinct
rights which they possess in their books. In
the case of a novel, at least, there are no less
than eight rights from which an English au-
thor, if his vogue be considerable, may expect
some gain. They are the English and Ameri-
can serial rights, the English and American
volume rights, the colonial and continental
rights, and the rights of translation and dram-
atization. If an author is not wary, he is
warned that his publisher will slip into the
contract some innocent appearing clause where-
by some or all of these rights are transferred
without their original possessor's fully realiz-
ing what he is about. Certainly, an author
should take expert advice in such a matter, just
as he would take it in a realty transaction. The
conveyancing of literary property, as of any
other, calls for skill and special knowledge,
which are not possessed by one man of letters
in a dozen.
The production of a book is a business en-
terprise in which an author and a publisher
are jointly interested, and the fundamental
question of all is that of an equitable distribu-
tion of whatever profits may result from the
enterprise. We all know what publishers say
when this question is raised. The burden of
their plea is the risk that they perforce incur,
the uncertainty of human affairs in general
and of book-publishing in particular, the heavy
miscellaneous expenses of their business, and
the thousand and one cares of which they re-
lieve the author. If they have acquired the
art of saying these things suavely and impres-
sively, they soon reduce the average author to
a condition of mind in which he is disposed
to accept gratefully, as so much unmerited
largess, anything that may be offered him, and
to depart from the interview with the feeling
that publishers are the most benevolent of
men. Now, there is something in all of these
considerations; there is more, for example, than
Sir Walter is willing to allow. Nevertheless,
he does the cause of letters good service by hold-
ing a brief for the helpless author-plaintiff, and
by subjecting the claims of the publisher-defend-
ant to a closer scrutiny than his client is in a
position to give them. There is a good deal of
the bogy element in the average publisher's talk
about risk. Publishers of experience usually
know enough about their business to avoid tak-
ing many real risks, although their pretended
risks are numerous. If it is practically certain
that a thousand copies of any book of the ordin-
ary sort will find purchasers, there is no risk in
its publication. The author may be allowed a
ten per cent royalty, and enough will remain to
make a fair profit for the publisher. Now, the
large publishing houses do not accept many


1899.] THE
DIAL 189
books for which this moderate sale is not a prac-
tical certainty, and the profits of one reasonably
successful book will make up for the loss
incurred through a number of the occasional
ventures that do not sell to the extent of even
a thousand copies. As for the division of the
profits, Sir Walter is of the opinion that one-
third to the publisher and two-thirds to the
author, after charging up all legitimate ex-
penses, would be an equitable apportionment.
If we do not go so far as this, and are content
to claim that author and publisher should share
equally, it will still be evident that the royalty
of ten per cent, customary in this country for
the majority even of fairly successful authors,
does not give them anything like half the profits
arising from their books. The sales have only
to reach two or three thousand to make this a
very one-sided arrangement, as will be evident
enough from an inspection of Sir Walter's fig-
ures, or of any similar figures based upon the
conditions of production in this country. In
fact, we need in the United States some such
missionary work as has been done by him in
conjunction with the Society of Authors in En-
gland, and their activities should stimulate a
similar movement among ourselves. Perhaps
we may profit by their example to the extent
of avoiding the bitterness of feeling that has
been engendered in English publishing circles,
but the interests of American authorship need
to be championed with the same zeal and dis-
tinguished ability.
The “method of the future,” Sir Walter
believes and emphatically declares, is to be the
method which treats the publisher as an agent
working upon commission, “who will take none
but commission books, who will take his com-
mission, and no more.” This suggestion has
been received with much derision by Sir Wal-
ter's publisher critics, and some of them have
gone so far as to characterize it as absurd if
not impossible. But its champion has abund-
ant facts at his disposal in support of the propo-
sition, and discussion of the subject has just
brought him a very effective ally in the person
of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who speaks of Sir
Walter's proposed method as “that which I
have pursued for the last fifty years, and with
the most satisfactory results.” More than a
score of years ago, Mr. Spencer testified before
the Copyright Commission that by this plan he
received about thirty per cent (of the published
price) upon a first edition of one thousand
copies, and more than forty per cent upon sub-
sequent editions printed from plates.
COMMUNICATIONS.
AMERICAN VARIANTS OF NURSERY CLASSICS.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
The old nursery rhymes and jingles, children's play-
ing games, etc., which have been current in baby-land
for hundreds of years, have, like every other kind of
folk-lore, been subject to all sorts of variants or cor-
ruptions, call them what you will; and the standard
text always cited in disputed readings is that of Halli-
well — an English authority.
But our own distinctly developing national charac-
teristics, local influence, and the cosmopolitan admix-
tures in American life, have had their effect upon these
Nursery Classics, and not only has a whole group of
distinctively American variants grown up, but a very
great number of fresh additions to nursery and child-lore
have been made since the first “Mother Goose” was
reprinted in this country.
A number of friends all over the States are helping
in the collection of new material of this kind, and if any
of your readers are sufficiently interested in the subject
to take the trouble to write down any of the nursery
rhymes and jingles with which they may be familiar,
and send them to me, especially those they know to be
local or distinctly American, they may help to bring to
light much that would otherwise escape, and will aid in
the most interesting work of showing how far America
has gone in the direction of evolving a National Nursery
Literature of its own. CHARLES WELSH.
67% Wyman Street, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass.
March 5, 1899.
WAS POE MATHEMATICALLY ACCURATEP
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
I wish to comment upon two sentences in the inter-
esting article of Mr. Charles Leonard Moore in THE
DIAL of Jan. 16, entitled “The American Rejection of
Poe’’:
“Poe, a logic machine, was absolutely incapable of those
pleasing flaws and deficiencies which allow other people to
have a good opinion of themselves. He always added up true.”
Probably most persons would think of “The Gold-
Bug” as the best illustration of the accurate working of
Poe's mind. The celebrated “cryptograph” there found
solves itself all right, I presume. There are some
mathematical statements in this story, however, which
seem to me impossible.
The negro, Jupiter, is compelled by his master,
William Legrand, to climb “an enormously tall tulip-
tree, which . . . far surpassed . . . all other trees
which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage
and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the
general majesty of its appearance.” The first great
branch was “some sixty or seventy feet from the
ground.” Jupiter is told to pass by six large limbs on
a particular side of this tree, and to climb out upon the
seventh. This last proves to be a dead branch, but
capable of bearing the negro's weight, and he climbs
“mos' out to the eend.” Here he discovers a skull
nailed to the limb. Legrand tells him to use the “gold-
bug,” tied to the end of a string, as a plumb-line, drop-
ping it through “the left eye of the skull.” A peg is
driven into the ground at the precise spot where the
beetle falls. Legrand then fastened one end of a tape-
measure “at that point of the trunk of the tree which
was nearest the peg, . . . unrolled it till it reached the


190 THE DIAL
[March 16,
peg, and thence further unrolled it, in the direction
already established, . . . for the distance of fifty feet.”
About the spot thus obtained as a centre, the three as-
sociates excavated a pit four feet in diameter to the
depth of seven feet, but found nothing. It was then
discovered that Jupiter had dropped the beetle through
the wrong eye. The next time it fell at “a spot about
three inches” from the previous point. “Taking, now,
the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk
to the peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a
straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was in-
dicated, removed by several yards from the point at
which we had been digging.”
The impossibility of the statement italicized will be
at once apparent. If the skull was found ten feet away
from the trunk of the tree — was it not farther ?—
the centre of the new circle for digging was about
six times three inches from the point about which they
dug at first. If the skull were only five feet from the
trunk, the second point for digging would be about
thirty-three inches from the first.
The journey of the three associates to the place
where the chest was discovered lay “through a tract of
country excessively wild and desolate.” After travel-
ling “for about two hours,” they “entered a region
infinitely more dreary than any yet seen. It was a
species of tableland, near the summit of an almost in-
accessible hill, densely wooded from base to pinnacle,
and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie
loosely upon the soil. . . . Deep ravines, in various di-
rections, gave an air of still sterner solemnity to the
scene.”
The chest found contained “rather more than four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars” in gold coins of
various nations, “estimating the value of the pieces, as
accurately as we could, by the tables of the period.”
The gold dollar of the United States weighs 254-5
grains, and there are 7,000 grains in the avoirdupois
pound. Gold coin to the value of $450,000 would
weigh, roughly stated, about 1,655 pounds. Poe tells us
that the weight of the other valuables in the chest “ex-
ceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois,”
not including “one hundred and ninety-seven superb
gold watches.” This makes the total weight of treasure
over 2,000 pounds. The three companions, unexhausted
by their journey and prolonged digging, carried home
one-third of this treasure in the solid chest over the
route indicated above. They reached their hut “in
safety, but after excessive toil, at one o'clock in the
morning.” After a rest of one hour, they set off, “armed
with three stout sacks,” to secure the remaining two-
thirds of the booty. They got back to the hut with this,
“just as the first faint streaks of the dawn gleamed
from over the treetops in the East.” On the second re-
turn journey, if my estimates “add up true,” each of
the three must have carried about 450 pounds of gold
and gems. Certainly, at the time of this achievement,
Poe — who tells the story as if himself the third party
in the enterprise—had not weakened his bodily powers
by dissipation.
In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” we read:
“On the hearth were two or three long and thick
tresses of gray human hair, also dabbled with blood, and
seeming to have been pulled out by the roots.” Later
in the story, the infallible Dupin says: “You saw the
locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a
hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh
of the scalp —sure token of the prodigious power which
had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of
hairs at a time.” (The italics are mine.)
The Bible suggests that God alone can accurately
number the hairs upon the human head; but I cannot
think that it would have involved any impiety if Poe
had made his partial estimate in this passage a little
more reasonable.
Let us disabuse our minds, then, of the notion that
Poe always “adds up true.”
Poe's fame is secure, though he can never be popu-
lar. His was essentially an original mind: he was a lit-
erary discoverer, and the world does not often forget its
discoverers. His message is mainly, perhaps, to literary
craftsmen. Whether we think of the detective story;
of the scientific romance, since carried further by Jules
Werne and others; of what I can only call “the short-
story of atmosphere”; of certain fundamental truths in
“the philosophy of composition”; of the true theory of
English versification, since elaborated by Sidney Lanier;
or of Poe's own peculiar type of intensely musical poetry,
with its fascinating use of tone-color, parallelism, and
repetition—we can say, I believe, with substantial truth,
that he was
“. . . . the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.”
ALBERT H. Tolman.
The University of Chicago, March 6, 1899.
THE MACHINE THEORY OF HISTORY.
(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)
Will you permit me a word with reference to that
“machine theory” of history to which Dr. Hinsdale, in
your issue of Feb. 16, justly takes exception? History
is a science, and should be scientifically studied. Sci-
ence is concerned with facts. The facts respect the
nature, action, evolution, and effects of substances and
forces. The facts of history have regard to men, and
ought to exhibit the action, development, and progres-
sive influence of the forces of his nature. We wish
to learn from history what man has done, and why he
has done certain things.
As in a natural science we learn the significance of
phenomena from their causes and effects, so in history
we find the meaning of man's actions in his character,
the motives that control or direct his movements. Only
in this way can we make a just estimate of an actor's
career, and gain trustworthy and valuable instruction
from the experience of those who have preceded us.
What signified the deeds of a Pericles, an Alexander, a
Marcus Aurelius, or a Caracalla? Do we find the mean-
ing of their lives in the isolated phenomena called their
acts, without inquiring whether these were laudable or
culpable? In some cases, perchance, two persons of
opposite character did like things. Did their doings
have the same significance and influence? If we wished
to direct our life by theirs, should we simply ask what
things they did?
The reciter of acts and occurrences is merely a diar-
ist, an annalist, or a compiler. The historian, worthy
of the name, is not a mere collector of political or social
phenomena. He must form judgments of men and re-
late their acts to their character. He must be judicial,
and must know the conclusions of science in its promi-
nent departments; for he should tell us not merely what
men have done, but what their lives have meant.
JAMEs F. MoRTON.
Andover, N. H., March 3, 1899,


1899.] THE
DIAL 191
Čbe #tto $ochs.
LEWIS CARROLL OF WONDERLAND.”
That was a sensible bit of advice given to
“Lewis Carroll” in a letter from his occa-
sional publisher, Mrs. Gatty, in 1867, in which,
after complimenting her correspondent on the
quality of a sketch about to appear in her mag-
azine, the lady went on to say:
“One word more. Make this [story] one of a series.
You have great mathematical abilities, but so have
hundreds of others. This talent is peculiarly your own,
and as an Englishman you are almost unique in pos-
sessing it. If you covet fame, therefore, it will be, I
think, gained by this.”
“Lewis Carroll” (as perhaps not a few read-
ers may even to-day need to be reminded) was
the pen-name of the Reverend Charles L.
Dodgson, Mathematical Lecturer at Christ
Church, Oxford, and an author of repute in
the abstruse field mildly disparaged by Mrs.
Gatty. For a period covering almost the last
half-century, he belonged to “The House,”
scarcely ever leaving it; and, says his biogra-
pher (himself of Christ Church), “I, for one,
can hardly imagine it without him.” While
attending closely to his professional studies and
duties, he early began relaxing his mind and
indulging his natural bent in writing humorous
verses for “The Comic Times,” a London imi-
tator of “Punch,” which soon after became
merged in a new venture, “The Train’’; and
it was in “The Train’” (of May, 1856) that
his future famous pseudonym, “Lewis Car-
roll,” first appeared.
Under the date July 4, 1862, there is a very
interesting entry in the Diary:
“I made an expedition up the river to Godstow with
the three Liddells; we had tea on the bank there, and
did not reach Christ Church till half-past eight. . . .
On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of ‘Alice's
Adventures Underground,’ which I undertook to write
out for Alice.”
It was on this summer afternoon that Mr.
Dodgson improvised for the amusement of the
three little girls who accompanied him those
adventures in “Wonderland,” which were later
re-written for publication by the advice of
George Macdonald, who had seen the story in
the original manuscript as written out by the
narrator for Miss Alice Liddell. “Alice’”
herself (now Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) gives
the following pleasant account of the momen-
tous excursion up the Thames:
“Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on
river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford.
My eldest sister was “Prima,’ I was “Secunda,” and
“Tertia” was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning
of ‘Alice' was told one summer afternoon when the
sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows
down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the
only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-
made hayrick. Here from all three came the old peti-
tion, “Tell us a story,’ and so began the ever delightful
tale. Sometimes to tease us Mr. Dodgson would stop
suddenly and say, “And that's all till next time.” “Ah,
but it is next time,’” would be the exclamation from
all three; and after some persuasion the story would
begin afresh. Another day, perhaps, the story would be
begun in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of
telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast
asleep, to our great dismay.”
On July 4, 1865, just three years after the
memorable row up the river, Miss Liddell re-
ceived the first presentation copy of “Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland,” the second copy
going to Princess Beatrice.
In 1867 Mr. Dodgson published his book
on “Determinants,” and we can fancy the sur-
prise of the Christ Church undergraduates
when they learned that “Lewis Carroll” of
“Wonderland” was none other than their pre-
ceptor of the lecture hall and author of that
learned treatise.
In 1857 Mr. Dodgson first met Tennyson,
whom he thus describes:
“A strange shaggy-looking man; his hair, moustache,
and beard looked wild and neglected; these very much
hid the character of the face. He was dressed in a
loosely fitting morning coat, common grey flannel waist-
coat and trousers, and a carelessly tied black silk hand-
kerchief. His hair is black; I think the eyes too; they
are keen and restless — nose aquiline — forehead high
and broad—both face and head are high and manly.
His manner was kind from the first; there is a dry lurk-
ing humor in his style of talking.”
Mr. Dodgson's faculty for seeing things in a
funny or extravagant light is illustrated by his
amusing descriptions of Berlin, which place he
visited while on a continental tour with Dr.
Liddon.
“. . . Wherever there is room on the ground [they]
put either a circular group of busts on pedestals, in
consultation, all looking inwards—or else the colossal
figure of a man killing, about to kill, or having killed
(the present tense is preferred) a beast; the more pricks
the beast has, the better,-in fact, a dragon is the cor-
*THE LIFE AND LETTERs of LEwis CARRoll (Rev. C. L.
Dodgson). By Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. Illustrated.
New York: The Century Co.
* “And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time ’ — ‘It is next time!’
The happy voices cry.”
(From verses prefacing the “Wonderland.”)


192
[March 16,
THE DIAL
rect thing, but if that is beyond the artist he may con-
tent himself with a lion or a pig. The beast-killing
principle has been carried out everywhere with a relent-
less monotony, which makes some parts of Berlin look
like a fossil slaughter-house.”
Early in 1869 Mr. Dodgson's “Phantas-
magoria” was published, and a few days later
the first chapter of “Behind the Looking-
Glass” was sent to the press. In 1871 the lat-
ter story appeared, and at once scored a huge
success. “I can say with a clear head and
conscience” (wrote Henry Kingsley to the au-
thor) “that your new book is the finest thing
we have had since “Martin Chuzzlewit’.”
“Jabberwocky,” Mr. Collingwood says, was at
once recognized as “the best and most original
thing in the book”; and we learn, as to the
origin of this (to our thinking) rather silly
production, that it was composed as a contri-
bution to a game of “verse-making ” at an
evening party. Much may be risked with a
public that accepts rhymed gibberish as humor;
and in 1876 Mr. Dodgson put forth his “ Hunt-
ing of the Snark,” a chef-d'oeuvre of sheer
nonsense over which John Bull grinned for a
twelvemonth. By the Browning Clubs “The
Snark” was rapturously hailed as a godsend in
the way of a new repository of hidden mean-
ings, until the author set speculation of that
sort at rest by calmly announcing that his poem
had no meaning at all. “I’m very much afraid,”
he wrote to an anxious elucidator of poetic rid-
dles in America, “that I did n't mean anything
but nonsense,”— thus closing forever a most
promising field of research.
In 1879 appeared Mr. Dodgson's most elabo-
rate mathematical work, “Euclid and His Mod-
ern Rivals,” an original book in its way, cast
in dramatic form, and relieved by humorous
touches in the author's happier and saner vein.
In 1883 occurred his controversy with the
“trade,” in the course of which appeared his
pamphlet on “The Profits of Authorship.”
Touching the publisher's share of the spoils,
he wrote:
“The publisher contributes about as much as the
bookseller in time and bodily labor, but in mental toil
and trouble a great deal more. I speak with some
personal knowledge of the matter, having myself, for
some twenty years, inflicted on that most patient and
painstaking firm, Messrs. Macmillan & Co., about as
much wear and worry as ever publishers have lived
through. The day when they undertake a book is a
dies nefastus with them. . . . I think the publisher's
claim on the profits is on the whole stronger than the
bookseller's.”
“A Tangled Tale,” one of the best of Mr.
Dodgson's books, and a most quaint and de-
lightful medley of fun and mathematics, came
out in 1885. A brief quotation will show the
whimsical turn of the humor. “Balbus ” (a
tutor) and his pupils go in search of lodgings,
and one of the party, after the usual questions,
anxiously inquires of the landlady “if the cat
scratches.”
“The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to
make sure the cat was not listening. “I will not deceive
you gentlemen,” she said. “It do scratch, but not with-
out you pull its whiskers | It'll never do it,” she re-
peated slowly, with a visible effort as if to recall the exact
words of some written agreement between herself and
the cat,” “without you pulls its whiskers l’ “Much may
be excused in a cat so treated,” said Balbus as they left
the house and crossed to No. 70, leaving the landlady
curtseying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to her-
self, as if they were a form of blessing – ‘not without
you pulls its whiskers'!”
Mr. Dodgson's next book was “The Game
of Logic" (1887), an elementary method for
children, rendered palatable by such quaint
syllogisms as
“No bald person needs a hair-brush;
No lizards have hair:
No lizard needs a hair brush.”
“Sylvie and Bruno" was issued in 1889, and
its sequel “Sylvie and Bruno Concluded ” fol-
lowed four years later. In this work, Mr.
Collingwood says, are embodied the ideals and
sentiments most dear to the author. It is didac-
tic in aim, written with a definite purpose of
turning its writer's influence to account in en-
forcing neglected truths; but it falls short of the
fresh and spontaneous “Alice” books as a work
of art — considerably short of them, we think.
Mr. Dodgson died at Guildford Rectory, on
January 14, 1898, and he lies in Guildford
Churchyard, under a white cross bearing the
name “Lewis Carroll”—surely one, in a spe-
cial sense, to conjure with. “Lewis Carroll”
may be numbered with those writers of our
day who have added a new note to literature;
therefore his books have that in them which is
likely to win them readers for many years to
come. “Alice in Wonderland ” may well
prove to be one of the world's books whose
freshness time cannot stale. Mr. Collingwood's
Life leaves with us the wholesome impression
of a singularly pure and engaging character,
and no lover of “Lewis Carroll” should fail to
read it. The book is a pretty one, richly illus-
trated, mainly with photographic plates of Mr.
Dodgson's friends, including portraits of Ten-
nyson, Alice Liddell, Hunt, Millais, the Ros-
settis, Tenniel, Ellen and Kate Terry, Mr.
Ruskin — the last, one is constrained to hope,
a bad likeness. E. G. J.


1899.] THE
DIAL 193
ARISTOTELIANISM AND THE MODERN
SPIRIT.”
It is true, Aristotelianism has been shorn of
its authority as an officially sanctioned system
of philosophy and science, — a species of au-
thority, however, contradictory to the spirit of
that system and of its originator. It is no
longer the official philosophy of the academic
world, or even of the Roman court as in the
days of the Scholastics. But had the free,
inquiring, progressive spirit of Aristotle lived
amongst the Scholastics, he would unquestion-
ably have been an anti-Aristotelian. He would
have joined the ranks of his historical adver-
saries. Authority, in the sense of a binding or
school dogma, is a fetich to which Aristotle
never paid homage. On the other hand, there
is another form of authority still left to him,
namely, the authority which proceeds from the
prestige of a great reputation and from intrinsic
reasonableness of doctrine. It cannot be gain-
said that there is a cogency merely in a great
name or reputation which forces or tends to
force assent. The popular ascription of supe-
riority to any man carries with it the conces-
sion of authority in that particular reference.
It is a type of hero-worship, in which we now-
adays reserve to ourselves the democratic free-
dom of electing our authorities in terms of our
own prejudices.
Generally speaking, we have in philosophy
and science no authority foisted on us, save
what comes from the officialdom of popular
opinion, or, in certain circles, from ecclesiast-
ical tradition. Belief in the possibility of an
absolute exorcism of the supposed evil spirit of
authority is merely the hallucination of a man
who sees visions. And even if such exorcism
were possible, there is ground for reasonable
doubt whether it would be desirable. The spirit
of trust, of reverence for authority, and the con-
tentment of a conservative mind, are real safe-
guards to the direction of development. Mere
motion is not always progress, and radicalism
is not a synonym of advancement. Against
excesses of radicalism and the spirit of mere
mobility we are equipped with a wholesome
counter-instinct of reverence for the traditional
and of caution in revolutionary measures.
The early years of the struggle of modern
science under the influence of Bacon and the
anti-Scholastics are often characterized as a
*ARIsroTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICs. Being a
translation from Zeller's Philosophy of the Greeks, by B. F. C.
Costelloe, M.A., and J. H. Muirhead, M.A. In two volumes.
New York: Longmans, Green, & Co.
revolt against the bondage of Aristotelianism
and as emancipation from the errors of that
system. To such a degree is this true, that
writers are often disposed to blame Aristotle
personally and to regard him as the arch-enemy
of progress. In view of this attitude on the
part of modern critics of the progress of sci-
ence, it is curious to note the fact that Aristotle
a year before he died fled from Athens owing
to an indictment for heresy and ultra-progres-
siveness; while the progressive liberals of the
Baconian era bring an indictment against him
as the inspiring genius of the ultra-conservatives.
Thus, owing to the immense change in the
Zeitgeist, diametrically opposite charges are
brought against the same philosopher.
The truth is that Aristotle is not to be meas-
ured by the use made of a part of his system
by the Roman Catholic Church, but by the
advancement in science made by him over his
own predecessors and by the intrinsic worth of
his own philosophy; i.e., he is to be measured
both by reference to his historical environment
and the then contemporary state of science, as
well as by the test of the reasonableness and
suggestiveness of his doctrines. He is in no-
wise chargeable with the stagnation of the
middle ages, unless we are to censure the mag-
nitude of his genius for reducing Europe dur-
ing these long centuries to almost abject intel-
lectual slavery. The fault was not in the master,
but in the slave. Further, we cannot rationally
pass censure on him for not having observed
that which can be seen only by the aid of a
microscope or other instrument of modern
invention. It is mainly by virtue of instru-
mental equipment, the collection of large bodies
of material, the organized coöperation of sci-
entists, and the increased facilities for record
and distribution of results of investigations,
that modern science has triumphed over the
ancient, and not by virtue of any superior
intellectual endowment or acumen. On the
other hand, where modern science has gained
in intension it has lost in extension. It is, to
be sure, satisfied with this sacrifice of the quan-
titative for the qualitative. At the time Aris-
totle wrote, the methods of the exact sciences
were not known. One would, therefore, expect
to find him most successful in ethics, politics,
and metaphysics; and this we find to be true,
although modern scientists have bestowed un-
measured praise on his work in the investiga-
tion of nature. This praise is due mainly to
the fact that he clearly saw the superior value
of the objective over the subjective method in


194
[March 16,
THE DIAL
natural science, and saw it in spite of the well-
nigh complete bondage of his contemporaries to
a priori speculation.
For this reason certain modern scientists
have bestowed on the Stagirite praise as exag-
gerated as were the denunciations of Bacon,
Ramus, or Luther. Between the unqualified
detraction on the one hand, mere dreary ex-
posure of mistakes, and the inordinate praise
and impossible eulogies on the other, Zeller
maintains a sobriety of criticism which forces
the reader's confidence. Cuvier, on the con-
trary, commenting on the “History of Ani-
mals,” says: “I cannot read this book without
being ravished with astonishment. Indeed, it
is impossible to conceive how a single man was
able to collect and compare the multitude of
particular facts implied in the numerous gen-
eral rules and aphorisms contained in this work,
and of which his predecessors never had any
idea.” Buffon, speaking of the same work,
says: “Aristotle's ‘History of Animals’ is
perhaps even now the best work of its kind;
he probably knew animals better and under
more general views than we do now.” Even
George H. Lewes, who quotes the foregoing
passages from “The French Historians of Na-
ture,” and who has the strong anti-metaphys-
ical bias of Positivism and is usually a severe
critic of Aristotle, in speaking of Aristotelian-
ism in general, says: “His [Aristotle's] attain-
ments surpassed those of every known philos-
opher; his influence has only been exceeded
by the great founders of religions.” St. George
Mivart goes the length of saying (“Contem-
porary Evolution,” p. 179) : “What is needed,
and what evolution will in fallibly bring about,
is not a return to a philosophy, but a return to
the philosophy. For if metaphysics are possi-
ble, there is not, and never was or will be, more
than one philosophy, which, properly under-
stood, unites all speculative truths and elimi-
nates all errors: the philosophy of the philoso-
pher—Aristotle.” Romanes, who cannot be
accused of having any bias for Aristotle, says:
: “Whether we look to its width or to its depth,
we must alike conclude that the range of Aris-
totle's work is wholly without a parallel in the
history of mankind.” (“Contemporary Re-
wiew,” Wol. 59, p. 276.) Luther, whose attacks
on Aristotle exhibit an animus which one would
expect, usually denounces him in toto, but in
one passage (Bd. lxii., p. 262, Erlangen ed.)
he concedes Aristotle's excellence in ethics,
while, in a high-handed way, he summarily and
unexplainedly condemns his philosophy of na-
ture: “Aristoteles ist der besten Lehrer einer in
Philosophia morali, wie man ein fein züchtig
ăusserlich Lebenführen soll; in naturali Phil-
osophia tauger nichts.” Again: “Derweise
Mann Aristoteles schleusset fast dahin, es sei
die Welt von Ewigkeit gewesen. Da muss
man je sagen, er habe gar nichts von dieser
Kunst gewusst” (Bd. xxiii., p. 241). This
denunciation was all because Aristotle's cos-
mical theories, especially that of the eternity
of the world, conflicted with the Lutheran the-
ology.
Between the exaggerated praise of Buffon
and the exaggerated denunciation of Luther,
there is, as usual, a truer middle ground.
While Aristotle's works teem with scientific
blunders, they are also filled with fundamental
and epoch-making truths, and it is not an over-
statement of historical fact to say that no spirit
in the progress of civilization has exerted so
profound an influence on the life of science as
Aristotle. In the pre-scholastic centuries this
influence was exerted mainly through the trea-
tises on Logic; but from the time of Thomas
Aquinas the introduction of natural science
into the Western world by the Arabs, the entire
body of the Aristotelian canon was known to
European scholars. It must not be supposed
that Aristotelianism is at the present moment
extinct. The religious system of John of
Damascus, which is founded on Aristotle's log-
ical and metaphysical doctrines, is to this
day recognized as the standard of orthodox
dogmatic theology in the Greek Church, while
in the Roman Catholic Church under the pa-
tronage of the present Pope, Leo XIII., the
influence of the Aristotleian Aquinas is espe-
cially in the ascendant. So that Aristotelian-
ism is still a living and vital element in these
two immensely potent forces of the Greek and
Roman ecclesiastical organizations.
The height of Aristotle's influence was
reached in the twelfth century, at which time
he dominated the best educated and most subtle
minds of Europe. In the early part of that
century the Arabs of Spain became the masters
of the schoolmen, and through Averroes (Ibn
Raschd) made themselves powerful factors in
the contemporary civilization; but the Spanish
Aristotelianism stood for pantheism in which
all special providence was denied. This doc-
trine was formally repudiated by the Latin
Church, and in 1270 was anathematized by the
Bishop of Paris. Besides Thomas Aquinas,
Albert the Great was a leading figure in the
Aristotelianism of that century, and a little


1899.]
195
THE DIAL
later Dante was moulded in the study of the
Stagirite. In his vision in the fourth canto
of the “Paradiso” he speaks thus of il maestro:
“When I had lifted up my brows a little
The master I beheld of those who know
Sit with his philosophic family.
All gaze upon him and do him honor.”
(iv. 131, Longfellow's Translation.)
During the Renaissance the “Ethics” and
“Politics” were widely read. In the seven-
teenth century Aristotle's influence waned,
owing to the tendency in the new natural sci-
ence to independent observation. Again, at
the beginning of the present century we find
an important revival of Aristotelian studies
innder the leadership of Trendelenburg. . It is
the beginning of a period characterized by the
rise of historical criticism and the wane of dog-
matism, whose direction was largely given by
Lessing, himself a devoted student of Aristotle.
In the early decades the Berlin Academeny of
Sciences issued the great standard quarto edi-
tion of all the works, including “Scholia,” etc.,
on which was employed the flower of Ger-
many's scholarship; in the thirties, Barthé-
lemy Saint-Hilaire began his monumental
French version, which he lived to complete after
sixty years of labor interrupted at intervals by
civic duties. Grote, the historian, left us the
torso of two volumes that illustrate even more
than his other writings his splendid industry.
It was this work, to which Grote was devoting
the last years of his failing health but perennial
enthusiasm, that induced him to decline a peer-
age of the United Kingdom offered in the pre-
miership of Gladstone.
Besides the foregoing, a large number of
volumes on particular parts or aspects of Aris-
totle's system have appeared in Germany,
France, and England, but nothing has been
published during the century of more consid-
erable moment for Aristotelian studies than the
two volumes of Zeller now before us, giving
as they do a systematic exposition of the sig-
nificance and content of the whole of the Peri-
patetic philosophy, with a critical estimation
of its value and defects, and an account of its
external history. One is especially glad to have
it in English, for we have nothing whatever
that satisfies this lacuna in our literature.
Zeller is, without exception, the most skilful
interpreter of Greek philosophical ideas that
ever put pen to the subject, and it will be many
a long year before his work is antiquated. He
has a rare combination of fine critical acumen,
power of lucid and orderly statement, just dis-
crimination of the values of evidence, immense
patience for detail, astounding range and pre-
cision of learning, and withal a judicial spirit
in the handling of controversial matter. He
rejects without flinching all interpretations
inspired by harmonistic tendencies, however
skilfully they may rescue Aristotle's consist-
ency and relieve him from the charge of con-
tradiction; and everywhere he maintains a
rigidly conscientious attitude toward the canons
of evidence. Although he does not underesti-
mate the profound intrinsic significance of the
Aristotelian system or its great influence on the
processes of civilization, he never attempts to
smoothe away difficulties by forced explana-
tions. He has the courage to leave these dis-
crepancies as they are.
The translators have done skilful work in
giving us a really English treatise, which brings
the reader scarcely a suggestion of its foreign
source. Zeller never fails to make his state-
ments in clear, unmistakable sentences, very
unlike the usual treatise that comes from Ger-
man scholars. His manner of writing is akin
to that of the Anglo-Saxon genius; and his
translators have been, for this reason, the more
easily able to provide an English version which
might well have been originally an English
Classic. The volumes have a value of the first
order. One is almost disposed to think of them
as definitive in their method of structure, while
their subject-matter is indubitably of lasting
interest.
The ultimate problems of philosophy may
still be awaiting their satisfactory solution, and
men of science have now and again decried the
attempt as impossible; yet, as Kant says in the
Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Max Müller's
trans., p. xxxi.) : “It is vain to assume a kind
of artificial indifferentism in respect to inquiries
the object of which cannot be indifferent to
human nature.” The teachings of Aristotle
are of both historical and present interest. In
certain disciplines, the important thing is not
the state of contemporary science, but the per-
sonality of the thinker. In ethics, e.g., the
deliverances of great spirits are not so much
affected by the conditions of science as by the
temperament of the man, the character of his
will, and the energy of his feeling and vision.
The utterances of such spirits on subjects of
this kind do not become obsolete. What was
said by Socrates, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius,
and Jesus, on the nature of the moral life is in
the main universally applicable, and not pe-
culiar to conditions of time or place. In
questions where one is concerned with the


196 THE I) LAL
[March 16,
immutable principles of human nature, the
deliverances of men who have had a genius for
morality (men may have a genius for morality
as much as for mathematics) are as little sub-
ject to obsoletism as the Homeric epics, the
creations of Dante, or the divine forms of
Gothic art. And these problems of the human
spirit and its relation to the conduct of life
and to the nature and knowledge of reality,
although they may be most difficult of solu-
tion, none the less they do lie nearest to the
heart. The answers we find to such ques-
tions amongst the Greeks, and particularly in
Aristotle, are marked by the rigor of original-
ity, clear, simple, without artificiality. Greece,
to use an idea of Trendelenburg's, is not our
gray antiquity so much as the fresh youth of
our spirit.
p WILLIAM A. HAMMOND.
SIR RICHARD BURTON’s POSTHUMOUS
PAPERS.*
When Richard Burton died at Trieste in
1890, the world lost an intrepid explorer, a
keen observer, and a polyglot scholar. His ad-
venturous career was unique in the nineteenth
century, and will find no successor in the twen-
tieth. He had ranged the habitable globe—
the Orient and tropics by preference; and
had studied anthropology at first-hand, with an
unsurpassed equipment for his work. In him
were united English tenacity, Anglo-Saxon
restlessness, a gift for languages like that of
Mezzofanti, and a certain trampling brusque
power of description that always seemed confi-
dent of winning by the mere fascination of its
material.
Burton was a “much-neglected traveller”;
what honors he had came late; and the posthum-
ous honor which may come from this triad of
essays will hardly add to his varied fame, though
in certain respects they are faithful suggestions
of the man. In addition to the forty-eight
works published during his life, there were left
at his death some twenty MSS., the publication
of which was placed absolutely within the dis-
cretion of his widow, Lady Burton. She pub-
lished her “Life of Sir Richard Burton,” and
editions of his “Arabian Nights,” “Catullus,”
and “Il Pentamerone”; and was arranging
for the publication of others, when she died
*THE JEw, THE Gypsy, AND EL Islam. By Sir Richard
F. Burton. Edited by W. H. Wilkins. Chicago: Herbert
S. Stone & Co.
(March, 1896); and the MSS.—with the dis-
cretion — were entrusted to Mr. Wilkins.
The three papers now brought together by
Mr. Wilkins are of unequal merit. The first
one, “The Jew,” is an unfavorable criticism
upon the most persistent race in history: its
steadily anti-Semitic spirit would delight the
soul of Pastor Stoecker or the Jew-baiting pop-
ulace of Paris. Burton's various Eastern con-
sulates enabled him to know the Jews of the
Orient widely and well; but his attempt to de-
fend the atrocities against the Jews of the
Middle Ages by the suggestion of previous
greater atrocities committed by them is gratu-
itous. The chapter on the Talmud is interest-
ing; but the mingled absurdity and vindictive-
ness of its anti-Gentile teachings are shown up
with a relish which is unpleasant to contem-
plate. The truth is that none of us, as nations,
can turn over the leaves of our darker youth
without wincing ; and it is unfair to erect the
police reports of the Levant into a studied
indictment of a race whose achievements and
services to civilization are conceded by all who
read history with untrammelled judgment.
“The Gypsy” is an attractive ethnological
study, for the writing of which Burton was
admirably well-equipped, even if he had not in
his veins that infusion of Romany blood with
which he was generally credited. Its merits
are somewhat impaired by a lack of proportion:
nearly half of the 150 pages being a polemic
against the claims of M. Paul Bataillard to
priority in identifying the Gypsies with the Jat
of the banks of the Indus. This, as well as the
comparative word-lists, can naturally be of
interest to very few outside the ranks of experts
in “Chinganology.” But the chapters devoted
to a survey of the “children of out-of-doors” in
the various continents, whether called Gitano,
Zigeuner, Tzigane, or Jat, are really fascinat-
ing, and could have been written by no one
else. Burton penetrated everywhere, was under-
stood of the Gypsies in all lands, and learned
their traditions and character with a complete-
ness approached by no other Englishman, ex-
cept, perhaps, his great contemporary, George
Borrow.
“El Islam,” the third in this group of studies,
is an essay of about sixty-five pages. It was
written, as Mr. Wilkins tells us, about 1853,
soon after that daring and successful pilgrim-
age to Mecca which made Burton famous. It
is a sympathetic apologia for the “Saving
Faith ”; and the tone is, on the whole, both
moderate and philosophic. With Burton's


1899.] THE
DIAL 197
usual lack of perspective, however, nearly two-
thirds of the paper is given to a resumé of the
other great religions displaced by Islamism in
the Orient; and the author has thus left him-
self only about twenty-five pages in which to
establish his proposition. He sets himself the
task of correcting what he believes to be the
four most popular errors of the time (i.e.,
1858) in regard to El Islam. These are, in
his own words, as follows:
I. “It is determined to be merely a receptive
faith, and therefore adapted only to that por-
tion of mankind whose minds, still undeveloped
and uncultivated, are unripe for a religion of
principles.” The author affirms this to be
“partly correct of the corrupted, untrue of the
pure, belief; it will somewhat apply to the
tenets of the Turks and Persians, but not to
those of the first Muslims and the modern
Wahabis.”
II. “Men object that The Saving Faith is
one of pure sensuality.” This is refuted by a
summary of the numerous injunctions of the
Koran, condemning nearly all the pleasures of
this life; followed by the claim that “those
who best know El Islam, instead of charging it
with sensuality, lament its leaven of asceticism.
They regret to see men investing these fair
nether scenes with mourning hues; ‘the world
is the Muslim's prison, the tomb his stronghold,
and Paradise his journey's end.” But this could
not be otherwise. Asceticism and celibacy are
the wonted growth of hot and Southern cli-
mates, where man appears liable to a manner
of religious monomania.”
III. “The third error is that the Founder of
the Saving Faith began his ministry as an en-
thusiast and ended it as an impostor.” Burton's
answer to this is substantially the tu quoque,
claiming for Mohammed the full measure of
sincerity conceded to other Founders.
IV. “The fourth error is that Muhammad,
unable to abolish certain superstitious rites and
customs of the ancient and Pagan Arabs, incor-
porated them into his scheme, and thus propi-
tiated many that before avoided him.” In the
author's answer to this, which is too long to
quote entire, we are prepared for his “conclu-
sion of the whole matter,” as follows:
“Muhammad's mission, then, was one purely of re-
form. He held that four dispensations had preceded
his own, and that his object was to restore their pristine
purity. But the Adamical had been obsoletized by the
Noachian scheme; and this by the Mosaic, which, in its
turn becoming defunct, had left all its powers and pre-
rogatives to Christianity; thus also the latter dispensa-
tion, in the fulness of time, had been superseded by the
revelations of the Saving Faith. All the past was now
effete and abrogated. All the future would be mere
imposture; for his was the latest of religions, he the
Soul of the Prophets.”
The book, it should be added, is beautifully
printed and bound; is provided with an index;
and has a finely etched portrait of Sir Richard
Burton, from the painting by Lord Leighton.
JosLAH RENICK SMITH.
HISTORICAL TREASURE TROVE.”
The historian who records the recent mani-
festations of good-will and esteem between
Great Britain and the United States should
give prominent place to the restoration to Mass-
achusetts, in 1897, of the original manuscript
of Governor Bradford's History of “Plimoth
Plantation.” No later occurrence between the
two peoples, though in itself more sensational,
can testify more unequivocally of an undercur-
rent of mutual respect and affection than the
romantic episode of this restoration. This
record of a chapter in our early history is the
candid and dignified statement, by one of the
foremost actors, in language modest and unaf-
fected, of that dramatic movement in the evo-
lution of modern freedom which made the
Pilgrims from eastern England the first found-
ers of a newer England on the Western con-
tinent. It is the contemporaneous recital, by
one of themselves, of the successive acts for
several decades of that Pilgrim company whose
career has made a wonderful impress upon the
history of the world, and of whom it was well
said by Governor Wolcott, in his address ac-
knowledging the receipt of the precious volume:
“In the varied tapestry which pictures our
national life, the richest spots are those where
gleam the golden threads of conscience, cour-
age, and faith, set in the web by that little
band.”
The Bradford manuscript is a spontaneous
revelation of that conscience, courage, and
faith; and as such, it is held dear in the affec-
tions of all Americans. Lost to us for nearly
a hundred years, it was found in the archives
of the established church of that nation which
has so often been represented as our hereditary
enemy. After thirty-seven years of unsuccess-
ful attempts to recover it, the patient and affa-
ble solicitations of Senator Hoar and Ambas-
*BRADFord's HISTORY OF “PLIMOTH PIANTATION.”
From the original manuscript. Printed by order of the Gen-
eral Court, Boston, 1898.


198
[March 16,
THE DIAL
sador Bayard succeeded. Good-will was in-
voked, rather than diplomacy, and it awoke an
answering chord of good-will in Great Britain:
the ecclesiastical authorities in the mother-land
surrendered to the commonwealth of Massa-
ghusetts the custody of her heirloom, the sur-
render being accompanied by conditions so
little burdensome as to evince the sincere es-
teem which prompted it. The story of the loss,
the search, and the recovery is told in the intro-
duction to the handsome reprint of the old man-
uscript which the commonwealth has recently
issued.
This history was printed in 1856 from a copy
which had been secured in England, so that its
contents are already known to historical stu-
dents. The present issue is, however, timely,
and will be welcomed by American readers. It
is a verified representation of the text of Gov-
ernor Bradford, retaining all the variations of
his independent spelling. Facsimiles of a few
pages of his manuscript form appropriate illus-
trations to the text. While this edition does
not pretend to compete, in the esteem of anti-
quarians with the elaborate edition which repro-
duces the whole manuscript in facsimile, it will
find high place with the reading public, by
virtue of its clear typography and its well-
ordered index.
The quaint and almost archaic style of Brad-
ford's prose is far from tiresome, and he is so
faithful an annalist, and so free from undue
self-assertion, as to give to his unfashionable
diction a charm of its own. The faith, hope,
and courage of that band of adventurous pil-
grims shine through his pages, tempered by a
charity which lends to the whole narrative a
tone of impartiality characteristic of true his-
tory. Important episodes are often illustrated
by copies of original documents, as in the cases
of the Mayflower Compact, the articles of the
New England confederation, and much of the
correspondence between the Pilgrims and the
adventurers. Such writings give us history
from original sources; and imprints like this
of writings of that class are appreciated and
read with avidity by that largely increasing
public who are delving in early American an-
nals, and are daily finding new episodes of mar-
vellous interest in our Colonial experiences.
JAMES OSCAR PIERCE.
MR. WILLIAM ARCHER, the well-known English dra-
matic critic, is shortly to visit the United States for the
purpose of writing a series of articles on “The Stage in
America.” The articles will appear in what is now an
international magazine, the “Pall Mall.”
FAITH AND FANTASY.”
Faith, from the very nature of the case, is espe-
cially exposed to becoming fantasy. Faith deals
with the deeper implications of our sensuous life.
The unseen and eternal are open to it. This ex-
ploration, slipping the restraints of experience, is
especially liable to become fanciful. Hardly another
doctrine could have so opened the doors of imagina-
tive thought—of reason winged by fancy—as the
assertion that absolute truth is contained in Scrip-
ture, and is open to any man's unfolding. The
processes of each mind are thus given a final author-
ity which needs no correction from the flow of events.
Religious truth is made independent of that com-
prehensive scheme of things of which it is a part.
The rationalistic fancy of the ill-trained spirit meets
with no check from the moral experience of the
world, and with no instruction from the historical
unfolding of our spiritual life. The lesson of events
is lightly set aside in behalf of an immature render-
ing of the fundamental conditions and principles
of our being. Faith suffers the disparagement of
fancy, because it takes no pains to steady itself by
an accumulative rendering of the spiritual events of
the world.
We are disposed to accept as the keynote of the
present criticism the brief discourse on “New Forms
of Christian Education,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
Not because the religious thought of the world is
ready to fall into harmony under it, but because it
best presents the true constructive centre, subject
to which the unison of faith is to be reached. Mrs.
Ward summarizes her own view of Christian Edu-
cation with much distinctness. Thus, she says in
conclusion:
“Each of those relations and duties may, if we will,
be connected with the beloved and sacred name of him
who stands both by inherent genius and by the irrevo-
cable choice of men at the head of the spiritual life of
Europe, and still bequeaths even to our far-off genera-
tions the maintenance and spread of his work. All
things may be done to God in Christ; and that our chil-
dren should learn from us so to do them is the task of
Christian education. Only in the patient struggle to
fulfil it week by week, and day by day, till the educa-
tion of childhood merges in the sterner education of
‘maturity, can we hope, parent and child, teacher and
taught, for the growth which alone is true life—growth
in that temper at once of self-surrender and indomitable
*NEw ForMs of CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. By Mrs. Hum-
phry Ward. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
THE PREPARATION For CHRISTIANITY. By R.N. Wenley.
Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co.
ADDREsses to Wom EN ENGAGED IN CHURCH. WoRK. By
the Right Reverend the Bishop of New York. New York:
E. P. Dutton & Co.
CHRIST IN THE INDUSTRIEs. By William Riley Halstead.
Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings.
THE SACRIFICE of CHRIST. By Henry Wace, D.D. New
York: The Macmillan Co.
CHRISTIANITY AND ANTI-CHRISTIANITY. By Samuel J.
Andrews. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
THE Hope of IMMoRTALITY. By the Rev. J. E. E.
Welldou. New York: The Macmillan Co.


1899.] THE
TXIAL 199
hope, which yields all that man has and does, his forms
of faith, no less than the grosser claims of self and flesh,
to the action of the indwelling, all-transforming God,
whereof the chief representative in history is Jesus
Christ.”
The address seems to us to be more pervaded by the
sense of loss than by that of gain. Our attention
is drawn rather to the salvage that attends upon a
disastrous wreck than to the pure metal which comes
forth when the dross has been purged from the ore
in a refining process. The certainty of faith is
greater, not less, when its data have been subjected
to the most thorough sifting of experience. Only
then are the breadth and inescapable force of our
inferences apparent.
The second book on our list, “The Preparation
for Christianity,” lies in line with this correction of
belief by the history of its development.
“The atmosphere of our lives was created by Him,
far more completely than the majority of us are even
vaguely aware; our institutions have been molded by
His spirit; our most effective ideals centre in Him; and
upon His career and all its consequences rests our hope
for eternity. These are not opinions, but facts capable
of no dispute whatsoever, simply because they are his-
torical, and have been becoming more and more of the
essence of history for nigh two thousand years. Conse-
quently, no Christian can have a firmer foundation for
his faith than that which rests immovable upon the his-
torical influence issuing from the life of Christ” (p. 22).
We are glad of a new work from Professor Wenley.
His thought is wont to be free and stimulating.
The purpose of the present volume is to trace the
converging influences of Grecian, Jewish, and Ro-
man civilization on Christianity. Any adequate
treatment is exceedingly difficult. The theme read-
ily lends itself to the intense and vague. The book
has marked excellences. The criticism we should
be most inclined to make is that the discussion is
too purely one of ideas, – a tracing of the intel-
lectual and spiritual inheritance that has come down
to us. The thought would have been made more
definite, and at the same time more comprehensive,
if the social life of which these ideas were the fer-
ment—the social life which limited them and was
limited by them—had been more fully given. This
would have been in keeping with an introductory
chapter in which the author lays strong emphasis on
the unity of our lives in society. The entire theme,
however, is like a rich and widely branching mine
to be worked by many in many generations. Our
author returns from his exploration with his own
treasures.
“Addresses to Women Engaged in Church
Work” is a small volume made up of a few brief
lectures—waifs of stimulus and guidance in an ac-
tive life. They lay little claim to literary form,
but they are full of that earnest spiritual temper
which renders the words and acts of Bishop Potter
so valuable. The themes are of a character fitted
to renew thought and impulse.
The author of “Christ in the Industries” ex-
plains his purpose at once. “It is written for busy
people, who have no time for an extended treatise,
and perhaps no tastes for the details of sociological
study, and yet would like to keep abreast of modern
movements, and of the new applications of Chris-
tian thought.”. The volume lies in the line of this
intention. Its subjects are: “The Dignity of
Labor,” “Social Transformations,”“Some Friends
of Labor,” “Industrial Problems,” “The Future of
Labor in America.” The volume is plain, whole-
some bread, which should, in one form or another,
be on every man's table.
“The Sacrifice of Christ” is another effort to
soften the colors in which orthodox belief has
painted the death of Christ, and to give them a more
subdued and natural expression. So far it is a
response—one that has often been made—to that
deepening impression by which the whole procedure
of salvation becomes growth under the wide uni-
versal conditions of physical and spiritual law. So
far, we may feel disposed to commend the treatise,
and yet we must think that a little more of the
same process leaves only the faintest outline of the
old conception. It is replaced by a less definite,
but far more glorious, vision of spiritual life steadily
unfolding within itself.
“Christianity and Anti-Christianity” is a much
belated volume. A title more immediately disclos-
ing the purpose of the book would have been “Christ
and Anti-Christ.” Of all the fancies which have
fastened on Christian faith, few have been more per-
sistent and more misleading than that of Anti-Christ.
The primary purpose of the author is to bring for-
ward this shattered and discarded image, pad it into
shape once more with the errors and alleged errors
of science, literature, and social life, and set it up as
a menace to unbelievers, and an historic landmark on
the road to the New Jerusalem. That he does his
work with more moderation than is wont to belong
to this kind of effort, is but scant atonement for un-
dertaking it at all. No labor could be more futile
than one designed to crowd the truly prosperous
events of our spiritual life off from their present
natural basis and force them back on the out-worn
uninstructive and unreal conceptions associated with
Anti-Christ.
“The Hope of Immortality” is another evidence
both of faith and of the want of faith. If by faith
we mean the rational hold of the mind on truths
which cannot be proved, yet seem to it deeply
involved in the facts before it, then no doctrine
makes a more direct appeal to faith than that of
immortality. The mind that has slight hold of the
underlying principles of the spiritual world will
always accept this belief with hesitancy. Those
who find the foundations of religious doctrine dis-
turbed by the changing currents of speculation will
begin at once to distrust the full consummation of
faith expressed in immortality. It is not strange
then that many are striving to restore to the eye
those spiritual forces that find their completion in a


200
[March 16,
THE DIAL
future life. “The Hope of Immortality” is a sys-
tematic, methodical treatise. It moves leisurely and
comprehensively. It treats of the nature, history,
and value of this belief; of its evidence under two
aspects, external and internal; and of the amplifi-
cations of the belief by Christianity. It is not quite
sufficiently touched by the spiritual temper of our
time. It is still possessed by sonvictions which have
somewhat lost their hold. This is seen in the weight
it gives to the internal evidence, the nature of the
spirit. It lays emphasis on its indiscerptible char-
acter. This argument implies more knowledge than
we have of the nature of spirit, and proves quite
too much. On the other hand, the author does not
sufficiently amplify and enforce the moral argument.
As physical predictions fail us, spiritual predictions
gain power. The spirit of the book is of the best.
John BAscom.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.
Colonel Edward Wibart gives an
extremely interesting account of his
personal experiences in India during
the Mutiny, in his “The Sepoy Mutiny” (imported
by Scribner). At the time of the outbreak Colonel
Vibart was a young subaltern in a regiment of na-
tive infantry occupying cantonments two miles to
the northwest of Delhi. He is now the sole surviving
officer of that garrison. When the news reached
the cantonments of the riots in the city following the
arrival there of the mutinous sepoys from Meerut,
detachments were sent out to quell the disturbance;
but it soon became evident that the native troops
were disaffected, as they offered no resistance to
the mutineers, suffering them to murder the Eu-
ropean officers before their eyes and even joining in
the bloody work. Colonel Wibart with his regiment
proceeded to the Cashmere Gate, which they occu-
pied, and in the fortified enclosure of which he and
the other European officers presently found them-
selves entrapped and besieged by a bloodthirsty
band of native soldiery composed largely of their
own men, who deserted en masse as soon as free-
dom of choice between their European masters and
their revolted fellow-countrymen was clearly offered
to them. The position of the little group of besieged
English, whose numbers had been in the meantime
increased by the addition of several refugees, among
them four ladies, from Delhi, soon became desper-
ate. Their place of refuge was a trap, and flight
was the sole alternative to death and mutilation at
the hands of the now everywhere victorious muti-
neers. The escape of Colonel Wibart and his com-
panions from the Cashmere Gate into the open
country seems little short of miraculous, and we
have read few tales of similar adventure more thrill-
ing than the recital of the subsequent wanderings
from village to village through a roused and hostile
country of this little band of fugitives. The sepoys
A survivor
of the great
Indian Mutiny.
were at times hot on their trail and in plain sight
from their places of hiding, and they were more
than once in imminent danger of violence at the
hands of disaffected townspeople. Occasional
instances of kindness at the hands of compassionate
natives are grateful to read of; and but for the
offices of these dusky good Samaritans whose char-
itable hands offered the starving and exhausted
fugitives furtive gifts of milk and chupatties, Colonel
Vibart and his companions would certainly never
have lived to tell the tale of their flight from Delhi.
That tale is told modestly and directly; and to it is
added an account of the author's subsequent share in
the siege of Delhi, and in the operations at Cawn-
pore and Lucknow. Colonel Wibart saw the dead
bodies of the three princes summarily slain by
Hodson, whose action in thus taking the law into
his own hands he mildly condemns as “a most inju-
dicious act”! We should call it plain murder—
essentially a military lynching, and not a whit better
morally than the sepoy atrocities for which it was a
reprisal. There is no evidence whatever that the
princes shared in the massacre of Europeans in
Delhi; and a British officer who, after the siege was
over and the victory won, deliberately slew his help-
less and unresisting prisoners in cold blood and with
his own hand, simply put himself on a level with
Nana Sahib, and stained the for the most part glo-
rious record of the suppression of the Bengal Mu-
tiny. Colonel Wibart's book contains some interest-
ing plates, some of them from photographs dating
back to the period treated. Two supplementary
chapters, by P. W. Luke and Colonel Mackenzie,
the one giving the “true version” of the so-called
“fateful telegram” popularly believed to have saved
India, the other narrating the particulars of the
Meerut outbreak, are given; and there is some
interesting supplementary matter in the Appendix.
The temperate and judicial tone of
The German
Emperor in M. Maurice Leudet's chatty book,
private life. “The Emperor of Germany at
Home” (Dodd, Mead & Co.), is to be commended.
As a Frenchman, M. Leudet has not forgotten
Sedan, and he plainly looks forward to a day of
reckoning with Germany; but he speaks by no
means unkindly of the Germans, and not disrepect-
fully of their Emperor. To his view William II.
is an ambitious, somewhat flighty, yet clever and
versatile young man, who believes that a King's
business is to be a King, and not the ward of a
Chancellor or the mandatory of a majority. That
William is vain, with a pompous, peacock species of
vanity, that prompts him to sun himself in the
public eye in raiment of gorgeous hues and infinite
variety, M. Leudet does not deny; but he scouts
the notion that the erratic young ruler is a mere
empty megalomaniac — the neurotic “William the
Witless” of the more irreverent English journals.
William's particular b8te noire is England; and
against her he would combine Russia, Germany, and
France — a scheme which M. Leudet regards with


1899.]
201
THE TOIAL
much disfavor. Republican America, with its irrev-
erent notions of royalty and its habit of jeering at
the pretensions and theoretical sacrosanctity of
Consecrated Persons in general, William naturally
dislikes, regarding her politics and her pork with a
jealous and hostile eye. To M. de Blowitz he once
observed: “I fear on one side the danger of a cer-
tain invading and continued extension with which
Europe is threatened by one of her races” (the
English, thinks M. Leudet), “armed with all the
resources which civilization puts and will put at the
service of her ambition; and on the other side I
fear the intervention of the New World, which is
beginning to develope appetites from which it has
been up to now free, and which will before long
wish to interfere in the affairs of the Old World
and to meet half way the ambitions, always waking,
which are stirring around us.” The famous tele-
gram to old Krüger, and the doings of “Brother
Henry” at Manila, may be taken as some evidence
of the sincerity of the above manifesto. All in all,
the Emperor of Germany appears in M. Leudet's
pages to be, politically considered, a personage whose
demise the world in general will in all probability
regard with an equanimity bordering on satisfaction.
He is temperamentally a disturbing factor whose
elimination will make for European stability. M.
Leudet's book contains a good deal of detailed de-
scription of the Berlin royal family and ménage,
drawn largely from a recently published German
book on the successor of Frederick III., by Herr
Oscar Klaussmann. To show the reader William II.
in private life is M. Leudet's aim, though political
questions are pretty freely touched upon through-
out. Judging from the pictorial display in this book,
the Emperor has, among other eccentricities, a mania
for getting himself photographed.
Following “The Journal of Jacob
Fowler,” lately issued in the “Amer-
ican Explorers Series” (F. P. Har-
per), we now have “Forty Years a Fur Trader on
the Upper Missouri,” by Charles Larpenteur. The
author was a Frenchman who made his way direct
from France to the Upper Missouri in 1833, in the
palmy days of trapping and fur-trading in the vast
region extending to the Rocky Mountains; and in
this region he remained until his death, in 1872,
most of the time in the service of the American Fur
Company. His personal narrative is an admirable
mirror of the trapping and fur-trading life on both
its savage and civilized sid