331 THE DIAL cA Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information volume xlviii. January 1 to June 16, 1910 Negaunt c City LIB! RY CHICAGO THE DIAL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS ■ run INDEX TO VOLUME XLVIII. PAOK African Big Game, Stories about H. E. Coblentz 151 American Diplomat, Career op an W. H. Johnson 353 American Life, Problems and Tendencies of Frederic Austin Ogg 276 American Literature, A Survey of W. E. Simonds 13 American Literature, The Interregnum in ... . Charles Leonard Moore .... 307 American Preacher, A Venerable Lewis A. Bhoades 46 American Revolution, New Narrative of the . . Annie Heloise Abel 146 American Soldier and Mvstic, An Walter L. Fleming 317 American Students in Germany, The First .... Ellen C. Hinsdale 187 Architectural Expression, Principles of Irving K. Pond 240 Bible Students, New Apparatus for Ira Maurice Price 149 Biological Literature, A Classic of Raymond Pearl 316 Bjornson, Bjornstjerne 107 Bourbons, Return of the Roy Temple House 148 Chicago Before the Fire William Morton Payne .... 319 Cities, The Government of Henry R. Spencer 48 Critic, Being a Charles Leonard Moore .... 137 Criticism, Philosopic Doubts Concerning 3 Dante in English Literature Melville B. Anderson .... 43 Degenerate, A Gifted Richard Burton 147 "Dial, The," Thirtieth Anniversary of: Letters to the Editor , 325, 363 Diplomatic Life, Fifteen Years of Percy F. Bicknell 144 Drama, New Studies of the Garland Greever 268 English Historian, A Great John Bascom 85 English Romantic Poets W. E. Simonds ■ 313 Essays in Divers Moods Percy F. Bicknell 384 Evolution House-Cleaning Raymond Pearl 12 Fan, Lore and Romance of the Edith Kellogg Dunton .... 239 Fiction, Recent William Morton Payne . 17, 242, 393 Forbidden Land, A Traveller in the Charles Atwood Kofoid .... 192 French, The Genius of the Ellen FitzGerald 355 Garden Books, A Varied Group of Sara Andrew Shafer .... 386 Geologist, The Biography of a Famous Percy F. Bicknell 82 Greek Culture and Modern Life W. H. Johnson 14 Guide Books, The Charm of Willis Boyd Allen 381 Health, Character, and Eyesight 87 History, Imagination in 35 "Hoosier Schoolmaster," The, Revealed Percy F. Bicknell 312 Japan, New, Fifty Years of William Elliot Griffis .... 267 Joan of Arc: An Anti-Clerical View Laurence M. Larson 197 Keats-Shelley Memorial, The 185 Landscape, Modern Edward E. Hale, Jr 425 Library Interests of Chicago, The 77 Library Press of 1909, Gleanings from the .... Aksel G. S. Josephson .... 77 Light, The Long Path of John Bascom ........ 352 Literary Censorship 135 Literary London, Letter from Clement K~. Shorter 8 Literature, The Bankruptcy of 227 Mansfield, Richard, Authorized Biography of . . . Percy F. Bicknell 114 Mill Revealed in his Letters Paul Shorey 417 Mark Twain 305 Modern Italy, Two Heroes of Roy Temple House 349 Music, Modern, The Prophet of Louis James Block 195 Musician, Life-Story of a Great Anna M. Rhoades 275 National Academies Charles Leonard Moore ... 5 Nature Virtues, The May Estelle Cook 385 Negro Problem, The, Viewed across the Color-Line . Walter L. Fleming 357 iv. INDEX PAGE New England Expansion, The Stoby of Clark S. Northup 272 New Theatre, The 411 Novelist, America's First, The Centenary of . . Annie Russell Marble .... 109 Novels or Novelists? Edward E. Hale, Jr 237 Opera, Observations about 343 Periodicals, American and English 379 Poetry, Recent ^ . William Morton Payne . . . 50, 199 Pragmatism — Is It Pragmatic? T. D. A. Cockerell 422 Primitive Man, The Music of Louis James Block 84 Psychological Research, The Borderland of . . . T. D. A. Cockerell 121 Shakespeare as Neuropath and Lover James W. Tupper 117 Shaw, Bernard, in France Lewis Nathaniel Chase .... 229 Shelley, New Revealments of Anna Benneson McMahan . . 15 Sheridan and his Contemporaries James W. Tupper 424 Slavery, Two Great Foes of Charles H. Cooper 88 Smith, Goldwin 413 Southern Woman, Reminiscences of a W. H. Johnson 42 Spain, Our Diplomatic Dealings with H. Parker Willis 193 Theatre, The, of To-Day Anna Benneson McMahan . . 420 Tracks of Life, The Wrong Raymond Pearl 116 Travel and Adventure, Books of H.E. Coblentz 388 Waterways, The Age of Lawrence J. Burpee . ' . 119 Whitman, Marcus, Once More F. H. Hodder ....... 427 Wild Animals, Biographical Studies of Lawrence J. Burpee . • ... 271 Wilde, Oscar, The Place of, in Literature .... Lewis Piaget Shanks .... 261 Wilderness, A Voice in the 259 Woman Educator, A Pioneer Percy F. Bicknell 348 Yankee Admiral, Afloat and Ashore with a . . . Percy F. Bicknell 236 Announcement of Spring Books, 1910 207 Casual Comment 6, 37, 78, 110, 139, 189, 233, 263, 309, 345, 382, 413 Brdifs on New Books 20, 55, 89, 123, 152, 202, 245, 278, 321, 359, 397, 429 Briefer Mention 23, 58, 126, 248, 281, 324, 362, 432 Notes 23, 59, 92, 126, 155, 206, 249, 282, 362, 400, 433 Topics in Leading Periodicals 24, 93, 156, 250, 331, 402 List of New Books 24, 60, 94, 127, 156, 216, 250, 282, 331, 365, 402, 434 CASUAL COMMENT PAOE Addams, Jane, The Autobiography of 348 Agasslz, Alexander, Death of 264 American Scholars, Annual Conventions of 37 Apt Phrase, Power of the 310 Baconian Madness, The Limit of 112 Banking and Currency, A Library of 6 Blbltoklepsis, Some Curious Phases of 38 "Big Brass Generals" as Heroes of Boys' Books.... 416 Biography, True, A Plea for. 140 Book of the Year, The, in London 39 Book-Buying Activity, Centres of 263 3ook-Season, The Crowded 112 Book-Shelter, Ten Million Dollars for 415 Book-Thief, A Record-Breaklng 346 Bowne. Borden Parker, Death of 264 Capitals, Over-Use of, in Literature 309 Carnegie Foundation, Reports of. for 1909 189 "Chambered Nautilus, The," The Original of 39 Children's Conservative Tastes in Literature 80 Dolbear, Professor: Greatest Physicist in America.. 233 Dramatic World, A Superfluous Functionary in the.. 414 Drexel Institute Library School, New Director of the 112 Educational Advertising 190 Emerson In France 112 Emerson's Journals. Mr. Sanborn's Estimate of Ill English Language, Rapid Growth of the 234 PAOH Euripides, Collegiate Performances of 8 Everett, William: Teacher, Preacher, Author 139 Favorite Old Books, Steady Demand for 311 First Impressions, Finality of 141 Fuller, Margaret, The Centenary of 413 Galsworthy's New Play, "Justice" 310 Gibbon's Library, Final Disposal of 264 Gladstone, The Man of Letters 37 Gladstone's Influence In England, Persistence of 112 Gordon-Stables, William, Death of 415 Greek at Oxford, A Renewal of the Fight for 235 Hale Memorial Project, A 265 "Harvard Lampoon," New Building of the 141 Holmes, An English Annotator of 39 Holt, Henry: A Publisher with an Enviable Record 139 Homer, The Restoration of 190 Howe, Mrs., at Ninety-One 414 Inter-Llbrary Circulation of Books £65 Journalistic Dynasty, End of a Famous 1S9 LagerlBf, Selma, Nobel Prize-winner 7 Latin Plurals, Singular Usage of 7 "Learned Blacksmith." The Centennial of the 414 Learned Societies, Multiplication of 37 Librarian, The Courteous and Tactful SO Library Books that Are Always in Demand 140 Library Methods, Aggressive Ill INDEX v. PAGE Library of Congress, Year's Additions to the 6 Library Reference Department, Resources of 415 Library, The, and the Country Parson 347 Library Trustees, A Sisyphus Task for 79 Literary Censorship, A Queer Scheme of 7 Literary Leisure, Two Aspects of 383 Living on Twenty-Four Hours a Day 310 London Book-Market, An American Season In the... 383 Lummls, Librarian, Resignation of 234 Maeterlinck, Maurice, The Solitariness of 140 Mankato Public Library, The 234 Manual Dexterity, Decline of 38 Manuscript-Deciphering, A Difficult Task in 234 Manuscripts and Rare Books, A Notable Exhibition of 38 Metrical Instinct, The 141 Minnesota's Contributions to Literature Ill Myths and Superstitions, The Charm of Ill Neutral Pronoun, The Need of a 234 "O. Henry," Untimely End of 413 "Old Librarian's Almanack," June Advice from the.. 382 Orthoepy, The Shifting Sands of 141 Oxford Dictionary, Progress of the 141 Poe's Prospects of a Place in the Hall of Fame 140 Poetical Genius and Practical Efficiency 346 Poetry as a By-Product 416 Poetry, The Persistence of 190 Poets and Dramatists, the Making of 190 Poets' Descendants, A Gathering of 235 Poison-Label, A, for Treacherous Literature 78 Precocity, Perils of, In Literature 7 'Prentice Pen, Possibilities of the 311 Printers, A Library for 142 Printer's Art as a Branch of Liberal Culture 311 Public Library, Ramification of a Great 347 PAQ» Public Library's Vast Accumulation of Trash 309 Pudd'nhead Wilson, Some Maxims of 346 "Punch's" First Editor's Reminiscences 79 Punctuation, Eccentric, The Indignity of 79 "Putnam's Magazine," Discontinuance of 236 Re-Christening of Books, The Reprehensible 388 Uevere's Lanterns in the Old North Church 265 Rockefeller Foundation, The 189 Rod, Edouard, The Late 110 Roof-Garden Reading-Room, Increasing Vogue of the 345 Roosevelt, Ex-President, Book Rambles of 345 Roosevelt's Books, European Demand for 347 Rooster, The, as a Stage Hero 37 Sanborn's "Life and Letters of John Brown" 233 San Francisco's Growing Appetite for Books 8 Shakespearian Wheat, a Grain of 236 Simple Life, Poetic Inspiration of the 264 Smith College Library, Dedication of -115 Southern Library Training School, The 190 Stratford Visitors, Of Interest to 311 St. Louis Public Library Events 80 Summer Reading, Winter Encouragement of 80 Summer Resort's Sumptuous Library 383 Sunday-newspaper Monstrosity, The 382 Sunday-School Libraries, Censorship of Books for... 39 Twain, Mark, and the Riddle of the Ages 345 Twain, Mark, Increased Demand for the Books of... 383 Tennlel, Sir John: The King of Cartoonists 233 Trowbridge, J. T., European Tour of 7 Trusts as Material for Fiction 347 United States Presidents in Fiction 265 Wallace, Lew, Reminiscences of 79 Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, as Seen Through French Eyes 347 AUTHORS AND TITLES OF BOOKS REVIEWED PAGE Abbott, Edith. Women In Industry 360 Addams, Jane. The Spirit of Youth and City Streets. 23 Albright, Victor E. The Elizabethan Stage 57 Allen, Francis H. Thoreau's Notes on New England Birds 392 Alllnson, Francis G., and Anne C. E. Greek Lands and Letters 154 Alvord, Clarence. Kaskaskia Records, 1778-1790... 282 American Addresses at the Second Hague Conference 249 American Therapeutic Society, Addresses Before.... 58 American Year Book, Announcement of 433 Arnold, Mrs. Gertrude Weld. A Mother's List of Books for Children 281 Atherton, Gertrude. The Tower of Ivory 245 Austin, Alfred. The Bridling of Pegasus 359 Avery, Elroy McKendree. A History of the United States and its People, Volume V 146 Bailey, L. H. Manual of Gardening 401 Bailey, L. H. The Nature-Study Idea 399 Barclay, Florence L. The Rosary 242 Bawden, H. Heath. The Principles of Pragmatism. . 422 Beach, Rex. The Sliver Horde 20 Bean, Jared. The Old Librarian's Almanack 90 Becker, Carl Lotus. History of Political Parties in New York. 1770-1776 92 Beebe, Mary Blair and C. William. Our Search for a Wilderness 391 Beerbohm, Max. Yet Again 202 Belloc, H. On Everything 884 BIgelow, Mab. Experiments on the Generation of Insects 248 Bigger, Leander A. Around the World with a Busi- ness Man 432 Blndloss. Harold. Thurston of Orchard Valley 394 Birch, Una. Anna van Schurman, Artist, Scholar, Saint 153 BIsland, Elizabeth. At the Sign of the Hobby Horse 384 Bjarnson, BJtirnstyerne. YMse-Knut 400 BlUmner, H. The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, third edition 282 Bode. Boyd Henry. An Outline of Logic 362 PAGE Boyce, Sir Robert. Mosquito or Man 245 Bradley, William Asplnwall. The Garden Muse 387 Breck, Edward. Wilderness Pets at Camp Buckshaw 386 Bronson, Edgar Beecher. In Closed Territory 151 Brooks, Van Wyck. The Wine of the Puritans 278 Bunsen, Madame Charles de. In Three Legations... 144 Burr, Mrs. Anna Robeson. The Autobiography 89 Burton, Frederick R. American Primitive Music 84 Butler, Elizabeth B. Women and the Trades 359 Cady, Jay. The Moving of the Waters 19 Caldwell, H. W., and Perslnger, C. E. A Source History of the United States 23 Canby, Henry Seidel. English Composition In Theory and Practice 282 Carman, Bliss. The Rongh Rider, and Other Poems. 200 Caweln, Madison. New Poems 54 Cawein, Madison. The Giant and the Star 54 Cecil, Evelyn. History of Gardening In England.... 387 Chadwick, French Ensor. The Relations of the United States and Spain 193 Chapman, E. M. English Literature in Account with Religion 431 Chatterton, E. Keble. Sailing Ships and their Story 56 Chesterton, Gilbert K. Tremendous Trifles 55 Chubb, Edwin Watts. Stories of Authors 248 Chubb, Percival. Travels at Home by Mark Twain. 362 Churchill, Winston. A Modern Chronicle 395 Clay, Thomas Hart. Life of Henry Clay 324 Cleaves, Margaret A. The Autobiography of a Neurasthene 56 Clouston, J. Storer. The Prodigal Father 243 Clutton-Brock, A. Shelley the Man and the Poet... 123 Coates, Florence Earle. Lyrics of Life 202 Cole, Percival R. Later Roman Education In Au- sonlus, Capella, and the Theodoslan Code 59 Collender, Guy Stevens. Selections from the Eco- nomic History of the United States 155 Compton-Rickett, Arthur. The London Life of Yes- terday 204 Connelley, William Elsey. Quantrill and the Border Wars 206 vi. INDEX PAQg Cook, Frederick Francis. Bygone Days In Chicago.. 319 Cooper, C. S., and Westell, W. P. Trees and Shrubs of the British Isles 898 Costanro, Miguel. Narrative of Portola Expedition. 401 Croly, Herbert. The Promise of American Life 277 Crowell's Shorter French Texts 127 Daly Debutante, The Diary of a 362 Dante, A Proposed Italian Memorial Edition of 127 Davis, John. Travels In the United States 22 Dawson, W. J. and C. W. Great English Essayists.. 23 Dawson, W. J. and C. W. The Great English Short- Story Writers 206 De Cesare, R. The Last Days of Papal Rome B6 Devine, E. T. Social Forces 126 De Vries, Hugo. The Mutation Theory 316 Dewar, Douglas, and Finn, Frank. The Making of Species 12 Dickens's Pickwick Papers, Topical edition 126 •'Diplomatist, A." American Foreign Policy 55 Douglas, Mrs. Hugh A. Venice and Her Treasures.. 282 Du Claux, Mary. The French Procession 355 Dudley, E. Lawrence. The Isle of Whispers 396 Dugmore, Radcllffe. Camera Adventures in African Wilds 388 Dyer, Frederick H. Compendium of the War of the Rebellion 281 Eaton, Paul W. The Treasure 19 Edgcumbe, Richard. Byron: The Last Phase 323 Eells, Myron. Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot 427 Eggleston, George Cary. Irene of the Mountains... 244 Eggleston, George Cary. Recollections of a Varied Life 312 Ehrmann, Mary B. The Child's Song Treasury and the Child's Song Garden 58 Elliott, G. E. Scott. Botany of To-day 124 Esuuermellng, John. The Buccaneers of America, new edition 282 Eucken, Rudolph. The Problem of Human Life 352 Evans, Robley D. An Admiral's Log 236 Ewlng, Rev. W., and others. The Temple Dictionary of the Bible 150 Fee, Mary H. A Woman's Impressions of the Philip- pines 390 Fernow, B. E. The Care of Trees 398 Fiction Catalogue, H. W. Wilson Co.'s 23 Figgis, Darrell. A Vision of Life 199 Field Museum of Natural History, Catalogue of 282 Flom, George T. Tegner's Frlthiof's Saga 23 Folwell, William Watts. University Addresses 155 Foot, Constance M. Insect Wonderland 400 Ford, James. Historical Essays 89 Forman, Maurice Buxton. Early Appreciations of Meredith 202 Foster, John W. Diplomatic Memoirs 353 France, Anatole. The Life of Joan of Arc 197 Francis, Alexander. Americans: An Impression.... 278 Franck, Harry A. A Vagabond Journey Around the World 390 Franklin, Benjamin, Autobiography of, library edition 249 BTewen, Hugh Moreton. Light Among the Leaves.. 199 Fuller, Harold De Wolf. Beatrice 282 Garrett, A. E. The Periodic Law 59 George, W. R. The Junior Republic 126 Gilchrist, Beth Bradford. The Life of Mary Lyon... 348 Gildersleeve, Basil Lanneau. Hellas and Hesperla.. 14 Giles, Lionel. Sun Tzu on the Art of War 282 Gladden, Washington, Recollections of 46 Godoy, Don Jose F. Porflrio Diaz 278 Goodnow, Frank J. Municipal Government 48 Gordon Memorial College of Khartoum, Third Annual Report of 57 Gould, George M. Biographic Clinics 87* Guiney, Louise Imogen. Happy Ending 201 Gummere. Mrs. Francis B. The Quaker In the Forum 361 Hall, John. The Bourbon Restoration 148 Hamilton, Clayton. The Theory of the Theatre 420 Hancock, Albert E. Bronson of the Rabble 19 Hanson, Joseph Mills. The Conquest of Missouri... 91 Harding, Samuel B. Select Orations 23 Hardy, Thomas, Works of, new thin paper edition.... 282 Harris, Frank. The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story 117 Harrison, Blrge. Landscape Painting 425 Hart, Jerome. A Vigilante Girl 896 Hastings. James, and Selble, John A., Dictionary of the Bible 149 PAGE Haynes, George H. Charles Sumner 88 Hazard, Caroline. A Brief Pilgrimage in the Holy Land 155 Hedln, Sven. Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Ad- ventures in Tibet 192 Helm, W. H. Jane Austin and Her Country-House Comedy 278 Hewlett, Maurice. Letters to Sanchia 401 Hlchens, Robert. Bella Donna 18 Hlgglns, Myrtle Margaret. Little Gardens for Boys and Girls 887 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. Carlyle's Laugh and Other Surprises 123 Hill, Frederic Stanhope. Romance of the American Navy 324 Hill, Lysander. The Two Great Questions 363 Hitchcock, Ethan Allen. Fifty Years in Camp and Field 817 Holder, C. F. Recreations of a Sportsman on the Pa- cific Coast 397 Hollls, H. P. Chats About Astronomy 362 Hornbrooke, Francis B. Browning's The Ring and the Book 91 House, Edward J. A Hunter's Camp-Flres 152 Hulst, Mrs. Henry. St. George of Cappadocla In Legend and History 281 Hunt, Edward Eyre. Sir Orfeo 282 Huntington, Helen. From the Cup of Silence 202 Hutchinson, Woods. Preventable Diseases 124 Hutchinson, Woods. The Conquest of Consumption. 323 In After Days: Thoughts on the Future Life 247 Ingpen, Roger. The Letters of Shelley 15 Intercollegiate Debates 92 International Year Book for 1910, New 432 Ironside, John. The Red Symbol 396 Jacobus, M. W., and others. A Standard Dictionary of the Bible 150 Jacomb, A. E. The Faith of His Fathers 18 James, William. The Meaning of Truth 422 Jameson, J. Franklin. Original Narratives of Early American History 362 Janvier, Thomas A. Legends of the City of Mexico. 248 Jenks. Jeremiah W. Governmental Action for Social Welfare 249 Job, Herbert K. How to Study the Birds 385 Johnson, Clifton. The Picturesque St. Lawrence 392 Keeler, Harriet L. Our Garden Flowers 401 Kellog, James L. Shell-Fish Industries 398 Kennan, George. Tent-Life in Siberia, revised edition 392 Kent, Charles Foster. The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets 282 Kephart, Horace. Camp Cookery 401 Ker, William Paton. Tennyson 249 Krehbiel. H. E. Songs from the Operas for Alto... 23 Lacoste, De Bouillane de. Around Afghanistan 205 Lanclanl, Rodolfo. Wanderings In the Roman Cam- pagna 203 Lansing, Marlon Florence. Life In the Greenwood.. 92 Latham, Charles. In English Homes, Vol. Ill 281 Laughlln, J. Laurence. Latter-Day Problems 203 Lea, Homer. The Valor of Ignorance 90 Lecky, Hon. William Edward Hartpole, A Memoir of. 85 Lee, E. Markham. The Story of Opera 249 Lee-Hamilton, Eugene. Mimma Bella 51 Le Galllene, Richard. New Poems 52 Lepelletier, Edmond. Paul Verlalne 147 Levy, Oscar. Works of Frledrlch Nietzsche, new edi- tion 362 Lewis, Lawrence. The Advertisements of "The Spec- tator" 57 Llndsey, Ben B. The Beast 430 Lloyd, Henry Demarest. Men the Workers 125 Loblngier, Charles S. The People's Law 824 Lodge, George Cabot. The Soul's Inheritance 54 Lodge, Sir Oliver. The Survival of Man 121 Loveman, Robert. The Blushful South and Hlppo- crene 201 Low, A. Maurice. The American People 276 Maartens, Maarten. The Price of Lis Doris 246 Mackaye, Percy. Poems 200 Macy, John. A Child's Guide to Reading 126 Madeira, Percy C. Hunting In British East Africa. 152 Magnus, Laurie. English Literature In the Nine- teenth Century 152 Mahaffv, John P. What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization? 14 INDEX PAGE Mario, Jessie White. The Birth of Modern Italy... 349 Marshall, H. E. The Child's Eogllsh Literature... 155 Martin, E. M. Wayside Wisdom 20 Martin, John. Letters for Children 155 Martin, Wyndham. The Man Outside 243 Marvin, Frederic Rowland. Excursions of a Book-Lover 430 Mathews, Lois Kimball. The Expansion of New England 272 Matthews, Brander. A Study of the Drama 268 Matthews, Brander. The American of the Future, and Other Essays 246 Mazeliere, Mnrquls de la. Le Jupon: Historic et Civilisation 249 McCook, Henry C. Ant Communities and How They Are Governed 125 Meredith, George. Last Poems 50 Meredith, George. Works of—Memorial Edition £47 Meredith, George, Works of. Memorial Edition 432 Meynell, Alice. Cere'B Hunaway, and Other Essays. 91 Mill, John Stuart. Letters of 92 Mill, John Stuart. Letters of 417 Miller, Kelly. Race Adjustment 857 Moffett, Cleveland. Through the Wall 20 Montgomery, D. H. The Leading Facts of Ameri- can History 363 Moore, Willis L. Descriptive Meteorology 863 Morehouse, E. Hallam. Samuel Fepys 20 Morley, Lord. Indian Speeches 249 Mozans, H. J. Up the Orinoco and Down the Mag- dalena 392 Mumford, Beverly B. Vlrglnla-s Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession 153 Munro, William Bennett. The Government of Euro- pean Cities 48 MUnsterberg, Hugo. American Problems 429 Nevlll, Ralph. Light Come, Light Go 280 Newman. Ernest. Fifty Songs by Hugo Wolf 23 Nicholson, Meredith. The Lends of High Decision.. 245 Nledleck, Paul. Cruises in the Bering Sea 390 Noyes, Alfred. Drake: An English Epic 52 O'Hara, John Myers. Songs of the Open 201 Okuma, Count S. Fifty Years of New Japan 267 Oils, James. Ruth of Boston; Mary of Plymouth; Richard of Jamestown 282 Oxford University Press, Reprints of 68 Packard, Wlnthrop. Woodland Paths 386 Paine, Albert BIgelow. The Ship-Dwellers 391 Palmer, Frederic. Central America and Its Problems 278 Palmer, Sutton, and Bradley, A. G. The Rivers and Streams of England 324 Parrlsh, Randall. My Lady of the South 19 Parry, C. Hubert H. Johann Sebastian Bach 195 Parsons, Henry Grlscom. Children's Gardens 387 Patterson, J. H. In the Grip of the Nylka 152 Paxson, Frederic Logan. Last American Frontier... 280 Payot, Jules. The Education of the Will 22 Pearson, Edward Lester. The Library and the Librarian 429 Peck, Henry Thurston. The New Baedeker 399 Peer, Frank Sherman. The Hunting Field with Horse and Hound 400 People's Library, The 165 Phelps, Ruth Shepard. Skies Italian 482 Phelps, William Lyon. Essays on Modern Novelists 237 Phillips, P. Lee. List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress 323 Pope's Rape of the Lock, illustrated edition 92 Poat, Marie Caroline. Regis de Trobrtand 361 Potter, Marlon E. Children's Catalog 126 Poulton, Edward B. Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species 246 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth. Poems 249 Pryor, Mrs. Roger A. My Day 42 Putnam, George Haven. Abraham Lincoln 88 Quick, Herbert. American Inland Waterways 119 Ramsdell, Charles William. Reconstruction In Texas. 282 Rand, Benjamin. The Classical Moralists 23 Reade, W. H. V. Moral System of Dante's Inferno.. 43 Rexford, Eben E. Indoor Gardening 387 Reynolds, Myra. The Treatment of Nature In English Poetry 425 Rbead, G. Woollscroft. History of the Fan 239 Robins. Elizabeth. The Florentine Frame 244 Robblns, E. Clyde. Selected Articles on the Commis- sion Plan of Municipal Government 69 ISudeaux. L. How to Study the Stars 204 PAGE Russell, George E. Text-Book of Hydraulics 59 Salecby, C. W. Parenthood and Race Culture 125 Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, Vol. V., Part II 401 Schauffter, Robert Haven. Washington's Birthday.. 248 Schinz, Albert. Anti-Pragmatism 422 Scollard, Clinton. Pro Patrla 55 Scollard, Clinton. Songs for the Ter-Centenary of Lake Champlaln 55 Scott, Temple. In Praise of Gardens 387 Selpt, Allen Anders. Schwenkfelder Hymnology... 59 Sellgman, Edwin R. A. The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation 249 Semenoff, Vladimir. Itasplata 430 Semenoff, Vladimir. The Price of Blood 360 Sera, Leo G. On the Tracks of Life 116 Serviss, Garrett P. Curiosities of the Sky 22 Seton, Ernest Thompson. Life Histories of North- ern Animals 271 Shafer, Mrs. Sara Andrew. A White-Paper Garden. 400 Sharp, William. Songs and Poems Old and New... 61 Shore, W. Telgnmouth. Charles Dickens and His Friends 105 Showerman. Grant. With the Professor 247 Sichel, Walter. Sheridan 424 Simpson, F. A. The Rise of I..mis Napoleon 431 Singleton, Esther. A Guide to Modern Opera 124 Smith, David Eugene. Rara Arlthmettca 324 Snalth, J. C. Fortune 394 Snell. F J. A Handbook to the Works of Dante... 249 South African Natives 21 Southey, Robert, Poems of, Oxford edition 58 Stunton, Theodore. Manual of American Literature. 13 Stawcll, Mrs. Rodolph. The Return of Louis XVIII. 205 Stedman's Edgar Allan Poe, new edition 155 Stein, Grace Maxlne. Glimpses Around the World.. 391 Stephens, Kate. Stories from Old Chronicles 92 Stevens, Ethel Stefana. The Veil 242 Stevenson, Burton E. A Child's Guide to Biography. 126 Stewart, Charles D. Essays on the Spot 384 Stewart, J. D. How to Use a Library 91 Stockley, Cynthia. Poppy 394 Stoddard, Florence. As Old as the Moon 248 Stoddard. W. L. Life of William Shakespeare Ex- purgated 322 Stone, Christopher. Lusus 200 Streatfelld, R. A. Handel 275' Sturgls. Russell. A History of Architecture, Vol. II. 240 Sudermann, Hermann. Roses 92 Swann, Alfred J. Fighting the Slave-Hunters In Central Africa 389 Symons, Arthur. The Romantic Movement In Eng- lish Poetry 313 Tabor, R. Montagu. Odds and Ends 200 Tannenbaum, Samuel A. Was William Shakespeare a Gentleman? 281 Taylor, I. A. Queen Christina of Sweden 431 Taylor, Mary 1 in lay. Caleb Trench 395 Teall, Gardner, and Tabor, Grace. The Garden Primer 387 Terry, T. Philip. Terry's Mexico 58 Thanet, Octave. By Inheritance 244 Thomas, Edith M. The Guest at the Gate 201 Thomas, Edward. Rest and Unrest 385 Thomson, William Hanna. Some Wonders of Biology 360 Thompson, A. Hamilton. The Works of Sir John Suckling 362 Thompson, Gordon Boyce. The Kulturkampf 92 Thurston, E. Temple. Sally Bishop 393 Tlcknor. Caroline. A Poet in Exile 429 Todd. Mabel Loomls. A Cycle of Sunsets 386 Toynbee, Paget. Dante In English Literature 43 Trevelyan, G. M. Garibaldi and the Thousand 349 Upson, Arthur, The Collected Poems of 52 Van Dyke, Henry. The Spirit of America 278 Van Dyke, Henry. The White Bees 54 Vane. Sir Francis. Walks and People In Tuscany.. 392 Van Rensselaer, Mrs. New York In the Seventeenth Century 21 Vlereck, George Sylvester. Confessions of a Bar- barian 399 Vllllers, Arnold. Every Man's Cyclopaedia 432 Voynlch, E. L. An Interrupted Friendship 242 IValden, John W. H. The Universities of Ancient Greece 279 Wallace, C. W. Globe Thentre Apparel 248 viii. INDEX PAGE Walton, Izaak. The Compleat Angler, new edition.. 248 Ward, Mrs. Humphrey. Lady Merton, Colonist 394 Warner, Anna B. Life of Susan Warner 205 Warren, G. F. The Elements of Agriculture 59 Watson, William. New Poems 51 Watts, Mary S. Nathan Burke 395 Webster, Henry Kltchell. The Sky-Man 397 Welgall, Lady Rose. The Correspondence of Pris- cllla 361 Wellman, Francis L. Day in Court 279 Wells, H. G. Ann Veronica 17 Wells, H. G. The History of Mr. Polly 393 Whitman, Stephen French. Predestined 396 Whitnev, Joslah Dwight, Life and Letters of 82 Who's Who in 1910 206 PAOE Wilder, Harris Hawthorne. History of the Human Body 59 Winchester, C. T. A Group of English Essayists.. 280 Wines, Frederick Howard. Punishment and Refor- mation 92 Wing, Yung. My Life in China and America 164 Winter, William. Life and Art of Richard Mansfield. 114 Winter, William, The Poems of 53 Witkowskl, Georg. German Drama of the Nine- teenth Century 321 Wollaston, George Hyde. The Englishman in Italy. 58 Workman, Fanny Bullock, and William Hunter. Peaks and Glaciers of Nun Kun 389 Wright, William H. The Black Bear 380 MISCELLANEOUS PAGE Agasslz, Professor, and the Carnegie Fund. Weir Mitchell 311 American Academy, A Localized. Wilmer 0. Martin 11 American Academy, An Earlier. William B. Cairns. 80 Best Novels, A Library List of the. Mrs. R. L. Webb ... 143 "Best Seller," The, and Romance. Margaret Vance. 191 "Best Seller," The, and the Genteel Atmosphere. Prudence Pratt McConn 142 BJfirnson, BjBrnstjerne, Death of 307 Caedmon MS., Reproduction of the. J. W. Cunlifle.. 143 "Cornhill Magazine," Fiftieth Anniversary of 59 Emerson Revival in England 83 "Forerunner, The," Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Magazine 93 Gilder Memorial Fellowships In Columbia University 249 Gilder, Richard Watson, Appreciations of 92 Individual Spelling, The Charm of. E. O. Van Clyve 112 "I Swan!" The Derivation of. Albert Matthews... 40 Keats, Descendants of. John Calvin Metcalf 266 "Librarians' Series," Announcement of 93 "Library of the Masters, A," at Mount Holyoke. Bertha E. Blakeley 81 Literary Foresight, Striking Case of. Lewis Piayet ShanJcs 416 Literary Fraud, A French 194 London Literary Haunt, A. T. Fisher Unxcin 41 PAGE Malone Society, Publications of the. John M. Manly 113 Milton's Works, Proposed Columbia University Edi- tion of 59 "Old Grimes," The Origin of. William B. Cairns.. 11 Penn's Works, Proposed Edition of 433 "Printer's Catchword," Use of the. Charles Welsh. 191 Putnam's Magazine, Suspension of 206 Remington, Frederic, Death of 4 "Romanic Review, The" 401 School Board and Superintendent. Duane Mowry.. 40 Sectionalism In Learned Societies. Henry 8. Chap- man 41 Shelley's "Adonals," Note on. Edwin A. Greenlaw 113 Spelling Reform, The American Academy and. Brander Matthews 10 Stock Phrase, Origin of a...8. T. Kidder 191 Sumner, William Graham, Death of 282 Temple Library of Nippur, An Important Document from the 241 "Tramp, The" 248 Typography, A Question of. Roy Temple Bouse.... 143 War, the Obsoleteness of, A Timely Word on. Norman Angell 199 Ward, Mrs. Humphrey, Charm of the Novels of. William H. Powers 265 "Who's Who In the World." Roy Temple House 266 THE DIAL a Snni=iBontI)ls Journal of iLtterarg Criticism, Uisnijssion, ant) Information. THE DIAL (founded in J880) is published on the Id and 16th o) each month. Tebmb or Subscription, 82. a year in advance, postage prepaid in the United States, and Mexico; Foreign and Canadian postage 50 cents per year extra. Remittances should be by check, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL COMPANY. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current number. When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub- scription is received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. Advertising Rates furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered as Second-Claaa Matter October 8,1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act ot March 3,1879. Xo. 565- JANUARY 1, 1910. Vol. XLVIII. Contents. PAGE PHILOSOPHIC DOUBTS CONCERNING CRITI- CISM 3 ABOUT NATIONAL ACADEMIES. Charles Leonard Moore 5 CASUAL COMMENT 6 The year's additions to the Library of Congress. — A library of banking and currency. — A queer scheme of literary censorship. — The perils of precocity. — The singular use of some Latin plurals. — An octogenarian jaunt. — This year's winner of the Nobel prize for literature. — The story of a growing appetite for books. — The per- formance of two plays of Euripides. FROM LITERARY LONDON. (Special Correspond- ence ). Clement K. Shorter 8 COMMUNICATIONS 10 The American Academy and Spelling Reform. Brander Matthews. A Localized American Academy. Wilmer O. Martin. The Origin of "Old Grimes." William B. Cairns. SOME EVOLUTION HOUSE-CLEANING. Ray- mond Pearl 12 A SURVEY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. W. E. Simonds 13 GREEK CULTURE AND MODERN LIFE. W. H. Johnson 14 NEW REVEALMENTS OF SHELLEY. Anna Benne- son McMahan 15 RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne ... 17 Wells's Ann Veronica. — Jacomb's The Faith of his Fathers. — Hichens's Bella Donna. — Hancock's Bronson of the Rabble. — Parrish's My Lady of the South. — Cady's The Moving of the Waters. — Eaton's The Treasure. — Moffett's Through the Wall. — Beach's The Silver Horde. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 20 A quiet book for quiet people. — " Old Pepys " in new lights. — The white man's burden, and its galling curse. — Chapters of New York's early history. — Some popular astronomy for the curious. — " Man is man, and master of his fate." — Davis's travels in America, a century ago. — The hard life of city streets. BRIEFER MENTION 23 NOTES 23 TOPICS IN DECEMBER PERIODICALS .... 24 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 24 PHILOSOPHIC DOUBTS CONCERNING CRITICISM. Public life in England has one happy char- acteristic which has not been developed to any considerable degree in our own country. It does call to its posts of leadership and responsi- bility men of intellectual distinction — men who have already made their mark, or who are by way of making their mark, in other and less tur- bulent fields than those of politics. Men of the type of Lord Morley, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Birrell, and Mr. Balfour rise to high positions despite their possession of that fine culture which would be to them an almost insuperable barrier in this country. Try to imagine, for example, Mr. William James, or Mr. Howells, or the late Mr. Gilder, as members of the national legisla- ture, and you have a concrete illustration of this fundamental difference between the two coun- tries. On the other hand, try to imagine Speaker Cannon dashing off a little thing on aesthetics, or Senator Aldrich acquiring meta- physical fame (on any other subject than that of the tariff) in his hours of studious retirement, and another illustration of the same negative sort is provided. The scholar is indeed vara avis in the American politics of to-day, and the most frequently mentioned example is one of whom we are not exactly proud. In England it is different — so different that when, for example, the Oxford authorities wished to name the Romanes lecturer for the present year, they naturally turned to the graceful and subtle philosopher who is the present leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. Mr. Balfour's address, as given in the Sheldonian Theatre about a month ago, now lies before us, and has for its title " Questionings on Criticism and Beauty." Mr. Balfour is an adept at ques- tioning, and the pale cast of his thought, when directed toward the subject of aesthetic criticism, forces him into his favorite attitude of philo- sophic doubt. "The amount of splendid literary and other artistic work which has been produced since the revival of learning is the glory of our modern civilization. The amount of intellectual energy which has been thrown into the criticism of literature and of art is very great, and yet I think that anybody who has studied that criti- cism cannot but feel profoundly depressed by the char- acter of its total output. In the course of your survey you will come upon the names of men whose critical 4 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL labours have made them immortal; but if you ask what they have done, you will usually find that what they have done is to sweep away the rubbish of their critical pre- decessors; you will usually find that where they have failed is in not having made that drastic process of purgation sufficiently complete." This is sad if true, and a melancholy commen- tary upon the futility of all human endeavor to create a philosophy of the beautiful; for it follows that our own most admired modern judgments (Mr. Balfour's included) will in time go into the rubbish heap, to be succeeded by new and equally unstable appreciations. But we cannot believe the situation to be really as bad as all this, in spite of skeptics like Mr. Balfour, or subjectivists like M. Anatole France, or iconoclasts like Mr. Gr. B. Shaw, or aesthetic agnostics like Count Tolstoy. How- ever such men may rail at the pedantry of the critics, or deny the gift of real vision to the in- terpreters of literature, or deplore the sophisti- cation that befogs their judgment, there remains a very definite canon of the beautiful which has been beaten into shape amid the warring of schools, the clashing of critical temperaments, and the shifting of points of view. We know pretty definitely, and can make fairly clear the reasons, why Sophocles was a greater poet than Euripides, and Goethe than Schiller, and Tenny- son than Browning. As individuals we may make grievous mistakes about our contempora- ries, but as students of the history of literature we accept the registered verdicts, primarily be- cause they are reasonable, and the consider- ations that support them have the clear signs of validity. After all, Mr. Balfour saves himself from the extreme lengths of skepticism, as usual, by his qualifications and reservations. He may assert that " nobody lays down rules now," and that "rules of correct composition are buried among lumber of the past," but he also admits that "superficially at all events there is a very great appearance of unanimity, in this eclectic age, as to what is or what is not a successful work of art." "Are we to take as a test," he asks, "the feelings of men of trained sensibility? Are we to take, if that is true, the man who has cultivated a particular art, and acquainted him- self with its technique, its principles, its history, and studied it and cultivated it? And if we take him shall we attain to anything in the nature of an agreement as to what truly consti- tutes excellence in artistic production?" If Mr. Balfour really wishes us to answer these questions he is welcome to our decided affirma- tive. But he is not more than half sincere in asking them, for he goes on to cite certain noto- rious eccentricities of judgment (on the part of Arnold and Buskin) as things that "we hush up as quickly as we can," and to say that " on the whole, cultured persons show a tolerably united front to their enemies." This is pretty nearly conceding the whole point of Mr. Bal- four's questionings, unless one goes over bag and baggage to the Tolstoyan camp, and holds the untutored hind the only truly competent juror in matters aesthetic. And this our author, although he toys with the notion, is not quite prepared to do. The plea that beauty is its own excuse for being, needing no further exposition or justifi- cation, will never fully satisfy the mind that seeks an essential part of its happiness in learn- ing the causes of things. To stand upon that proposition alone is to plant one's feet upon a quicksand, to cast one's mind adrift from all its moorings. A man convinced of the proposition would still have to ignore it in practice, just as the convinced determinist cannot help assuming himself to be a free agent. Mr. Balfour rather childishly argues that because when a boy at Eton he revelled in "the various works of fiction which are the joy of youth," and experienced a careless rapture in this reading which his con- templative and discriminative years now deny him, no matter how much finer the art which engages his attention, that because of this mel- ancholy contrast he wonders if he has not lost the capacity for "true aesthetic enjoyment." This is philosophic doubt carried to the point of perversity, and not likely to be shared by any persons of cultivated taste whose judgment has not become unbalanced through overmuch intro- spection. It really begs the whole question, and in about the same way in which it is begged by the champions of hedonistic ethics when they refuse to recognize the fundamental distinction between the pleasures of the sense and the joy that the spirit takes in self-sacrifice and high impersonal endeavor. Fredebic Remington, famous for his spirited illustrations from Western frontier life, but known also as a painter, sculptor, and writer, died at Ridge- field, Conn., December 26, at the age of forty-eight. He was born in New York State, but had lived much in the West, where his varied experiences—as " cow- puncher," ranchman, and scout — gave him the in- timate knowledge of scenes and characters that were so strikingly delineated in his pictures. 1910.] 5 THE DIAL ABOUT NATIONAL ACADEMIES. New York, having erected a Hall of Fame and brought it into notice by excluding the one indubi- tably famous American poet, has made the country a present of a National Academy. The composition of this Senate of Immortals, as given in a recent number of The Dial (November 1), is a matter for curious study. There is a fair representation of New Englanders, and a few other exiles from the Great White Way; but the pomp and prodigality of New York genius is mainly in evidence. And doubtless New York could have done better by itself, had it not been too magnanimous not to let the rest of the country have a look in. A good third of the names would probably be inevitable in any list of distinguished living Americans. But the others could be matched and overmatched again and again. There is of course a good side to this glorification of a group. New England in its best days was loyal to instincts of locality. It backed and cheered its intellectual athletes on, and the spirited runners felt the stimulus and sprang forward to win the prizes. New York deserves credit for taking care of its own. It reminds me of a story which my father used to tell, of a visit he paid with a companion to a friend's country house. The owner of the property had an idiot son; and my father, introducing his friend, said, "This is Mr. Satterthwaite, Sammy. He is a Quaker. The Quakers, you know, are good people." "Yes," said the idiot, "good to themselves." It used to be said that no Bostonian could escape hav- ing a statue erected for him; and New York seems moving in the same laudable direction. But it can hardly expect that the rest of the country will bow down and worship its totems of a tribe. It is hard to conceive just what ideal the makers of this Academy had in view,—just what kind of sheep they deemed acceptable, and just what kind of goats they thought undesirable. It includes men of affairs and publicists, but ignores some of our greatest. It admits a large number of artists, which is a commendable departure from the practice of the French Academy. It allows a number of college presidents, but disallows others as well and widely known. It ignores the Church, the Army and Navy, and the Stage. Altogether the list is badly balanced and badly selected, and seems to be issued with the imprint of a prominent magazine. The inevitable questions in all such cases is, "What is the Source of Honor? Whose is the authority which confers the stamp of greatness?" Artists are envious, and the mob profane. Even scientists can hardly be trusted to honor their best. And a popular vote would be a folly. The French Academy was founded at the culminating period of the French monarchy. It has gathered traditions to itself and become venerable by age. Yet it is questionable whether it has not done more harm by its log-rolling, its continual rejection of genius for mediocrity, than it has done good by its recognition of noble work. Too many great Frenchmen have occupied its forty-first chair, for the world to accept its judgments as final. Besides, it was instituted for a definite purpose — the preservation and promul- gation of the French language. It may have kept this language pure, but it has kept it thin. "- The piratical English speech, recklessly despoiling the tombs of antiquity, ravaging all coasts, bringing back booty from the uttermost ends of the earth, has trebled and quadrupled its stock of words and idioms, and acquired a richness and flexibility which fit it for all human uses, and promise to give it the dom- ination of the world. If the French Academy has failed in its main object — that of keeping the French language supreme, — its minor successes in cultivating urbanity and precision will not much count in the long run. We talk a great deal about democracy in America, but it looks to me as though we were making a quiet, disguised, but determined effort to create an aristoc- racy. And quite rightly, in a way. We begin to want some tangible evidence of the existence of the best. The idea of a society composed of people of achieve- ment and renown begins to appeal to us. The move- ment is fluid as yet; it has not hardened into an official caste, a plutocracy, or a class of all the talents. Any effort toward directing this movement in the way of intellectual and spiritual superiority, and away from the worship of mere wealth, is good. Coteries and associations with intellectual trend are springing up all over the country. A bright woman once told me that she had just had a dream of heaven, and it was exactly like a meeting of the Contemporary Club in Philadelphia. Possibly she was an enthusiast, but she expressed a feeling of delight in high intercourse which I believe is becoming common. One use for an American Academy is to furnish a beadroll of distinctions. Another purpose it might serve,'and which I suppose the French Academy does serve, would be to bring together persons of high and diverse achievements. England, however, has managed this business fairly well without an Academy. Her people of position and wealth have, down at least to a late period, recognized their responsibilities toward the intellectual life of the land. They have been hungry for celebrities. It is impossible to read the English biographies and memoirs of the last hundred years and not note how rich and full has been the intercourse of great men. Almost every Englishman of distinction has seemed to know every other of the same class. Here and there an isolated artist or man of letters, or a group of revolters, has escaped being caught into the full current, but as a rule the unofficial Academicians »f Great Britain have been invited everywhere. The breakfasts of Rogers and Monckton Milnes, the dinners of a hundred other hosts, and most of all the country house parties of people of rank, have been clearing-houses for genius. When the History of Civilization in England is written it will become evident how much has been due to this hospitality. Possibly there have been some drawbacks of pa- tronage and caste; but these have been greatly 6 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL overweighted by the benefits of acquaintance and interchange of thought, amid delightful surroundings, which has been made possible for intellectual leaders. These benefits have not only been a stimulus but a main reward for effort. We have had nothing com- parable to this life in America. Here a man of genius has been expected to be more grateful for a sandwich than an ordinary person would have to be for a year of banquets. Genius of any kind is not apt to be gregarious. It stalks alone, feeds on its own breast like the Pelican and reproduces itself like the Phoenix. Only the lure of dainty feminine presences brought it into the precincts of the H6tel de Rambouillet, the Academia Delia Crusca, or the later French salons. And even these did not get the big men. Left to itself, genius has always preferred the social life of taverns, coffee-houses, and small clubs. The Mermaid, the Mitre, Will's Coffee House, Dr. Johnson's Club, were the Academies of their times. They were the nurs- ing places of talent; in them reputations were made or unmade; there the intellectual life of the day flowed freest. Yet it may be doubted whether in our times a great capital or chief city is a necessary factor in the development of the arts and sciences. That it was so of old, is unquestionable. Where the king and court were, there was the assemblage of intellect. But we have changed all that. Weimar, a country village, dominated Germany for fifty years; the Lake District and Edinburgh cast the rest of Great Britain into the shade for half as long. Victor Hugo in the Jersey Islands was a fair counterpoise to Paris. Wagner scorned Berlin, and built his throne at Beireuth. As long as Tennyson lived, even London was in comparison to his hermitage as the low flar- ing confused lights of a seaside resort are beside the high clear flame of a light-house beacon. Wherever the great man is, wherever the few good heads are congregated, there is the head of the table. And apparently -what genius needs is a desert island for ten months in the year, and then a passport to the best life of the world for the remaining two. There has lately been launched, also in New York, an organization called The American Civic Alliance. Its object is vast, if vague, being nothing less than, in the language of its prospectus, "An effort to supplement the Government of the people with a civic body representing the combined Intel- lect and Conscience of the entire nation." Its mem- bership is limited to four thousand, and the qualifi- cations seem to be quite elastic. Apparently anyone of respectable attainments, who has the necessary enthusiasm and ten dollars, can belong. This is certainly being democratic, and everyone his own Academician. Strange as it seems, it looks to me as though this rough-and-ready body, if it material- izes, might have the germ of greater usefulness in it than the localized Academy I have been discussing. If its State chapters could bring together the best minds of their various sections, if a wave of enthu- siasm could be sent through the whole body, some- thing might come of it. It would at least make for the acquaintance of people who in various lines of work are trying to do their best. It might do for us, in a measure, what the flow and interchange of English social life have done for Englishmen. It might teach the politicians that literary men are not necessarily fools, and the clergy that politicians are not inevitably " crooks." From such a general un- derstanding among our leaders in all departments, a larger and fuller life might dawn for our country. Charles Leonard Moore. CASUAL COMMENT. The year's additions to the Library of Con- gress, according to the recently published report of the librarian, amount to 167,677 volumes, besides pamphlet, manuscript, and other material, bringing the total book collection up to 1,702,635 volumes. Among the noteworthy accessions is a set of the great Chinese Encyclopaedia, of which we have before made mention in connection with the copy owned by the British Museum and regarded as one of its most valuable possessions. The Washington set was presented by the Chinese government — possibly as a slight acknowledgment of American courtesy and fair play in returning the undistributed balance of the Boxer indemnity. Among the valu- able manuscripts lately transferred to our national library from various departments of the government are all the applications for public office received during Washington's administration, the original accounts and vouchers of his expenses in the Revo- lutionary War, and documents concerning pension claims of soldiers in that war. The catalogue cards now so satisfactorily prepared by the library and furnished to more than a thousand other libraries, both at home and abroad, have attained a yearly circulation of about four million cards. A method of exchange is in operation whereby a collective or union public library catalogue is being formed, to indicate the contents of all the great libraries of the country. Good work, too, is being done in the draw- ing up of library rules and regulations, the Wash- ington code being already adopted by the Library Association of England; the desirability of its still further use on the Continent will be discussed next June at the international library congress to be held at Brussels. • • • A LIBRARY OF BANKING AND CURRENCY, of twenty volumes or more, is to be published during the com- ing year under the auspices of the National Mone- tary Commission, and efforts will be made to give the volumes a large circulation throughout the coun- try. The government will be the publisher, and it is hoped that the books can be distributed by the superintendent of documents at a moderate price. Private purchasers may be few enough, but public and semi-public libraries will be interested in secur- ing sets of these authoritative works, which will, 1910.] 7 THE DIAL collectively, give a full history and description of the monetary and banking systems of the world. Representatives of the Commission have for some time been collecting material and holding interviews with finance ministers and leading bankers in various countries. The services of the foremost authorities in the many departments into which the general subject divides itself have been secured. In the matter of Japanese banking, for example, a theme of especial interest in view of Japan's rapid financial development in the last forty years, papers have been expressly prepared by Marquis Katsura, Pre- mier and Minister of Finance, by Baron Sakatani, ex-Minister of Finance, and by Baron Takahashi, vice-governor of the Bank of Japan. There is at present unusual interest here in the question of banking, and the Commission expresses the hope that business men and students of finance will study the volumes and cooperate in devising for this country a more adequate banking system. A QUEER SCHEME OF LITERARY CENSORSHIP has been agitating the book world of England. The circulating libraries wish to decide on the morality or immorality of a book before it shall be formally turned over to the book-buying and book-reading public. If approved by the circulating libraries, through some examining board appointed by them, the book would enjoy the patronage of those com- mercially important institutions. If disapproved on the score of immorality, what an advertisement the book would thereby receive! The plan is too obvi- ously objectionable, not to say absurd, on many accounts, to be taken seriously — more ridiculous even than the much-criticised puritanic committee of fiction-sifters voluntarily undertaking to decide what novels are good enough for the Boston Public Lib- rary. It is no wonder that the English Society of Authors is strongly opposed to the scheme, and that a leading London journal pronounces it "incom- parably more deadly " than the theatrical censorship which has stirred up so much opposition in England. The interesting situation is discussed more fully by The Dial's London correspondent in this issue. The perils of precocity in a popular writer are grave. Having early made his mark and familiar- ized the public with his juvenile genius, can he per- suade his readers to accept riper and worthier and it may be heavier work at his hands? Will Mr. Chesterton, for example, find himself forced to con- tinue writing Chestertonese for the next thirty or forty years, or will he be able to drop the journal- istic cock-sureness and epigrammatic smartness that have so well served him thus far? He is only thirty-five, and the prospect of forty years more of Chestertonic paradox somehow daunts one. Mr. Kipling, a somewhat older writer, is one whose later work, whatever its excellence, seems to suffer by comparison with those first fine flights of his imag- ination before the cares of his country weighed on his mind and prompted him to produce rhymed homilies on imperialism. Another early successful author is Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson, from whose pen we are not getting many new books of late. Is it possible that he has described his own fate in "The Altar Fire," and that his pen, once so fertile, has written itself out? And yet Mr. Benson is still several years under fifty. It is to be hoped that he is simply resting and ripening for yet worthier achievements in literature. To be handicapped by youthful fame is worse than to be muffled in a not easily penetrable obscurity. • • • The singular usage of some Latin plurals invites passing comment. A current paragraph, in a newspaper standing at or near the head of the list for acknowledged literary excellence, runs as follows: "' Cook's data turned over,' says a head- line, referring to the delivery of the stuff to the Copenhagen scientists. The next thing will be to turn it inside out. Was there ever any 'data' that was so mercilessly criticised as this will be? The examination of Peary's records was like an afternoon tea in comparison." No fewer than four times does the writer of this short paragragh proclaim the misti- ness of his Latin. We have long been accustomed, though not wholly reconciled, to the misuse of "stamina" as a singular noun. "His stamina was inadequate to the strain put upon it" might now be read in one's morning journal without robbing the entire day of its enjoyment; but "the data was" still jars one rather painfully. Other like instances will occur to many readers. Thus do the last linger- ing traces of a polite education go the way of Hans Breitmann's " Barty," — into the Ewigkeit. • • • An octogenarian jaunt might appropriately be the title of a volume describing the European trip just undertaken by Mr. John T. Trowbridge. He and Mrs. Trowbridge have recently sailed from Boston for a winter's sojourn in sunny Italy—so pleasantly at contrast with east-windy Boston, or breezy Arlington either, the venerable author's long- time place of residence. Let us hope he will feel moved to add a sequel, embracing this Italian visit, to his already published "My Own Story," which appeared six years ago. Mr. Trowbridge, at eighty- two, braving the winter Atlantic for a scamper across Europe — if he will pardon the levity of the expression—is surpassed only by Mr. John Bigelow, who, with the burden of ten more years to carry, recently ran over to Paris, and then, with equal lightness of step, returned to present us with the three noteworthy volumes of his "Retrospections." This year's winner of the Nobel prize for literature. Miss Selma LagerlOf, will be generally acknowledged to have deserved the honor. Indeed, it would have come to her before now had not the committee of award feared the charge of prejudice in thus choosing a writer of their own nationality 8 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL for a distinction of world-wide significance. Miss Lagerlof, now entering on her second half-century, has written tales of Swedish life that have won for her a position not unlike that occupied by Walter Scott among his compatriots. She has revealed what was before but dimly perceived, the poetic meaning and romantic charm of Swedish legend and Swedish life. Best known to us of her books are "Gdsta Berling's Saga" and "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils," — and concerning the latter there is a touching and a true story that will bear re-telling. Not long after the book appeared, its author received from an orphan boy bearing the same name as its hero a letter telling her of the forlorn life he was living in his dreary little world, and so moving in its tone that she hunted him up and took him to her home and heart, adopting him as her son. From all that can be learned there seems no question but Miss Lagerlof is a woman of genius and also of warm and noble sympathies. THE 8TORY OF A GROWING APPETITE FOK BOOKS among the people of San Francisco (rising in renewed vigor from the prostrating calamity of a few years ago) is told in Librarian Watson's latest annual report of the public library of that city. With not more than seventy-six thousand volumes at its disposal, the library circulates each volume more than eight times yearly on an average, while one branch reports an annual circulation of thirteen times for each vol- ume, and another fourteen times. The past year has shown the largest addition to the supply of books in the history of the library, and its present tempor- ary quarters are apparently becoming inadequate at a geometrically progressive rate. All of which speaks well for the city's devotion to the things of intellect. An issue of library bonds to the extent of $1,647,000 was authorized six years ago, and a part of the issue has been made, the proceeds of which have been used in the purchase of land for a new library building that is to cost a million dollars. The performance of two plays of Euripides, within a few days of each other, in two Massachu- setts cities, Boston and Springfield, speaks well for the still undegraded theatrical taste of at least a part of the better-educated public. The Bryn Mawr Club, of Boston, presented on December 10 the "Medea" in Professor Gilbert Murray's English verse trans- lation, and three days later a company of Greek students of the American International College at Springfield played the "Alcestis" in the original Greek. While not attaining to the magnificence and impressiveness of last year's rendering of the "Agamemnon" in the Harvard Stadium — a gran- deur less consonant with the more modern-spirited Euripides than with the tragic sublimities of the earlier poet — these two attempts to revive the classic drama of Athens were highly creditable to all concerned, and were well received by appreciative audiences. FROM LITERARY LONDON. (Special Correspondence of The Dial.) The two things that are most interesting the En- glish public since I last wrote are, first, the attempt to purify our literature through a censorship emanat- ing from what are called subscription libraries; and, second, the question of an Academy of Literature. The first question has arisen in part, no doubt, from genuine remonstrances having been made to these libraries in behalf of parents who think that their children are taking out books that are very bad for them. The whole problem is a difficult one. On the one hand, one does not see that any censorship, especially one coming from the cir- culating libraries, which in this country are very keen commercial affairs, on a basis of private ownership, would be other than detrimental to good literature. Four of our great circulating libraries, having an enormous business—not only in this country but in some cases all over the world, — although rivals in everything else, have joined themselves together into a sympathetic union over this question. First, there is Mudie's, a splendidly managed library, founded by the late Mr. Charles Edward Mudie, and now a flourishing company. In one department of this great business you may see huge boxes packed with books to go to India and the British Colonies. These boxes are sent to and fro as systematically as if it were only across the road. Naturally, considerable control is exercised by the library as to the books distributed in this way. The next firm is W. H. Smith & Sons. This company once had at its head Mr. W. H. Smith, who held important posts in sev- eral Conservative Governments. The third of these firms is known as Boot's Book-Lovers Library. Mr. Boot was made a knight the other day, and is now Sir Jesse Boot. He has chemist shops all over London, and the happy idea came to him of adding book-lending to medicine-vending; and there is no doubt that the plan has proved a great success. The fourth of these book firms is known as The Times Book Club, a concern already known to American readers through the big fight that raged between "The Times" newspaper and the book publishers when this club was founded, the dispute being over the right of the club to sell the new books that it had purchased at second-hand prices without a certain interval intervening, — a plan obviously disastrous to the booksellers. These four firms have made the proposal to the book publishers that time should be given to the libra- rians to examine books before they are taken by the libraries, with the view of discovering if they contain anything either "scandalous," "libellous," or " im- moral." The Publishers' Association of London promptly fell into line with this idea; which shows that certain publishers are evidently not connected with that Association—presumably the publishers of 1910.] 9 THE DIAL the books aimed at. The Publishers' Association, however, desired to consult the Society of Authors, an organization which undoubtedly has the majority of English authors among its members. The Society of Authors, at their meeting held to discuss the matter, declared that the libraries obviously had the power already to select what books they willed for their customers. The Society declined, however, to accept the condition that the books of their authors should be submitted to any committee of librarians, and indeed described the claim of the libraries as unwarrantable. Mr. Edmund Gosse wrote a very sensible letter to "The Times" in which he condemned this attempt at censorship on the part of what would be a secret or irresponsible committee. He incidentally declared that in their day Darwin's books would have been impossible under such conditions. Where- upon Mr. John Murray wrote to "The Times" to say that, as the publisher of Darwin's books, he did not think that such works as the " Origin of Species" would have been in any danger. Mr. Murray has a short memory. I recall the days when, in this country at least, Darwin's books were looked upon by more than half the community as emanating direct from hell. I recall that Mr. Mudie, the founder of the Library bearing his name, was a very strong dissenter, who would gladly have burnt Darwin and all his works. But Mr. Mudie was also a shrewd business man, and could not have acted with- out the cooperation of his competitors. My own strong feeling regarding the proposed censorship is that the remedy is to be found in the newspapers and not in the libraries. The call for novels is largely based upon reviews, and if a paper denounces any given book as immoral it is sure to have a great sale. It is not the favorable reviews, but the unfavorable, that sell a book, at least in this country. The condemnation of the libraries would serve as an additional advertisement of a bad book. However, we shall await the result of the struggle with no small interest. That some horrid books are now being issued here, is undeniable. We have also had considerable discussion of the question of a National Academy of Literature. For ages past, English men of letters have hankered after such an institution as they have in France. Matthew Arnold made great fun of the idea in a very clever essay, and it seemed to have quite ceased to be considered. Meanwhile, however, some clever men in the realms of non-imaginative literature have formed an Academy among themselves, which con- tains some of our ablest writers, — the British Ambassador to America, for example. It is devoted purely to the work of the student, and not to that of the writer who writes because he must, — that is to say, the imaginative artist. The Society calling itself the British Academy has a very energetic secretary in Mr. Israel Gollancz, and has been taking the lead in directions in which I for one cannot see that it lias any clear authority. It organized, for exam- ple, the Milton Celebration in London; it organized the Tennyson Centenary, and it took in hand the whole arrangements of a funeral service to George Meredith in Westminster Abbey. These activities have awakened a spirit of revolt among our men of letters, — that is to say, among imaginative writers. They assert that a Society which does not admit any of their number into its ranks has no right to assume functions of this character. Tennyson could not have been a member of it; Meredith was not a member. Yet the Society arrogated to itself the task of commemorating these very men. The Society might perhaps justify itself by saying that it only does what there is no one else to do. But the Society of Authors clearly thinks that such things are the especial business of that body. There is no doubt that the Society does number among its sub- scribers a majority of our English writers. Yet one feels that its membership is made up almost too indiscriminately. Perhaps the ideal Academy would be made by a selection of forty of the most brilliant imaginative writers of the day. But who is to make the selection? The popular verdict could hardly be trusted. Mr. Hall Caine, for example, might be elected a member of such an Academy, because he has thousands of readers, although his books are quite remote from literature. Mr. Maurice Hewlett demands that the Society of Authors should con- sider the question; but I doubt very much if that would be the best method. It is rather the " critics" of authors than the authors themselves who should have the power of selection; and to that the authors would never submit. Altogether, I do not imagine that a National Academy of Literature is likely to be established in London for many a year to come. In a recent letter I referred to the Johnson Club in London. I have just come away from a dinner which took place on the anniversary of Dr. Johnson's death, and on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Club's existence. The Club numbers only about thirty members, but its membership has been a very interesting one. Mr. Augustine Birrell, for exam- ple, has been an enthusiastic supporter from the beginning, although his duties as a Minister of the Crown have kept him away of late. Sir Henry M. Stanley, the well-known African explorer, was a member; Dr. Birkbeck Hill, who edited the best edition of Boswell's Johnson that has ever been pub- lished, was a very regular attendant. Mr. Austin Dobson was a member for some years, until, in fact, he ceased to go out at night. Each member takes his turn in being what is called the "Prior" of the Club. A quite recent Prior was Mr. H. B. Wheatley, who has written some important books on London, and is the editor, preeminently, of Pepys's Diary. The Prior for this year is Mr. Thomas Seccombe. the author of a book called "The Age of Johnson," and one of the ablest of the reviewing staff of the London "Times." Among the visitors to the Club for the evening were Mr. Anthony Hope, Canon 10 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL Beeching, and Professor Walter Raleigh. Anthony Hope we all know as a popular novelist; he is also an excellent after-dinner speaker. Canon Beeching, who is a canon of Westminster Abbey, is one of the few men of to-day who are keeping alive the literary traditions of that church which were so pronounced when we had Dean Stanley and Dean Church, to say nothing of Dr. Merivale and Bishop Creighton. It might almost be said that Canon Ainger was the last of the literary clergymen of England; for Canon Beeching, with considerable critical gifts, is but little known to the reading public. The third of our guests, Professor Walter Raleigh, is the son of an eminent Nonconformist Minister, Dr. Alexander Raleigh; he now holds the chair of English Literature at Oxford, and has written books on Milton and Wordsworth that have attracted much attention. But perhaps I have said too much about the John- son Club and its pleasant gatherings. We meet only three times a year; a paper is read and dis- cussed, and we drink in silence to the memory of "the Master." The event of the week in which I am writing is the publication of the "Jubilee Number" of the "Cornhill Magazine." The " Cornhill" has existed for fifty years. Thackeray was its first editor; its other editors have included Sir Leslie Stephen, Mr. Frederick Greenwood, and Mr. James Payn. I rather fancy that Mr. Greenwood had some difference of opinion with the publishers of the magazine, Messrs. Smith & Elder, and hence his name is strangely ignored in the volley of congratulations contained in this "Jubilee Number." Mr. Stanley Weyman writes about James Payn; Mr. W. E. Norris writes about Sir Leslie Stephen; while Lady Ritchie, the daughter of Thackeray, writes about her father. There is a poem by Thomas Hardy that has distinct charm. Altogether, the " Cornhill" jubilee is a very notable celebration, because magazines that love to publish literature are becoming more and more uncommon in England. There is a very marked deterioration in this field. Mr. John Murray once had a nice magazine, with good literary matter in it, called "Murray's Magazine." Our other old- time firm, the Longmans, had a magazine called "Longman's Magazine," which also published much good literature. The Macmillans issued a magazine which they called after their name, that had equal merita. All three are dead. "Blackwood's " and "Cornhill" alone survive of all the magazines run by high-class publishers aiming to provide good readable material of the best quality; and I do not believe that either of these has a very large sale. Thackeray boasted of a hundred thousand copies of the earlier numbers of "Cornhill." I am afraid your readers would be astonished if they heard the present-day sales. The fact undoubtedly is that literary taste in this country seems to have dete- Clement K. Shorter. London, December 20, 1909. COMMUNICA TIONS. THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AND SPELLING REFORM. (To the Editor of The Dial.) The pith of Professor Paul Shorey's courteous letter in The Dial of December 1 is to be found in his assertion that the amelioration of our spelling cannot be confided solely to prof est scholars, learned in the history of English, because it " involves many nice questions of taste, literary feeling, psychology of education, and practical consequences, in the de- cision of which the judgments of all thoughtful men, whatever their specialties, are entitled to considera- tion." And with this assertion no friend of a more logical orthography has any desire to quarrel. By an interesting coincidence, the same number of The Dial contained an account of the organiza- tion of an American Academy of Arts and Letters, having now forty-five living members. In this article the declaration is made that "the collective distinction of the list is deeply impressive," and that it is "clearly representative of what is best in our intellectual and artistic life." Probably the writer of that article would be ready to admit that men who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters ought to be specially qualified to deal with what Professor Shorey has aptly de- scribed as " nice questions of taste " and of " literary feeling." It may, therefore, be interesting to have it pointed out that six members of the Simplified Spelling Board are also members of the American Academy— Messrs. Clemens, Higginson, Lounsbury, Matthews, Roosevelt, and White. Three other members of the Academy are on record as sympathizing heartily with the effort to better our orthography,—Messrs. Burroughs, Cable, and Howells. This has an obvious significance upon which there is no need to expand. But what is almost as significant is the fact that at most only one of the twenty other men of letters in this carefully selected group of leaders in the several arts, — only Mr. Lodge, — has publicly ex- prest his opposition to the progressive simplifying of our spelling. Of course, it may be quite possible that there are others among this silent score of Amer- ican authors who do not approve of the movement. But if any such there are, they have seen fit to keep their opinions to themselves, for whatever reason. On the other hand, those members of the American Academy who believe that something ought to be done now to make our noble tongue fitter for service thruout the world have not hesitated to stand forward to testify to the faith that is in them. Professor Shorey does not say in so many words that scholarship in English is a disqualification for advocacy of spelling reform; but he seems to be on the verge of insinuating this. That Professor Lounsbury is tainted by this disqualification, cannot be denied; but it does not attach to Messrs. Burroughs, Cable, 1910.] 11 THE DIAL Clemens, Higginson, Howells, Matthews, Roosevelt, and White. Probably even the "professors of dead languages " would admit the right of these members of the American Academy to deal with "nice ques- tions of taste" and of "literary feeling." Brander Matthews. New York, December 20, 1909. [It was, of course, the "collective distinction of the list" of "sixty-two names altogether," constituting the total membership of the Acad- emy, that we found to be impressive, — not the half-dozen members who are members also of the Simplified Spelling Board. And we espec- ially emphasized Matthew Arnold's admirable statement of what a real Academy must be, — "an institution which will discourage every orthographical antic, every manifestation of the provincial spirit."—Edr. The Dial.] A LOCALIZED AMERICAN ACADEMY. (To the Editor of The Dial.) It is easy to see that an American Academy of Arts and Letters, as outlined in your issue of Novem- ber 1, may be a useful and authoritative institution, and a vital force in the upbuilding of our higher national life. But there are phases of it that call for thoughtful consideration. It is hard to see how an institution representing one locality, however meritorious it may be, can properly be regarded as a national Academy. It is true that for such an institution the best men should be chosen, wherever found; and it may be that the promoters of the Academy have had this principle in mind. If so, their minds afford subject for interesting inquiry. Culture, the pursuit of arts and letters, are commonly believed to tend toward a broadening of view, a correcting of what is narrow and provincial; yet the proverbial inability of New York to see beyond the Hudson River, its naive unconsciousness of the rest of the country, have seldom been more signally displayed. An inspection of the list of names of the new Academicians, as given in The Dial article already referred to, shows that of the sixty-two members about forty (two-thirds of the total membership) are of New York; while of the remaining third, Boston and vicinity have fourteen. Of the eight remain- ing, Baltimore has two, Philadelphia two, Wash- ington two, and far-off Georgia has one for her beloved "Uncle Remus." One membership is thus left for all that is "American " beyond the Eastern seaboard ; and this (under the circumstances) rather overwhelming honor goes to Mr. John Muir of California, a man far greater than any distinction like this could make him, but distinguished in science and exploration rather than in arts and letters. Now my present purpose is not to complain of all this — not to show the suitability of any of the scholars or artists or men of letters in the vast and influential region thus excluded from the ken of culture in the East, or to urge the representation of any of the great universities of the West or the Pacific Slope, — but only to call attention to the facts of the case, leaving others to ponder their sig- nificance and to consider whether an "American" Academy can be established on a basis such as is here disclosed. — _ _, Wilmer O. Martin. Chicago, December 22, 1909. THE ORIGIN OF "OLD GRIMES." (To the Editor of The Dial.) It is so seldom one finds The Dial napping that I am tempted to express my surprise at the note on "Old Grimes" in the last issue. The statements that the origin of the song "is now revealed in Mr. Dwight C. Kilbourn's 'History of the Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut,' " and "The authorship of the song is now traced to a source sufficiently distinguished," are made as if they an- nounced a new discovery. As a matter of fact, the authorship of the poem has always, I think, been generally known. Both Duyckinck's "Cyclopedia of American Literature" and Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America" discuss the work of the Honorable Albert G. Greene (not Green, as The Dial gives it), and print among their samples of his poetry " Old Grimes," and that other favorite of the earlier school-readers, "The Baron's last Banquet." "O'er a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray, Where in his last strong agony a dying warrior lay, The stern old Baron Rudiger. ..." Several of the more recent handbooks of American literature also perpetuate the memory of "Old Grimes" and its author. In "Book Notes " for May 30,1908, Mr. Sidney S. Rider, of Providence, gives two versions of the poem, and reprints an interesting letter from Greene, who says: "It was first published, I think, in 1823, in one of the Providence papers, for which purpose a copy had been requested of me by the editor. In reply to your question respecting the authorship of the stanzas, I answer that the first verse, for aught I know to the contrary, may have been repeated and sung from time immemorial. Whether it formed part of some earlier production now for- gotten, or was one of those fragments of verse of which no one can tell the origin or author, I know not. That verse was used as a file-leader for the remainder. ... I need only add that, with the exception of the first, every line of them was written by myself." Mr. Rider found what he believed to be the first publication of the poem in the "Provi- dence Gazette " for January 16, 1822, As Greene was not born until 1802, the date given in The Dial (1812) is surely incorrect, William B. Cairns. University of Wisconsin, December IS, 1909. 12 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL $efo looks. Some Evolution House-cleaning.* The purpose of all scientific investigation is to learn as much as possible about natural phenomena, in order that man may order his life to the best advantage with reference to these phenomena. In carrying out this purpose, science sets before itself the ideal of dealing only with verifiable truth. But in the develop- ment of the actual intellectual machinery of investigation (hypotheses, theories, and the like) it results not infrequently that this ideal gets put to one side and for the time being forgotten. Under such circumstances, a great deal of so- called scientific endeavor and speculation comes to deal with " things as they might be " rather than with "things as they are." Nowhere has this been more truly the case than in the study of Organic Evolution. Darwin and Wallace showed at the outstart how the selection idea might account for many of the observed phenomena of organic nature, and brought forward definite and cogent evi- dence that selection had really acted to produce certain of these results. This idea of selection developed quickly into certain set formulae, and much — indeed, most — of the speculation and writing on Evolution up to the present time has concerned itself with the discussion of the prob- able results of the application of these formulae to organisms and conditions as they might con- ceivably be. Thus, the brilliant coloring of certain butterflies has been " explained " as warn- ing coloration, developed by the action of natural selection, to show the birds that prey on butter- flies that these particular kinds were not whole- some or palatable, and had therefore better be left strictly alone. Volumes have been written on this subject, and detailed phases of it have called forth as heated discussion as ever did the famous Theory of Tittlebats. Yet practically no one ever took the trouble, or even thought it worth while, to see whether, as a matter of fact, birds do really prey on butterflies to any extent, and whether the effect of the brilliant coloration actually is as it is theoretically sup- posed to be. A periodical house-cleaning is just as neces- sary and just as disagreeable intellectually as it is physically or morally. Mr. Dewar and Mr. Finn have taken it upon themselves to clean up •The Making of Species. By Douglas Dewar and Frank Finn. With fifteen illustrations. New York: John Lane Co. the Evolution house; to throw away the rubbish, and carefully dust and place conspicuously upon the mantel those scientific ideals that have been rather hidden by the large and ill-assorted collec- tion of mental bric-a-brac which the workers in the house have allowed or helped to accumulate. On the whole, these gentlemen make very effi- cient " help"; they have done their work unusu- ally well. "The Making of Species " frankly has as its aim the destructive criticism of Neo-Darwinism, — or, as the authors rather curiously prefer to designate this school of thought, " Wallaceism." In particular, the attempt is made to show that the Allmacht of Natural Selection, which is the keynote of the Neo-Darwinism position, is in very large degree fanciful rather than real; that it depends on metaphysical speculation rather than on the actual observation of living plants and animals under natural conditions. The method of the book is to bring forward an array of concrete facts observed by the authors them- selves in their ornithological studies, or cited from the literature, and then to show that these facts cannot be accounted for by certain exist- ing theories of the method of evolution without straining logic and credulity to an absurd de- gree. The authors' standpoint and way of pro- ceeding are refreshingly Darwinian. "Like Darwin, we welcome all factors which appear to be capable of affecting Evolution. We have no axe to grind in the shape of a pet hypothesis, and conse- quently our passions are not aroused when men come forward with new ideas seemingly opposed to some which already occupy the field. We recognize the extreme complexity of the problems that confront us. We look facts in the face and decline to ignore any, no matter how ill they fit in with existing theories. We recognize the strength and the weakness of the Dar- winian theory." The first two chapters are introductory and historical, dealing with the rise and development of the theory of Natural Selection and with some of the more important criticisms that have been directed against it during the last fifty years. The next three chapters, on "Variation," "Hybridism," and " Inheritance," contain keen critical discussions of a number of problems and lines of work in the foreground of interest and attention to-day. DeVries's mutation theory, as a general theory of evolution, is criticised, al- though the great value of his experimental inves- tigations is fully recognized. The discussions of hybridism and inheritance are excellent. A wealth of material regarding hybrids amongst wild forms is presented; nothing could show more convincingly how greatly the importance and generality of the Mendelian principles of 1910.] 18 THE DIA1, heredity is exaggerated by some of the more active and zealous investigators in that field. The next two chapters deal with two of the pet theories dearest to the heart of the orthodox Neo-Darwinian; namely, protective and warning coloration and mimicry on the one hand, and sexual selection on the other hand. The criti- cisms are sharp and convincing. There can be no doubt that much of the post-Darwinian re- finement and extension of theory and speculation on these subjects is utter nonsense, having no relation whatever to the real facts of Nature. The last chapter gives a very clear and excel- lent exposition of the factors (and their relative importance and limitations) now known to in- fluence evolution. The authors point out, with entire correctness and justice, that "The real problem is the cause of variations; or, in other words, how species originate. At present our knowledge of the causes of variation and muta- tion is practically nil. . . . The future of biology is largely in the hands of the practical breeder." The worst that can be said of this extremely interesting and stimulating book is that the authors weaken the presentation of their case by the adoption of an unfortunate style of expres- sion. The book was written in a very short time, considering the range and importance of the topics treated, and its tone throughout is rather flippant. It is certain that a more tactful presentation of the criticisms and evidence would have gained for the book much more respectful and immediate consideration by professional biologists. In its earnestness, the diction occa- sionally gets amusingly turgid. Thus, the fol- lowing sentence, in its mixture of desperate earnestness and foozled grammar, reminds one of nothing so much as of the small boy who chokes and swallows as he tries to state an im- portant matter with all the force that he can command: "We are endeavoring to save biology in England from committing suicide, to save it from the hands of those into which it has fallen." Raymond Pearl. A Survey of American Literature.* As its title indicates, the " Manual of Amer- ican Literature," by Mr. Theodore Stanton, in collaboration with members of the Faculty of Cornell University, is a compendium of material for reference rather than a history of literary *A Manual or American Literature. Edited by Theodore Stanton, M.A., in a collaboration with members of the faculty of Cornell University. New York: G. P. Put- nam's Sons. development. For more reasons than one, the volume awakens interest. It is " No. 4000 " of the Tauchnitz Editions, a " memorial volume" in the well-known Collection of British Authors which, instituted by Baron Tauchnitz in 1841, has now reached the proportions indicated by the number of this issue. Its significance as a "memorial volume," in thus marking a notable turning-point in the enlargement of the series, is emphasized by the fact that " No. 2000" took the form of a volume by Henry Morley upon "English Literature in the Reign of Victoria." No account of literature in America has hitherto appeared in the Collection. The Manual is dedicated "to President Theodore Roosevelt." The distinctive feature of the work is the plan of arrangement, which presents the nineteenth- century literature in six divisions under the headings, The Historians, The Novelists, The Poets, The Essayists and the Humorists, The Orators and the Divines, and The Scientists ; a seventh section is given to the Periodicals. There are obvious advantages in such a plan, and obvious disadvantages. It is adhered to rigidly, not only in cases like those of Emerson and Lowell, who are consequently " split " into essayists and poets, but also with Irving, Poe, and Holmes, who, like a certain noted actress on a well-remembered occasion, are here com- pelled to appear in three parts. The awkward- ness of such an appearance is perhaps less note- worthy than the danger of disproportionate and inconsistent treatment. Take Lowell, for ex- ample: the scant single page which barely gives the titles of his prose essays is painfully inade- quate, and altogether out of proportion when compared with the seven and a half pages given to Lowell in the chapter on the Poets, even when we note that all biographical data is pre- sented in this latter section. In Irving's case there is considerable repetition in two of the three divisions; in fact the " Knickerbocker History" is successively described as history, fiction, and humorous essay, — which may be altogether proper; but there is something like contradiction in the description of the " Life of Washington" as "monumental " by one writer, and as "the task-work of his declining years" by another. However, this is said not so much by way of criticism as in illustrating the difficulties that attend this method of presentation. As a mat- ter of fact, we think that the authors have kept well together; they have met the difficulties with a degree of success impossible had they not been in constant and close touch with one another. The work is distinctively a product of Cornell 14 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL scholarship. Mr. Stanton is a graduate of that university, and his associates are members of its faculty. This kindred in authorship includes yet more; for the two sections dealing with Colonial Literature and The Revolutionary Period are an abridgment of the masterly work of the late Moses Coit Tyler, formerly a pro- fessor at Cornell. It was not only gracefully appropriate thus to join the distinguished name of another Cornellian with the group, but em- inently wise and just; for certainly no summary of those periods in our literary history can ever stand except on the foundation of Tyler's work. The largest section in the Manual is that upon the Novelists, by Professor Clark S. Northup. It is also the most interesting. More than a quarter of the volume is here included, and the list, which begins with Charles Brockden Brown, comprises a hundred and eighty names; yet Professor Northup is discriminating and concise in his commentary. In view of the great and rapid growth of fiction in this generation, it is surprising to note that one of the earliest of American novels, the crude and sentimental "Charlotte Temple" (1790), has survived its century of life through more than a hundred editions, its last appearance having been in 1905. In his account of the beginnings, Mr. Northup does not include Sarah Morton's "Power of Sympathy" (1789), which sometimes figures as the first American novel, although sup- pressed previous to publication. The much- discussed authorship of two conspicuously suc- cessful American novels is definitely settled in these pages. It is announced authoritatively that Professor Henry Adams, the historian, is the author of "Democracy" (1880), and that John Hay wrote "The Bread-Winners" (1883). In the remaining divisions of the book we have the Historians, presented by Dr. Isaac Madison Bentley; the Essayists and the Humorists, by Professor Elmer James Bailey. The section on the Poets, and that on the Orators and the Divines, are by Professor Lane Cooper. Pro- fessor Northup provides the section on the Scientists, and that on the Periodicals. The latter is, necessarily, much condensed, and will doubtless seem meagre to American readers. It must give The Dial a feeling of loneliness to find that it is about the only Western periodical of which Professor Northup is aware. Had he consulted Mr. Herbert Fleming's very complete monograph on this subject (published by the University of Chicago), this section would prob- ably have been considerably expanded. W. E. Simonds. Greek Culture and Modern Liee.* If experience qualifies one to give counsel, the cause of Greek studies would look far to find two better fitted advocates than the authors of the two volumes before us. Each has devoted to that cause more than half a century of un- broken activity, and each has been peculiarly successful in bringing his own life into vital contact with the deepest currents of Greek life which have come down to us through the souls of men, as well as with the more external remainders of Greek civilization. The three chapters of Professor Gildersleeve's little volume entitled "Hellas and Hesperia" were delivered as lectures before the University of Virginia, on the Barbour-Page foundation. An old man thus returning to the home of his scholastic youth must naturally be less formal than under other circumstances; and this fact gives to his words a personal touch which can only enhance their value to those who have been fortunate enough to know him, though it may result in some disappointment to persons who open the volume in search of so thorough and logical a defence of Greek studies as a man of the author's attainments might present. As to a formal plea for Greek, he begs to be excused. "If the study is doomed, let it die. Living is the test of vitality. ... If classical culture has outlived its usefulness; if its teachers are squeaking and gibbering ghosts and not real men, let in the light, turn on the current and have done with it." One recalls the spirited words put into the mouth of the aged Cato by Cicero: "That is a wretched old age indeed which must defend itself by argument." The "cubic contents " of Greek studies, Professor Gildersleeve reminds us, are greater now than in past generations; by which he means, of course, that the actual number so engaged is larger than before, in spite of the fact that they do not constitute so large a proportion of the entire body of students and scholars. The American, he holds, is essentially the Greek of the modern world. "Our keenness and directness, our audacity, our inventiveness, our light-hearted acceptance of the shifts of fortune," are quali- ties which peculiarly fit us to appreciate the life of ancient Greece and draw both profit and * Hellas and Hesperia; or,the Vitality of Greek Studies in America. By Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Professor of Greek in the Johns Hopkins University. New York: Henry Holt & Co. What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civiliza- tion? The Lowell Lectures of 1908-1909. By JohnPentland Mahaffy, D.C.L., of Trinity College, Dublin. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1910.] 15 THE DIAL pleasure from a first-hand acquaintance there- with. Dr. Gildersleeve's kindly humor, of course, pervades every paragraph. That will never depart until pen and tongue are stilled forever. , Professor Mahaffy's Lowell Lectures on "What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization" are naturally more formal. In various important fields of human effort — prose and poetry, architecture and sculpture, painting and music, logic, mathematics, medi- cine, politics, law, philosophy, etc., — he points out the achievements of the Greeks and the direct or indirect relation of those achievements to modern efforts in the same lines. In general, this work is well and carefully done; but we note a tendency unduly to depreciate the work of the Romans by way of comparison. Of course no Latinist denies the general artistic superiority of the Greek, through which he "took his fierce Roman conqueror captive," but that is a very superficial view of the evidence which fails to recognize that the Romans added substantial and valuable qualities of their own to all their borrowings from Greece, qualities without which modern life would have lost very heavily in its lessons from the ancient Mediter- ranean civilizations. It is not necessary to attempt here any resume of Professor Mahaffy's arguments, since intelligent readers are already aware of the general trend which such a discus- sion must take. Perhaps many would be sur- prised to read some of the definite information which he gives as to the extent of Greek achieve- ment in the field of higher mathematics. The present writer once heard a famous platform lecturer, the head of an educational institution in an Eastern city, assert to a body of students in a preparatory school that they knew more of science and mathematics than any of the ancient Greeks and Romans! Few, of course, are as ignorant of the facts as that, but not many are aware how far one would have to go to pass the northernmost igloos of a Euclid, an Apollonius of Perga, an Hipparchus, or a Diophantus, in the polar latitudes of mathematics. The aver- age modern student preparing for such a feat would certainly find it necessary to dispense with many of the customary accoutrements of current college life and load his sledges with a high quality of intellectual pemmican instead. In discussing the subject of Greek music, Professor Mahaffy assumes that the idea of Greek educators that the practice of music has a direct and powerful effect upon the morals of average men is entirely foreign to modern thought. We have no sufficient acquaintance with modern musical literature to say whether this idea has had any very general discussion, but we have heard it put forth orally too often to believe that it can be as foreign to modern thought as he imagines. In fact, when we con- sider how readily certain types of music appeal to certain moods of mind, it would seem an inevi- table conclusion that either elevating or degrad- ing moral effects must be produced by this means under appropriate conditions. Who does not know how readily, in the field of church music, almost an entire audience may be jarred out of a spiritual frame of mind by some misplaced effort of organist or choir? , Professor Mahaffy is too plain-speaking a man to be insincere in his assertion that he found during his visit to America a far more hopeful situation with regard to Greek than he had expected. And we are glad that he was not afraid, within such close proximity to Harvard Square, to allude to the part of Harvard University itself in making the situation as bad as it is. We can do no better in closing than to quote the final sentence of our author's peroration: "So now, when my part in the race is nearly run, there remains to me no higher earthly satisfaction than this, that I have carried the torch of Greek fire alight through a long life — no higher earthly hope than this, that I may pass that torch to others, who in their turn may keep it aflame with greater brilliancy perhaps, but not with more earnest devotion, 'in the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.'" W. H. Johnson. New Bevealments of Shelley.* Seldom has the foolishness of prophesying been better illustrated than by Matthew Arnold's famous dictum of three decades ago: "I doubt whether Shelley's delightful Essays and Letters will not re- sist the wear and tear of time better and finally come to stand higher than his poetry." Certainly, we welcome gladly a collection of Shelley letters which includes thirty-eight entirely new ones, besides nearly fifty containing hitherto unpublished matter. Yet our enthusiasm is mild compared with what we should feel at the announce- ment of an equal number of fresh Shelley poems. However, a comparison of this kind is quite unneces- sary; and we would not belittle what we now have, after eighty-seven years of waiting — a chronologi- cal and systematic arrangement of material which hitherto it has been necessary to seek through numer- • Thr Letters of Percy Btsshe Shelley. Collected and edited by Roger Ingpen. With illustrations. In two vol- umes. New York: Charles Seribners Sons. 16 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL, ous fragmentary and scattered volumes, the whole collection of old and new amounting to about four hundred and eighty letters, or nearly three times as many as any one previous work has contained. Moreover, the compact biographical sketches of Shelley's numerous friends and correspondents are of the greatest service in putting the reader en rapport with his environment; the illustrations are mostly new, and the whole work of editing is admir- ably done. Naturally, the volume is richer in biographical than in critical interest. Concerning the moods, the motives, the impulses and surroundings that influ- enced the production of special poems, Shelley has little to say in these letters. But Mary Shelley's Notes to the early editions of the poems have made these as well known as any such matter can ever be made known to an outsider. What we do get, and are heartily glad to get, is considerable light upon two fundamental principles that perpetually chal- lenge discussion in the career of Shelley. To enter fully into his attitude of mind on these two points is absolutely necessary if anyone is to justify or even endure his course of conduct as a man, however he may be esteemed as a poet. These principles were: (1) Opinion should be absolutely free; therefore no man should be arraigned by his fellow-men for any opinion. (2) Resolutely and consistently to act according to his own opinion is the duty of every man, and is the way in which he can best serve his fellow-men. To read the group of letters written by Shelley to his publisher and to other friends in the last month of the year 1817, when a young man of twenty-five, unknown to fame and seeking to get a poem of twelve cantos into print, is to realize the stuff of which he was made. "Laon and Cy thna "— so the poem was called — so far outran the bounds of discretion in its utterances, moral, political, and theological, as to terrify the publisher and cause him to threaten to withdraw it after only three copies had been printed. Although he had no hope of another publisher, Shelley for a long time refused to alter a line of the poem. His eloquent letter of protest against the intended injustice of suppressing the book after it had been printed, brought the pub- lisher down to Marlow; a personal conference resulted in the cancelling of some pages, the altering of others, and the final publication of the poem as "The Revolt of Islam." The transaction is brought into high relief by placing the vigorous letters written at this period to different persons side by side, as well as by the addition of one entirely new letter. Thomas Moore had written kindly and encourag- ingly to the young author, and this was his reply: "The present edition of ' Laon and Cythna' is to be sup- pressed, and it will be republished in about a fortnight under the title of 'The Revolt of Islam,' with some alterations which consist in little else than the substitution of the words friend and lover for that of brother and sister. The truth is that the seclusion of my habits has confined me so much within the circle of my own thoughts that I have formed to myself a very different measure of approbation or disapprobation for actions than that which is in use among mankind; and the result of that peculiarity, contrary to my intention, re- volts and shocks many who might be inclined to sympathize with me in my general views. As soon as I discovered that this effect was produced by the circumstance alluded to, I hastened to cancel it — not from any personal feeling of terror or repentance, but from the sincere desire of doing all the good and conferring all the pleasure which might flow from so obscure a person as myself. I don't know whyt I trouble you with these words, but your kind approbation of the opening of the Poem has emboldened me to believe that the account of my motives might interest you." Five years earlier than this, Shelley, at the age of twenty, wrote thus to an unknown correspondent: "No human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as what is part of a ma- chine, intended only to contribute to some general joint re- sult. He was created not to be merged in the whole as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the sea-shore, and to aid only in comprising a man. He is an ultimate be- ing, made for his own perfection as his highest end, made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only so far as consists with his own virtue and progress. . . . Noth- ing seems to me so needful as to give the mind the conscious- ness — which governments have done so much to suppress — of its own separate work. Let the individual feel that he is placed in the community not to part with his individual- ity, or to become a tool. To me, the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quick- ening him to strengthen and elevate his mind. "No man, I affirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effect- ually, so fervently, as he who is not their slave, — as he who, casting off every yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disinterested and generous spirit. Individuality, or moral self-subsistence, is the secret foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the State and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it not so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an indi- vidual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the State. But his soul he must never stain or enslave." On the great crux of Shelley biography — his elopement with Mary Godwin while still in appar- ently friendly relations with his wife Harriet—more opportunities than ever before in one place are offered for individual judgment. Harriet's letters to Mrs. Nugent, soon after the event, are collected in an Appendix; and we know her view of the case as well as his. It becomes, indeed, far less easy to justify Shelley, or to endorse Dowden's opinion: "It is evident that in May, 1814 (the elopement took place in the July following), Harriet had assumed an attitude of hard alienation towards her husband who pleaded with almost despairing hope for the restoration of her love." It is true that Shelley left home and went to London about this time; yet it looks like anything but" hard alienation " when we find that there was a continual correspondence kept up,—that on one occasion, four days having elapsed without a letter from Shelley, Harriet wrote an appealing letter to his publisher, saying, "It seems an age since I heard from him. ... If I do not hear from you or from him I shall come to London. I cannot endure this dreadful state of suspense." 1910.] 17 THE DIAL That she never intended to alienate herself from Shelley is plain from her pathetic account to Mrs. Nugent, and the desperate eagerness with which she seeks to shield Shelley by placing the blame elsewhere. "Mr. Shelley has become profligate and sensual, owing entirely to Godwin's ' Political Justioe.' The very great evil that book has done is not to be told. . . . He cares not for me now. He never asks after me, or sends me word how he is going on. . . . Oh! if you knew what I have suffered, your heart would drop blood for my miseries." With as much of the evidence before us as we are ever likely to have on the " Harriet question," it seems high time to banish at least one cruel injustice. Many of Shelley's biographers have placed the blame of separation on Harriet's unfaithfulness. The evi- dence of this vanishes into less than nothing, since it comes from prejudiced parties; and there is a good deal in disproof. Shelley's only justification, if justi- fication there be, must be found in his views of mar- riage, as expressed in "Queen Mab" and often in his letters. Very early he had become a disciple of Godwin, and had accepted entirely Godwin's belief that "The institution of marriage is a system of fraud. . . . Marriage is a law, and the worst of laws." Shelley greatly desired the union of his friend Hogg with his beloved sister Elizabeth; yet he wrote to Hogg: "Matrimony, I know, is a word dear to you; does it vibrate in unison with the hidden strings of rapture — awaken divine anticipation? Is it not the most horrible of all the means which the world has had recourse to, to bind the noble to itself? Yet this is the subject of her constant and printed panegyric. It is in vain that I seek to talk to her [Elizabeth]. It is in vain that I represent, or rather endeavor to represent, the futility of the world's opinion." The last words explain much of Shelley, and of his conduct, which at least was founded upon conviction. The "futility of the world's opinion" carried no restraint with him; if he loved another person more, marriage was no reason^for remaining with one less loved. In general it may be said of these letters that they do not materially alter our impressions of Shelley's character. The qualities of decision, promptness of resource and action, of generosity, of self-forgetful interest in others, general kindliness, and courtesy, come out with increased force. A new light seems thrown upon him in the capacity of a business man. We see him negotiating, transacting, advising, con- trolling, treating the business of life in a business- like way, though not blind to the fact that he was unconscionably "worked" by the insatiable Godwin. In one of the last letters he ever wrote, he said: "I have been long firmly persuaded that all the money advanced to Godwin, so long as he stands engaged in business, is absolutely thrown away." Shelley's religion, or absence of religion, has been so often discussed, his belief in immortality has been so often denied, that we cannot refrain from quoting one very explicit statement in a letter dated 1811: "Shall we sink into the nothing from which we have arisen? But could we have arisen from nothing? We put an acorn into the ground. In process of time it modifies the particles of earth, air, and water, by infinitesimal division, bo as to pro- duce an oak. That power which makes it to be this oak we may call its vegetative principle, symbolizing with the animal principle, or soul of animated existence. An hundred years pass. The oak moulders in putrefaction — it ceases to be what it is; its soul is gone. Is soul then annihilable? Yet one of the properties of animal soul is consciousness of iden- tity. If this is destroyed, in consequence the soul (whose essence this is) must perish. But as I conceive (and as is certainly capable of demonstration) that nothing can be an- nihilated, but that everything appertaining to nature, con- sisting of constituent parts infinitely divisible, is in a con- tinual change, then do I suppose — and I think I have a right to draw this inference — that neither will soul perish; that in a future existence it will lose all consciousness of having formerly lived elsewhere, — will begin life anew, possibly under a shape of which we have now no idea. But we have no right to make hypotheses — this is not one; at least I flatter myself that I have kept clear of the supposition." Anna Benneson McMahan. Recent Fiction.* Ann Veronica is a young woman who chafes un- der the conditions which life would impose upon her. She lives in a suburb with her father, a prosperous man of affairs in the City, and a maiden aunt who cherishes sentimental memories. There are brothers and sisters, but they are married or otherwise away, and do not count Ann Veronica studies biology in a London school, and her father shakes his head at the presumably godless character of her instruction. She also gets unconventional ideas from a little group of art students with whom she mingles. She is a rest- less girl, who is ambitious to "live her own life," and is refreshingly free of speech. "Damn!" "Oh, cuss it!" and " That's the devil of it," may be offered as selected quotations. No wonder her lover remarks, " You do use vile language " — not reprov- ingly, but as a statement of objective fact. But this is anticipatory; for when we meet her, she has no lover, although she yearns for one. A domestic crisis is reached when her father forbids her to go to a costume ball given by her art student friends. She plans to go just the same, if for nothing more than to assert her rights as an individual; but is caught escaping from the house, and ignominiously locked up in her room. This is "tu mutch," and she flees •Ann Veronica. A Modern Love-Story. By H. G. Wells. New York: Harper & Brothers. The Faith of His Fathers. A Story of Some Idealists. By A. E. Jacomb. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Bella Donna. A Novel. By Robert Hichens. Phila- delphia: The J. B. Lippincott Co. Bronson of the Rabble. By Albert E. Hancock. Philadelphia: The J. B. Lippincott Co. My Lady of the South. A Story of the Civil War. By Randall Parrish. Chicago: A. C. McClurg A Co. The Moving of the Waters. A Novel. By Jay Cady. New York: The John McBride Co. The Treasube. By Paul W. Eiton. New York: R. R. Fenno & Co. Through the Wall. By Cleveland Moffett. New York: D. Appleton & Co. The Silver Horde. A Novel. By Rex Beach. New York: Harper & Brothers. 18 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL to London in outraged dignity. Taking cheap lodg- ings, 8he sets about "living her own life" in fact, and discovers it to be a difficult matter. Her ser- vices do not seem to be greatly desired, and she fin- ally borrows forty pounds from an elderly stock- broker with bulging eyes who professes solicitude for her welfare. He naturally expects payment after the fashion of his kind; and this episode leads to a scene in a cabinet particulier which is — well, we hesitate to say what it is, beyond expressing the opinion that it goes beyond what is legitimate in decent fiction. With the borrowed money, Ann Veronica pays her fees in the laboratory, and per- sues her studies under the direction of a young biolo- giat named Capes, who has a wife and a shady past. She concludes that she is in love with him, and, nothing abashed, tells him so. He makes difficulties, still having some sparks of decency in his nature; but she is determined, and off they go to Switzer- land. Meanwhile, Ann Veronica's experience with the stockbroker has aroused an indignation that must find vent somehow, and the thing nearest at hand for Ann Veronica is to beceme a suffragette, which she does so successfully that she is soon enjoy- ing a fortnight of enforced seclusion from the world. Then comes the Swiss escapade with its delirious joys. And finally, skipping several years, we are given an epilogue showing the couple living happily together as Mr. and Mrs. Capes. We infer from this that the former Mrs. Capes has made some sort of an end, although the author delicately refrains from mentioning the fact. Capes, who has deserted biology, is now a prosperous dramatist. Meeting his father-in-law one day, he introduces himself and invites him to dinner. The affair goes off very well, and when their guest has departed, Ann Veronica says to her husband: "To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from everything we have done, He was the social order; he was law and wisdom. And they come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good; and they are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we can dare to have children." The modern young woman is a restless creature, no doubt, and Mr. Wells knows some things about her. But if we thought him serious in offering this par- ticular specimen for our approval, we should straight- way, in preference, declare for the young women of Jane Austen's world. They at least recognized something higher than the law of individual impulse. But we cannot take Mr. Wells very seriously, or find much more than good fun in his account of Ann Veronica. We should have to call this his latest story one of the most immoral, if it were not obvi- ously one of the larkiest, of books. An instructive contrast to Mr. Wells's audacity of invention is provided by Mr. A. E. Jacomb's "The Faith of His Fathers," which is also a story of revolt, — a plea for the claims of the new generation against the crusted prejudices of the old, — but is conceived in a spirit of sympathy and reverence, not one of scorn and recklessness. The revolt which it portrays is a reaction against the drab puritanism which frowns upon all pleasure as sinful, which holds in dark suspicion every natural motion of the human spirit toward light and cheer. It is a novel of pro- vincial England, dated, we should say, some time ago, although survivals of the austere and dogmatic idealism which supplies its motive may possibly yet be found in out-of-the-way communities. Here is a father, a leader of some such narrow sect as the Ply- mouth Brethren, unswervingly conscientious in his own light, who well-nigh ruins the lives of his chil- dren by the sternness of his discipline. The son, forced to marry the girl whom he has seduced, drags out a wretched life which ends in crime and a prison sentence. The daughter, forbidden to marry the man she loves because he does not accept the tenets of the sect, is made miserable by the interposition of this unreal obstacle in the path of her happiness, and asserts her rights as an individual only at the cost of family estrangement . Even the long-suffering wife gives way in the end, and, after a lifetime of self- repression, turns upon her husband, saying, " I hate you! I hate you and your religion!" But we, seeing with more objective eyes the man who has wrought all this calamity, cannot withhold a consider- able measure of sympathy from one who is so sincere, even if so intellectually at fault. He stands unshaken, a sort of minor replica of Ibsen's "Brand," as the moral avalanche for which he is responsible descends upon him, and his uncompromising fortitude makes of him the one heroic figure of the narrative. Throughout this conflict of ideals there is always recognized the principle, of which we can find no evidence in the conflict of "Ann Veronica," that the controlling force in every soberly-ordered life must be something more deserving of respect than the individual will, something that bears a higher mandate than even the most passionate desire for personal happiness. The man who forsakes "the faith of his fathers " is bound to see to it that the substitute he provides is no less morally effective, and is something more than a mere cloak for self- indulgence. The atmosphere of Egyptian life is reproduced for us with quite extraordinary effect by Mr. Robert Hichens in his latest novel. In this respect, a com- parison with Mr. Hall Caine's efforts, or even with those of Sir Gilbert Parker, is so far in favor of the author of " Bella Donna " as to make such books as "The White Prophet" and "The Weavers" seem garish and tawdry. But we can hardly call it a pleasant tale for which Mr. Hichens has provided so wonderful a setting. A woman whose past is more than dubious, but who has the power to affect injured innocence, is looking about London society for a new victim, and finds him in the person of an idealist of quixotic temperament, whose chivalrous instincts are so aroused by the slanders heaped upon her that he asks her to become his wife. This is precisely her game; for her affairs are desperate, 1910.] 19 THE DIAL and he is, besides, an excellent parti, being the pro- spective heir to a title and estates. It so happens that his work is in Egypt — a work of agricultural reclamation — and thither he takes his bride. His friends, meanwhile, are aghast at the way in which he has been duped, and one of them, a keen-sighted physician, determines to keep his eyes open. The scene now shifts to Egypt, where the discomforts of existence makes it hard for the wife to keep up the de- ception of even so credulous a person as her husband. When his prospects of a title vanish, she becomes reckless and throws herself into the arms of a native potentate, whose sensual nature matches her own, and who is the possessor of great wealth. Keeping up the pretence of wifely devotion, she not only betrays her husband, but sets about getting rid of him by means of poison, slowly and subtly admin- istered. His robust health breaks down under the treatment, and he is almost at the point of death when the physician friend (whose suspicions have become aroused), journeys post-haste from the Thames to the Nile, takes a hand in the plot, rescues the man, and opens his eyes to the doings of the would-be murderess. Finally, poetic justice is sat- isfied when the latter flies to her Egyptian lover, only to be spurned by him as a cast-off toy. It is not, as we said before, a pleasant story; but it is one of vivid description and characterization, and of marked power to hold the interest. Mr. Albert E. Hancock is the author of " Bronson of the Rabble," a historical novel of early American life, covering the period from the War of 1812 to the first election of President Jackson. The hero is a youth of the people — "the rabble," as it is contemptuously styled in the circles of wealth and breeding — who distinguishes himself in the Battle of Lake Erie, and afterwards becomes a political leader and newspaper editor in Philadelphia. His story, although not devoid of the private and senti- mental interest which readers have a right to expect, is essentially a portrayal of American life in its formative stage, in the period which witnessed the emergence of democracy from a society that had been mainly controlled by aristocratic ideals and influences. The author is almost fiercely partisan in championship of the new spirit then making itself felt, and takes a whack at the Federalists upon every possible occasion. He has only words of praise for the war in which America took the part of the arch- enemy of liberty, and only scorn for the movement which led to the Hartford Convention. He carries contempt for John Quincy Adams to an extreme, and accepts the legend of the "corrupt bargain" whereby Jackson was defeated in 1824. The triumph of democracy four years later is the climax of the novel. While we think Mr. Hancock's view unfairly colored by prejudice, we cannot deny the vigor and interest of his work, or the unusual char- acter of his historical and antiquarian equipment. His book is fairly comparable with the works of his fellow-townsman, Dr. Weir Mitchell, for knowledge and sound literary workmanship. "My Lady of the South," by Mr. Randall Parrish, provides a sort of complement to "My Lady of the North," by the same novelist. Hero and heroine are merely reversed in their sympathies, and other- wise the stock situation is the same. It is a situa- tion of perennial interest to American readers, and in the hands of as capable an entertainer as Mr. Parrish it requires no apology for another treatment. The present story is compactly knit, and the entire action covers only a few days, all spent in and around an old Kentucky home. The heroine is about to be forced into a distasteful marriage, when the hero appears, and, under cover of darkness, passes himself off as the bridegroom, contracting a midnight mar- riage. The obvious difficulties of this situation are ingeniously met, and we are prepared for the 6clair- cissement and the softening of the young woman's rebel heart. Days of excitement follow, for the house becomes a scene of raids and forays, of excur- sions and alarms, during which both hero and heroine exchange several times the characters of captor and captive. There are secret tunnels in which mysterious murders take place, and there is a concealed family maniac to account for these deeds of blood. There is also a feud, of which the dramatic possibilities are exploited to exciting effect. The story is as good as the best that the author has ever given us. The simple and appealing tale of a baby found- ling, whose parentage is at last happily discovered, is told by Mr. Jay Cady in "The Moving of the Waters." It is a tale of the Mississippi, and the child grows up in the rude house-boat of a wooden- legged fisherman. One day she flags a train that is rushing to distruction, and thereby becomes a heroine in the literal sense. This brings her into notice, and sets in action the machinery whereby her secret is disclosed. It also provides a suitable hero in the person of the young physician who looks after her when she is injured in her life-saving adventure. The scene then shifts to St. Louis, where the threads of the mystery are gradually untangled. There are several quaint and lovable characters, besides those already mentioned, and the whole story is delicate in feeling and charming in sentiment. Tales of treasure-hunting have a perennial charm. The tale called " The Treasure," which Mr. Paul W. Eaton has provided for our delectable excitement, is concerned with no less a booty than the pirate hoard of Captain Kidd, which was buried by the redoubtable buccaneer upon one of the islands in Casco Bay. The inevitable manuscript provides a clue to the hiding-place, but there is a rival claimant in the person of one of Kidd's descendants, who has allied himself with an Englishman, a pirate himself, but posing as a British privateersman in the War of 1812. Thus history is interwoven with romance, and we are regaled, among other matters, with an account of the burning of Washington by the British in 1814. It is a fairly well-written yarn, which brings the villain to a suitable end, and the heroine to her lover's arms. But the treasure, to our regret, goes to the bottom of the Atlantic. 20 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL If anything is equal to a good story about pirates and buried treasure, it is a good detective story; and Mr. Cleveland Moffett has written one of the best that have come to us in recent years. It is a Parisian tale, much after the manner of Gaboriau, and deals with the unmasking of an arch-villain of wealth so enormous that he is able to control the very mach- inery of justice, and thwart the detective-hero at every turn. He knows that Paul Coquenil is the only man whom he has to iear, and attempts, by flattering offers from South America, to secure his removal from the scene. But Paul refuses the bait, after nibbling at it, and remains in Paris, to the dis- comfiture of the criminal, after the wits of the two have been pitted against each other in a long game of check and countercheck. "Through the Wall" is the title of this exciting and absorbing tale. "The Silver Horde" which supplies the motive of Mr. Rex Beach's latest Alaskan story, is a pic- turesque designation of the salmon that congest the northern rivers at a certain season of the year. The hero, who has been down and out for some time, finds new opportunity beckoning to him in the shape of a cannery, and proeeeds to organize a company and lay plans for the acquisition of the fortune that shall win for him the love of the girl to whose service he has long been devoted. She is the daughter of a Chicago magnate who at just this time is organiz- ing a trust to control all the salmon fisheries of the Pacific Coast. This brings the hero and his pro- spective father-in-law into violent collision, and the warfare that follows makes up the substance of the story. The hero is successful, of course, after over- coming exaggerated and incredible obstacles, but in the progress of these events his affections are trans- ferred to a young woman of somewhat dubious past, whom he meets in Alaska, and whose loyal support and self-sacrifice are the most important factors in his triumph. The story is highly-colored melo- drama, violent in action, and with little claim to serious consideration. It presents certain phases of the rough Alaskan life with vivid forcefulness, but of the finer graces of Active art it is wholly innocent. William Morton Payne. Briefs on Hew Books. A quiet man's book for quiet people fj£t!°pZple. aPPearS fr0m Mr" E- M- Martin'S pen under the pleasantly alliterative title, "Wayside Wisdom" (Longmans). Availing himself of the intimate essayist's privilege, the author speaks throughout in the first person singular, and reveals himself with some distinctness to the reader in the end. He appears to us as a book-loving book- seller, printing in the back of his house the volumes he sells in the front, — a disciple of William Morris, one conjectures, and making a fine art out of what would else be a trade. But there is little of book- ishness in his chapters, which deal with such matters as old superstitions, rural life, the advantages of poverty, the smoke of cities, travelling, being in love, the vanity of learning, living alone, growing old, death, and a few others. The chapter on "Some Old Superstitions" makes the oldest of these to be the superstitions of sound. One would have said the visible ghost, the apparition, was older than " the calling voices." But who knows? In connection with solitary living, the author quotes from an un- named source: "Silent men are kings, for they rule over a great country where none can follow them." But the assertion that follows, a little later, that " it is a law of our being that we live alone," must refer to spiritual solitude, not physical. The very first essay, on "Wayside Wisdom," quotes the contempt- uous definition of proverbs (" milestones on the pathway of fools") only to dissent from it, very properly. The writer's style is agreeable and fluent. On the opening page stands a little example of per- versity that is often met with in current literature. Why will writers use " still less " for "still more," and vice versa? Here is the sentence: "There is a grace, even a virtue, in doing nothing; but so un- accustomed are we to its practice, still less its praise, that at first this very old truth sounds like some new thing." Six of the essays have already appeared in "The Gentleman's Magazine" (one of the six being rewritten for the book), and the remaining eleven are new. Pepys's Diary will always be the best in lighti commentary on its author; whatever others say can be based only on that most fascinating of self-revealing documents. So when Mr. E. Hallam Moorehouse writes on "Samuel Pepys, Administrator, Observer, Gossip" (Dutton), he puts before us when he can the Pepys of the Diary, and when he cannot he has to be content with the formal documents consciously prepared for pub- lication. The book aims to give the domestic and historical setting in which Pepys's activity was placed, and in this it forms a useful commentary on the Diary. It does not take its place — no work could do that — but it forms a very good introduc- tion; it enables one unfamiliar with the events and persons of the time to read the work itself with greater intelligence. The author has caught Pepys's spirit admirably; in fact, in his zeal as Pepys's de- fender he seems to exaggerate the unfavorable criti- cism on the poor sinner, as if we were all Puritans and there were to be no more cakes and ale. The charming naivete" of the man goes far to atone for his embracing Deb Willet; and surely his repent- ance should cause him to find favor in the sight of the most proper individual, when he could as a light affliction endure Will Hewer, his wife's authorized detective, who "goes up and down with me like a jaylour, but yet with great love and to my good liking it being my desire above all things to please my wife therein." Mr. Moorehouse brings out in a very favorable and just light Pepys's fine admin- istrative ability, his splendid showing before the 1910.] 21 THE DIAL House of Commons, his remarkably effective work as Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty in conducting the affairs of the navy, drawing for this upon the Diary and official documents. And there is, too, the Pepys of the Bibliotheca Pepysiana, that graces and enriches Magdalen College, Cam- bridge. But above all is the inimitable gossip, who prattles about all sorts of persons, from the servant whom he was seen to kick, to his chief whom he righteously reproves and his king of whom he sin- cerely disapproves; he is introduced to us here that we may go to the Diary to know him as we can know few men, as we hardly dare know ourselves. The white man>, That"the ™hiUs man'8 burden "galls, burden, and its is often evident The willingness to galling curse, assume it has never been more nota- bly shown than by Britain. The needs of British trade lie in the direction of the policy of burden- assumption. Exploitation and elevation — at least in theory— go hand in hand; and wherever we find the white man taking up his burden and working the lower races for his profit and their welfare, we also find chafing and sores. Just now, South Africa pre- sents serious problems. What is to be done with the native? How is he to be worked? How is he to be protected? How can he be worked and still protected? To such problems the work on "South African Natives" (Dutton) is devoted. In South Africa are tribes so badly needing elevation that for their uplift Britain has taken possession. True, the land offered agricultural opportunity, and mines of gold and dia- monds. In assuming the burden, and incidentally getting the land and mines, there has been injustice to the natives; there always is. And hence there is the South African Races Committee, composed of estimable gentlemen who have some conscience. They acquiesce in the necessity of burden-bearing, but desire to reduce the native suffering and the overlord's injustice to a minimum. Their Report discusses such topics as The Labor Question, Land Tenure, Taxation, Administration, Legal Status, Education, The Ethiopian Movement The need of a watchful committee is amply demonstrated by the facts presented and the discussion of them. Within a few decades the Bantu native, well adapted to and fairly utilizing his environmental resources, has been dispossessed. He can no longer gain a living in his own natural and simple fashion; he must be so man- aged and manipulated as to supply a continuous and usable labor force for mine and farm; where his fathers were owners, he may no longer hold land, or only under strange and new restraints; he is subject to heavy taxation, often amounting to coercion to labor for the benefit of aliens — for his own eleva- tion, of course; his legal status is uncertain, often disadvantageous; his education but qualifies him the better to serve his overlords. These and many other interesting facts emerge from the careful reading of this Report, which on the whole is optimistic regard- ing the future. Not the least interesting chapter deals with "The Ethiopian Movement." In the native churches, in the section of population most tolerant of and affected by ameliorative influences, signs of revolt appear. Even the Christian natives are becoming restless, and prefer to elevate them- selves rather than to be further elevated. Probably the political significance of the "movement" has been exaggerated (as is here claimed); but it is an interesting symptom, encouraging and wholesome, though not reassuring to the burden-bearing white man. Chapters of "^be trading-post established by the New York's Dutch on the island of Manhattan, early history. at tne mouth of the Hudson River, in 1610-13, presented to the student some interest- ing phases of colonial history in the seventeenth cen- tury, and before the settlement began to give any sign or promise of ever becoming one of the world's great cities. Not until 1633 was it regarded as of sufficient importance to receive the name of New Amsterdam. Twenty years later it acquired a form of municipal government from Governor Stuy vesant, who in 1664 surrendered the city to Governor Nicolls of New England; and its name was changed to New York. In 1673 the city was recaptured by the Dutch as an incident of the war between France and England and Holland, and its name was again changed, this time to New Orange. It was restored to England by the Treaty of Westminster the fol- lowing year, and resumed its former name of New York. It received, in 1686, the famous Dongan Charter, which was the basis of a plan of govern- ment for the great city which it has since become. Within a few years, and before the close of the seventeenth century, at the time of the accession of William and Mary, it was the scene of an effort to establish popular government, led by Jacob Leisler, which resulted in the execution of Leisler and one of his supporters on the charge of high treason. Such, in outline, are the materials for Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer's "History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century" (Macmillan), a work in two volumes, aggregating nearly twelve hundred pages, and illustrated by two frontispiece maps. The volumes treat of "New Amsterdam" and " New York under the Stuarts " respectively. The author's thoroughness is attested by the long list of authorities consulted, at the end of each chapter; some of them original documents or rare books to be found only in the New York Society Library, to which library she pays a high tribute. The author has, however, presented no complete bibliography of the history of New York in these lists, having excluded some well- known books because of their inaccuracy of state- ment and their tendency to mislead the serious student. Under this rule, Irving's Knickerbocker History" is excluded, because, although written as a jest, it has been accepted as a history of a period with which no historian had yet familiarized the public; and it has served to give an erroneous bias even to serious historians in later times. It is the effort to correct this that has apparently given to 22 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL Mrs. Van Rensselaer the zest with which she writes her account of New Amsterdam and its people. And her account of the Dutch suffers not at all in inter- est by comparison with Irving's because written in more serious style. Mrs. Van Rensselaer believes Leisler, about whom students of history have quar- relled more than about any other colonial character, and upon whose career her second volume chiefly centres, to have been neither villain nor martyr, but a patriot born under a hapless star; and she notes, as one of the effects of the Leislerian episode, the rise of parties which gradually found wider range of interest than merely local ones, and eventually became the Patriots and Tories of Revolutionary times. Mrs. Van Rensselaer's work is well done, and her volumes are valuable contributions to our historical literature. All who read them will look forward with interest to the two additional volumes which will carry the story of the city's growth through the later Colonial and Revolutionary periods down to the year when New York was the capital of the nation and witnessed the inauguration of the first President of the United States. Somepopuiar Mr- Garret* P. Serviss, who is known astronomy for as one of the most prolific of writers the curious. 0f poplar books on astronomical themes, has until recently devoted himself chiefly to exploiting the wonders of the sky as revealed by small telescopes, striving to make his readers better acquainted with the constellations and the chief objects of interest in them. But his latest book, "Curiosities of the Sky" (Harper), has a widely different trend, being a popular discussion of various interesting matters on which astronomical research has recently thrown light. The book consists of four- teen separate essays of about twenty pages each. The first half-dozen of these are upon the distant realms which are tenanted by the fixed stars and nebulae. The mysteries of the Milky Way, the migra- tions of the stars — which will eventually lead to the dismemberment of the constellations—the flam- ing forth of new stars, and the new views of the nebulas which are brought out by the triumphs of modern photography, are all discussed in entertain- ing fashion. The remaining eight essays are devoted to topics connected with the solar system. Those on which modern developments in the science of physics have thrown especial light, such as the sun's corona, the zodiacal light, and auroras, receive es- pecial attention. Mars, the moon, and the asteroids, are also treated in a fashion as unhackneyed as one can reasonably expect. The illustrations include thirty-six full-page plates, most of which are of unusual excellence. A volume that has passed through thirty editions in fifteen years, on so apparently trite a subject as the Edu- cation of the Will, must certainly have found the secret of a popular appeal. This and more may be said of Dr. Jules Payot's volume which has just ap- "Man is man, and master of his fate." peared in English form (Funk & Wagnalls). Though not so aptly suited to the needs of English readers, yet the common human nature to which the book appeals, and the admirably direct and fresh attack of the subject, will justify many an edition in En- glish. The book is fortunately free from the hack- neyed academic treatment of problems apart from their concrete setting, and equally from the undue simplification which solves all the loose knots but leaves the tight ones as badly tangled as ever. The text of the discourse remains the same: the inherent laziness of the human kind, the necessity of vitalizing ideas with true and clean motives, and the absolutely frank, almost confessional, attitude which self- examination requires. In setting forth the elemental place of action in the human life, M. Payot is not quite as brilliant as Professor James, but his task is differently conceived and no less practically exe- cuted. Such chapter headings as " Day-dreams and Sensuality" and "Sophisms of the Indolent," and the influences of the " Departed Great," suggest the trend of the book; while the pertinent use of every- day examples and of helpful analogy further drives home the moral which even a tale unadorned might forcibly point. Those who are looking for such aids and inspiration as a plain book may give to plain people will find few writings more to their taste and need than this acceptable volume. Its appeal is not alone to teachers and those who have to do with training, but likewise to the larger mass who aspire to be in some measure masters of their fate. Davis', travels In 1803 was Published in in America London an octavo volume bearing acenturvauo. the title, u Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America; During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802." One John Davis, possibly descended from the celebrated navi- gator of that name (for this John had followed the sea from his twelfth year), was the author, and he dedicated his work, by permission, to President Jefferson. This interesting and little-known book is now republished by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., with an introduction and footnotes by Mr. A. J. Morrison. A peculiar interest attaches to this work because its author was a self-educated man of letters, awake to the literary promise of our country and on the alert for literary material for his own use. He speaks of having with him on shipboard a library of nearly three hundred volumes, and adds: "The Muses, whom I never ceased to woo, blessed me, I thought, not infrequently, with their nightly visita- tions; and I soothed my mind to tranquillity with the fancied harmony of my verse." Landing at New York after a ten weeks' voyage in "a Snow of two hundred tons," the traveller soon proceeded southward, to Philadelphia and beyond, walking most of the way, and supporting himself by writing and tutoring. He is pleasantly free from the super- cilious and censorious spirit of certain other early visitors to the United States, and his observations, 1910.] 23 THE DIAL though betraying no remarkable acumen or pro- fundity, are genuine and refreshing. Now and then, too, he favors his readers with a set of verses inspired by the new scenes. On the whole, it is a most agreeable book. To interpret the primitive and seem- „?e'S. ingly contradictory wants and aspira- tions of young people of industrial centres, to discover the soul of goodness in things evil, to summon the ambitions of generous youth to the service of universal justice, is the task which Miss Jane Addams has set herself in her latest book, "The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets" (Mac- millan). The spectacle of thwarted hope, of muti- lated affections, of perverted souls, lends these pages of Miss Addams's a touch of sadness. There may be more enthusiasm for justice outside the circles of Halsted Street immigrants than she discovers; but we cannot blame her for reporting what she sees. We might ask rather more precise and concrete advice as to the actual methods we ought to use, those with which the daily struggles of the author make her so familiar; but one must be adamant who does not, after reading this little book, search his own conscience, and, what is better, go forth in quest of adventures on behalf of the oppressed and the spiritually starved. BRIEFER MENTION. Useful Fiction catalogues, marking the initial step in carrying out the A. L. A. plan of making cooperatively printed catalogues, as outlined before the Minnetenka meeting of the Association, have been published by the H. W. Wilson Co., of Minneapolis. A list of about 2000 titles is printed, with both author and title entries, and frequent brief annotations, in a pamphlet of 147 pages, while shorter lists, of 1200 and 800 titles, are also issued. It is the publishers' design "to furnish to librarians and library patrons a near-at-hand substitute for the heavily alphabeted card catalog. From it small libraries may check their Action titles, and have their catalogs, any number necessary, made up from slugs kept at head- quarters." Good authorities have been consulted in the compilation of these lists, and they are inexpensive as well as serviceable. The multiplication of books of selected readings, com- piled to provide material for the study of important subjects at their sources, is one of the most character- istic of educational publishing activities at the present time. History and literature having been fairly well covered by books of this sort, the movement is now being extended into the domains of social and political science, and now, by Dr. Benjamin Rand, into those of ethics and philosophy. For Dr. Rand's "Modern Classical Philosophers," published not long ago, a companion volume of " The Classical Moralists" is now provided. It is a large volume of eight hundred pages, represent- ing all the great ethical thinkers of ancient and modern times, and amounts practically to a history of the sub- ject in the very words of those who have created it. Such works as this are of very great usefulness, and the present example is one of the best of its kind. An edition of TegneVs "Frithiof s Saga," edited by Professor George T. Flom, is published by the Engberg- Holmberg Publishing Co., Chicago. The work is pri- marily a gift-book, reproducing a Swedish edition adorned with many attractive illustrations. The editor has fitted it for use as a language-text by furnishing the customary apparatus of introduction, bibliography, and notes. He also reprints TegneVs "Anmarkningar" concerning the poem, as well as several of the author's letters about it. The special feature of this edition is the introduction, which deals with TegneVs literary de- velopment, the sources and genesis of the poem, and the translations into other languages. This bibliography of the translations is very valuable, and it must have cost the editor much labor to collect the facts. Notes. We welcome another good source-book for the use of teachers of history. This time it is " A Source History of the United States,'' prepared by Professors H. W. Caldwell and C. E. Persinger, and published by Messrs. Ainsworth & Co. It is a book for high schools, and the extracts given are boiled down to their essentials by omission of all but the most significant passages. The latest addition to the "Musician's Library " of the Oliver Ditson Co. is a volume of " Songs from the Operas for Alto," edited by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel. Twenty- two composers are represented by twenty-nine songs. There are few really great songs in this collection, for the alto voice does not get the lyrical prizes, but Gluck's "Che Faro " is aloue good to bring up the average. The editor's explanatory notes are helpful and interesting. Dr. Samuel B. Harding's volume of " Select Orations Illustrating American Political History " (Macmillan) offers a valuable aid to both teacher and student. The orations are for the most part abridged or represented by fragments, which makes it possible to give examples from thirty-four men, from Otis and Henry to Carl Schurz and Mr. Booker T. Washington. An essay on "Oratorical Style and Structure," by Professor John M. Clapp, prefaces the selection. "Fifty Songs by Hugo Wolf," edited by Mr. Ernest Newman,forma new volume of the " Musician's Library," published by the Oliver Ditson Co. They are arranged for high voice, and accompanied by the editorial appara- tus customary with the books of this series. Most of the fifty are included within four groups, one Spanish, one Italian, and one each composed for texts by Morike and Goethe. The same publishers send us "Echoes of Naples," being thirty Neapolitan songs edited by Signor Mario Favelli,and avolume of exercises in "Ha sions and Contractions," by Mr. E. R. Kroeger. "The Great English Essayists," edited by Messrs. W. J. and C. W. Dawson, is a new volume in "The Reader's Library," published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers. Nearly half a hundred essays, or parts of essays, are given,grouped under the following six heads: "The Classic Essay," "The Letter Essay," " The Short- Story Essay," "The Biographical and Critical Essay," "Impassioned Prose," and "The Familiar Essay." Each group has an editorial essay by way of introduction. All of which makes a pleasing book of very good read- ing, so put together that its several parts serve to illu- minate one another as well as the general theme of the work as a whole. 24 [Jan. 1, THE DIAL Topics in Leading Periodicals. January. 1910. African Game Trails — IV. Theodora Roosevelt. Seribner. Antwerp's Business Methods. H. T. Sherman. World's Work. Art in the U. S. Ernest Knaufft. Review of Reviewt. Athletics, School, The Reform of. M. K. Gordon. Century. Azeff. Eugene. David Soskice. McClure. Bank Plan, Central. Victor Marametz. No, American Review. Banking, Central. Evolution of. C. A. Con ant. No. Amer. Rev. Banking, Government. W. A. Peffer. North American Review. Belgium's New King. Review of Reviewt. Bird-hunting. Franklin Clarkin. Everybody'!. Boston's New Museum. L. Bullard. World To-day. Breakfast, Degeneration of. Eugene Wood. Everybody'!. Canada. American Builders in. C. M. Keys. World'! Work. Cannon and the Insurgents. H. B. Needham. Everybody'!. Chicago. The New Plan of. Charles W. Eliot. Century. Child Criminals —IV. Ben B. I.indsey. Everybody'!. China's Far West. E. D. Burton. World To-day. Coal in Alaska. Finding. McClure. College Contests of the Future. S. Strunsky. Century. College Diversions. J. J. Stevenson. Popular Science. Comet, Halley's. C. L. Doolittle. Popular Science. Criminal Procedure in U.S. Jas. W. Garner. No. Amer. Review. Darwin Celebration at Cambridge. T. D. A. Cockerell. Pop. Sci. Darwin's Place in Future Biology. W. E. RItter. Pop. Science. "Dawn of a Tomorrow." L.F.Pierce. WorldTo-day. Dead Sea. A Trip on the. E. Huntington. Harper. Deep Waterway Problem. E.J. Ward. World To-day. Detective Stories. J. C. Cummlngs. Bookman. Disease. Transmission of, by Money. A. C. Morrison. Pop. Sci. Dogs and Men. Henry C. Merwin. Atlantic. Editorials. Political. Value of. Edward Porritt. Atlantic. Elizabeth of Austria. Xavier Paoli. McClure. England, The Crisis in. Sydney Brooks. North Amer. Review. European Powers, Balance of. A. R. Colquhoun. No. Am. Rev. Ferrer Trial, The. Perceval Gibbon. McClure. Financial and Banking Reforms. C. N. Fowler. A tlantic. Foot-Ball, Personality In. Walter Camp. Century. Fugger Jacob. Paul van Dyke. Harper. German Tendencies. M. Birnbaum. Bookman. Gilder, B. W. Brander Matthews. North American Review. Gilder, R. W. An Appreciation. Bookman. Gilder, R. W. Poetry of. Hamilton W. Mabie. Bookman. Governors' Messages. Some Recent. World To-day. Health and Business Hurry. L. H. Gulick. World'! Work. Hearn's Japanese Letters. Atlantic. Housekeepers. Elizabeth R. Pen . el 1. A tlantic. House of Lords, The. Sydney Brooks. A tlantic. ndlans. The Vanishing. C. W. Furlong. Harper. Immortality, Argument for. Borden P. Bowne. No. Am. Rev. Insurance. Proper Amounts of. World'! Work. Italian Art. F. J. Mather, Jr. North A merican Review. Ito's Statesmanship. W. Elliot Griffis. North A merican Rev. Japan's Ambition. Arthur B. Knapp. Atlantic. Jews and Jesus. Isador Singer. North American Review. Johnson. Andrew. Recollections of. H. S. Turner. Harper. Johnson, Dr., in Cambria. Jeannette Marks. Atlantic. Jurymen, Some Difficulties of. J. H. Coates. Scribner. Kneisel, Franz, A Talk with, on Music. D. C. Mason. Century. Lake Pleasant, Massachusetts. Bookman. London, Old. Frederic C. Howe. Scribner. Lords and Commons. S. Tonjoroff. World To-day. Mojeska, Helena, Memoirs of—II. Century. Molecules, The Structure of. H. A. Torrey. Harper. Mollere and the Doctors. Brander Matthews. Scribner. Mound Bayou, The Pioneers of. Hiram Tong. Century. Mountain-Climbing on a Wire. I. Dunklee. World To-day. Music as a Social Force. L.B.Jones. World To-day. Music, Modernism in. Redfern Mason. A tlantic. Nelson, N. O., Autobiography — II. World'! Work. New Orleans, The Winter Gardens of. G.W. Cable. Scribner. "New Thought" Literature. F. M. Bjorkman. World'! Work. New York's Water Resources. Review of Review!. Palestine, Tramping in. Harry A. Franck. Century. Pessimism, A Morning with. Grant Showerman. Harper. Pole. North—Can It be Found? H. F. Reid. Popular Science. Police, Failure of. H. C. Weir. World Today. Politics for Woman. R.L.Sutherland. No. A merican Review. Progress. Clifford Howard. Atlantic. Railroads, Western. James J. Hill. World'! Work. Rioe. Arkansas. F. L. Perrin. World To-day. Ridge. Pett, Clever Books of. W. D. Howells. No. A mer. Review. Roosevelt, Binding. E. M. Newman. World Today. Rug, Passing of the Antique. J. K. Mumford. Century. Russia's Finances. F. A. Ogg. Review of Reviewt. Schools, Public. J. M. Rogers. lAppincoU. Simon, Lucien, The Art of. Charles Caffin. Harper. Ships for the Panama Canal. B. N. Bake. No. Amer.Review. Socialism, Monarchical, in Germany. E. Roberts. Scribner. "Squatters," Life among the. A. Irvine. WorUVi Work. Steel, Making of. Ernest Poole. Everybody'!. Style, The Theory of. Walter Libby. Popular Science. Theatre. The New, and its Plays. C. Hamilton. Bookman. Trimmings, Philosophy of. Grant Showerman. Atlantic. Trust Regulation. G. H. Montague. Atlantic. Vedder, Elihu, Reminiscences of. World'! Work. Water-Power Sites. Richard A. Ballinger. Review of Reviewt. Water Powers and the South. H.A.Pressey. Review of Reviewt Waterways Campaign, The. W.F.Saunders. Review of Rev!.' Wilderness. Battle of the—VIII. Morris Schaff. Atlantic. Wiley, Dr., Work of. E. Bjorkman. World"! Work. List of New Books. [The following list, containing 100 titles, includes books received by The Dial, since its last issue.] BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. The Life of Richard Brinaley Sheridan. By Walter Sichel. In 3 volumes, illustrated in photogravure, etc., large 8vo. Houghton Mifflin Co. $7.50 net. George Meredith: Some Early Appreciations. By Maurice Buxton Forman. 12mo, 289 pages. Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50 net. Sir Philip Sidney. By Percy Addleshaw. Illustrated, large 8vo, 381 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50 net. Lord Kelvin's Early Home: Eeing the Recollections of his Sister the Late Mrs. Elizabeth King. Illustrated, 8vo, 345 pages. Macmillan Co. $2.60 net. The Dnke De Oholaenl: The Lothian Essay. 1908. By Roger H. Soltan. 16mo, 176 pages. Oxford: B. H. Blackwell. HISTORY. The Great French Revolution. 1789-1793. By P. A. Kropot- kin; translated by N. F. Dryhurst. Large 8vo, 610 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.25 net. Historical Essays. By James Ford Rhodes. Large 8vo, 335 pages. Macmillan Co. $2.25 net. The Last Tears of the Proteotorate, 1656-1658. By Charles Harding Firth. In 2 volumes, 8vo. Longmans, Green, & Co. $7. net. GENERAL LITERATURE. Masters of the English Novel: A Study of Principles and Personalities. By Richard Burton, 12mo, 857 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $1.25 net. Writing the Short Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing, and Sale of the Modern Short Story. By J. Berg Esenwein. 12mo, 441 pages. Hinds, Noble & Eld- redge. $1.25. The Changing Values of English Speech. By Raley Husted Bell. 12mo, 802 pages. Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. $1.25. The Power of Speeoh and How to Acquire It. By Edwin Gordon Lawrence. 12mo, 250 pages. Hinds, Noble A Eldridge. $1.25. Famous Poems Explained. By Waitman Barbe. 12mo, 287 pages. Hinds, Noble & Eldredge. $1. The Frenoh Prooession: A Pageant of Great Writers. By Madame Mary Duolaux. (A. Mary F. Robinson.) Illus- trated in photogravure. 8vo, 358 pages. Duffleld & Co. $3.50 net. The History of Frenoh Literature, from the Oath of Stras- burg to Chantioler. By Annie Lemp Konta. 8vo, 564 pages. D. Appleton & Co. $2 50 net. Essays on Greek Literature. By Robert Yelverton Tyrrell. 12mo, 202 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.25 net. Greek Lands and Letters. By Francis Green leaf Allinson and Anne C. E. Allinson. Illustrated in color, etc., 8vo, 471 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $2.50 net. The Renasoenoe of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885). By Nahnm Slouscby. 12mo, 307 pages. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. $1.25. The Decameron: Its Sources and Analogues. By A. C. Lee. 8vo, 863 pages. London: David Nutt. 1910.] 25 THE DIAL, FICTION. John Marvel, Assistant. By Thomas Nelson Pace. Illus- trated, llmo, 578 pages. Charles Scribner's Sons. 11.60. Maroon Tales: University of Chicago Stories. By Will J. Cnppj. 12mo, 337 pages. Forbes & Co. $1.25. The Poplars ; or, The Good Results of an Evil Deed. By Francis Asbury Taulman. 12mo. 376 pages. New York: Cochrane Publishing Co. $1.50. Phileas Fox. Attorney. By Anna T. Sadlier. 12mo, 349 pages. Notre Dame, Indiana: The Ave Maria. 11.60. Humphrey Bold: A Story of the Time of Ben bow. By Herbert Strang. Illustrated. 12mo.379 pages. Bobbs-Merrill Co. $1.60. POETRY AND THE DRAMA. Lyrios of Life. By Florence Earle Coatee. l2mo, 118 pages- Houghton Mifflin Co. (1.26 net. Bongs and Sonnets. By Elizabeth Colwell. Limited edition; 12mo. New York: Frederic Fairchild Sherman. $2.50 net. Poems. 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Entered as Second-Class Hatter October 8,1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3,1879. No. 566. JANUARY 16, 1910. Vol. XLVIII. Contexts. PAGE IMAGINATION IN HISTORY 36 CASUAL COMMENT 37 Gladstone the man of letters. — The multiplication of learned societies. — Notable gatherings of Ameri- can scholars — The rooster as a hero of the stage. — A noteworthy exhibition of manuscripts and rare books. — The hand of little employment. — Some curious phases of biblioklepsis. — The book of the year in London. — The censorship of books for Sunday-school libraries. — The original of "The Chambered Nautilus." — An English annotator of Dr. Holmes. COMMUNICATIONS 40 School Board and Superintendent. Duane Mowry. "I Swan!" Albert Matthews. Sectionalism in Learned Societies. H. S. Chapman. A London Literary Haunt. T. Fisher Unwin. A SOUTHERN WOMAN'S REMINISCENCES. W. H. Johnson 42 DANTE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE Melville B. Anderson 43 A VENERABLE AMERICAN PREACHER. Lewis A. Shoades 46 THE GOVERNMENT OF CITIES. Henry li. Spencer 48 RECENT POETRY^ William Morton Payne . ... .50 Meredith's Last Poems. — Sharp's Songs and Poems Old and New. — Lee-Hamilton's Minima Bella. — Watson's New Poems. — Le Gallieime's New Poems. — Noyes's Drake. — Upson's Collected Poems. — Winter's Poems. — Lodge's The Soul's Inheritance. — Van Dyke's The White Bees. — Cawein's The Giant and the Star. — Cawein's New Poems. — Scol- lard's Song for the Ter-Centenary of Lake Cham- plain. — Scollard's Pro Patria. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 55 A philosopher of the unobvious. — The strength and weakness of diplomacy.—The last days of papal Rome. — A consolation to nervous invalids. — A book for the lover of sailing craft. — Literature and adver- tising in " The Spectator." — The peaceful conquest of the Soudan. — Stage settings in the time of Shakespeare.—A sound mind with the aid of a sound body. BRIEFER MENTION 58 NOTES 59 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 60 IMAGINATION IN HISTORY. We were recently assured by the New York "Nation " that philologists are by no means the dull dogs that they are popularly supposed to be, and the assurance was fortified by modern in- stances in convincing exposition. The psycholo- gists also, under the leadership of Professor J ames and Professor Miinsterberg, are growing posi- tively genial; and the sociologists, if we may in- clude amongthem such writers as Mr. H. G. Wells and Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, are becoming fairly coruscating in their brilliancy. Even the dismal science now and then reckons among its adepts a scholar whose irrepressible vitality relieves it from the old-time reproach, and shows it to be really human in its implications. Just now it is the turn of history, — if we may indulge in the method of generalization from a single ex- ample, and base our proposition upon the ad- dress of President Hart before the American Historical Association at its meeting held during holiday'week. The subject of Professor Hart's address was "Imagination in History," and it makes the liveliest sort of reading. The dry- aadusts may have worked their will upon other sessions of the meeting, but this one was given over to wisdom tempered with wit, and to his- torical scholarship garbed in the grace of literary expression. Mr. Hart pays his respects to many kinds of imaginative historians — the plain liars, the myth-makers, the hero-worshippers, the senti- mentalists, the writers of metaphyical leanings, the literary artists who are constitutionally incapable of accuracy, the historians who are determined to be picturesque and dramatic at all costs. Of deliberate historical fabrications he gives some of the familiar examples, and some very curious ones not nearly so well known. There was George Psalmanazar, "whose very name is a guarantee of candid bad faith," and whose Formosa "was plainly one of the most distant spots visited by Sindbad the Sailor." There was Sigonio, who forged a work of Cicero, and had his publisher obtain "from the great scholar Sigonio an opinion that none but Cicero could have written the book." There was Lucas, an ingenious Frenchman, whose specialty was autograph letters, and who imposed upon a 86 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL single credulous customer with examples from Shakespeare, Plato, Lazarus to St. Peter, Judas Iscariot to Mary Magdalene, and Strabo to Juvenal! Then in our own country there was the Reverend Mr. Peters who invented Blue Laws, and the forger of the "Cape Fear Mer- cury " in the interests of the Mecklenburg myth, a document whose examination "raised many embarrassing questions." The myth-makers have been busy in the field of American history, comparatively young as that history is. The story of Marcus Whitman and how he saved Oregon has recently been "resolved into its elementary gases " by an ex- pert analyst. Other myths, such as those of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Virginia Cavaliers, are of such molluscous structure that it is difficult to strike them at a vital point, and they still persist in a sort of semi-animate existence. Dr. Hart remarks truly, concerning one of them: "My ancestor, Stephen Hart, helped to settle Cam- bridge, and later was one of the fundamental orderers of the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut; but in the Fequot War he massacred Indian women and children mercilessly. I take no responsibility for his acts; I refer the case to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs." The hero-myth, as exemplified by the portrait of Washington drawn by the inventive and sen- timental Weems, is neatly characterized, "Weems has never been properly understood by the American public; he landed himself among the im- mortals by writing what is substantially a romance — a kind of patriotic 'Sanford and Merton' — not intended to give information about George Washington but to suggest virtuous conduct to young Americans. Who bnt an expert performer upon the imagination could personify Washington's father on the boy's refusal to divide a fine large apple with his brothers and sisters? 'George looked in silence on the wide wilderness of fruit. He marked the busy humming bees, and heard the gay notes of birds; then lifting his eyes filled with shining moisture to his father, he softly said, " Well, Pa, only forgive me this time; and see if I ever be so stingy any more."' Human nature rebels at this attempt to make a prig out of a youth who was probably more likely to steal apples than to divide them." Such examples of misdirected imagination in historical writing almost force one into the sci- entific camp, where facts alone are supposed to count. But husks are the provender there offered the hungry student, and he is not alto- gether to be blamed for hankering after the flesh-pots of invention. The president of the American Historical Association is under bonds to respect facts, and honor the men who give their lives to ascertaining them; but he demands something more of the historian than the scra- ping together of facts, and realizes the justice of such criticism as he quotes from Dr. Crothers: "The historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intel- lectual forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. . . . There are references to bulky vol- umes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text." So our writer has a good word even for Froude, and a more than good word for Macaulay, for neither the unreliability of the one nor the pre- judice of the other can altogether nullify the splendid picturesqueness and dramatic qualities of both. Those men, and Tacitus and Gibbon and Parkman, are all quoted from to illustrate imagination of the kind that must excite the ad- miration of the most captious historian ; and by way of contrast, a single sentence, running to- over three hundred words, from Bishop Stubbs, is cited as an example of historical writing that "would not arouse a poet to an ode nor a nation to revolution." This is perhaps as far as the speaker dared to go when addressing an audience "composed wholly of cautious persons who never open their mouths without a foot-note to a trusty original." On the whole, Professor Hart's plea is for imagination, properly regulated of course, in the writing of history. "There is much in his- tory that cannot be measured like atomic weights, or averaged like insurance losses," is his epigrammatic way of saying it. All histori- cal writing that is worth anything recognizes "this impotence of facts taken by themselves, this infusion of a shadowy something which may be called sentiment, or the ideal, or spirit, or imagination." History is " an art which stands alongside that of the painter, the sculptor, and the architect, which puts the great historian parallel with the philosopher, the seer, and the poet." And the final summary of the argument is thus finely expressed: "The danger of the historian is in imagination, that is, in the kind of imagination which invents details or seizes upon the unimportant ones, or combines them into pictures which are but the outside; which tell us nothing of the stir and movement of human souls, the clash of human wills, of the thinking of national thoughts. There is another kind of imagination which works from within outword; which makes the reader see, as the historian sees, the real characters of men; which divines their motives; which, allowing for human weaknesses and for the pressure of adverse circum- stances, informs us whether this or that man, this or that peoplo, this or that age, this or that standard has carried forward civilization, opened wide the gates for thought, liberated souls. There is no great history without large imagination, any more than there is painti ing, or for that matter, scientific discovery." 1910.] 87 THE CASUAL COMMENT. Gladstone the man of letters received but a small part of the tribute that was paid to the great statesman on the occasion of his centenary (Decem- ber 29). The omission may justify a passing word in recognition of Gladstone the writer and lover of literature. His very first book, "The State in its Relations with the Church," which appeared in 1838 as a plea for the union of church and state, had the distinction of a review from Macaulay's pen. "The book," said Macaulay, "though not a good book, shows more talent than many good books. It contains some eloquent and ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought." Talent rather than genius was, indeed, a characteristic of all Gladstone's writings, — a wonderful facility in the handling of material and in the use of words. It was the same quality that appeared, intensified by the arts of the orator, in his speeches. A Quarterly Reviewer, commenting on Gladstone's four-hour speech on the budget of 1860, used the phrase, "The enchanted region of pure Gladstonism, — that terrible com- bination of relentless logic and dauntless imagina- tion." One cannot read Gladstone's printed words without feeling the vigor and earnestness of his thought. His "Juventus Mundi," written in the intervals between engrossing public duties, is a re- remarkable piece of scholarly research touched with enthusiasm — whatever its defects as a contribution to the right understanding of Homer. Its opinions are stated with emphasis and clearness. Homer's treatment of the gods and goddesses of Greece is, as a representation of "the Olympian religion," " one of the topmost achievements of the human mind." His appreciation of animal grace is described in glowing terms: "Homer had a profound perception of the beauty of animals, at least in the case of the horse, as to color, form, and especially movement." It was Gladstone's tremendous earnestness, the con- centration of all his energies on the matter in hand, that enabled him to accomplish so much, both in literature and in affairs of state. The multiplication of learned societies, as called to one's attention by their holiday conventions in New York, Boston, and elsewhere, offers encour- aging proof that our national energies are not all directed toward materialistic ends. The large and enthusiastic gathering of scholars in the halls of Columbia University, and in other public buildings of the city, was made up of members of no fewer than nine learned societies, — the American His- torical Association, the American Economic Asso- ciation, the American Political Science Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Sociological Society, the American Association for Labor Legislation, the American Social Science Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Society of Church History. Simultaneously with the New York meetings there was a mustering in Boston of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science, and its nu- merous subsidiary and allied societies, under the presidency of Dr. David Starr Jordan. In the halls of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of the Harvard Medical School, and elsewhere in Boston and in Cambridge, were held meetings of physiolo- gists, anatomists, bacteriologists, chemists, mathe- maticians, entomologists, astronomers, seed-analysts, geologists, and representatives of many other -ologies, —all presumably interested in making Science really and beneficially the concern, not of the school or the study or the laboratory merely, but of society at large. Whatever the comparative cultural value of science and humanism (those jealous educational rivals of long standing), that late lamented French humanist, Ferdinand Brunetiere, went entirely too far in asserting that science is bankrupt and has no new things in store for mankind. Notable gatherings of American scholars occurred at Baltimore in the Christmas vacation week, when the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association met in annual convention under the hospitable roof of the Johns Hopkins University. Despite the polysyllabic names and learned character of these bodies, one presidential address at least was in lighter vein and provocative of much mirth. Professor Gildersleeve, president of the Philological Association, succeeded in so presenting the "Aspects of Philological Work in America" as to enliven and entertain his large audience. His fifty years' study of languages, and his almost fifty years' connection with the society he was addressing, qualified him to speak in a richly reminiscent and instructive strain. Yet he earnestly deprecated being called the Nestor of the Associa- tion. "The grievance of grievances," he continued, "is that Nestor has left a name to be fastened on every man who has had the opportunity of making himself foolish in the sight of the third generation." The titles of a few of the papers read will show the nature of the discussions for which so many eminent scholars had assembled from all points of the com- pass. There was an essay on "The Origin of the Idea of the Atom According to Heracleides and Asclepiades," one on "Certain Linguistic Tests of the Relative Antiquity of the Iliad and the Odyssey," another on " The Treatment of Time in the .ZEneid," and still another on "Certain Popular Elements in the Satires of Persius." A worthy successor to Pro- fessor Gildersleeve as President of the Association was chosen in Dr. Paul Shorey of the University of Chicago. . . . The rooster as a hero of the stage is the novel feature of M. Rostand's new play, "Chanti- cleer" (as we will call it in English), about which there has been a vast amount of talk and conjecture and curious inquiry, ever since it was reported, eight years ago, that the author of "Cyrano " and "L'Aiglon" had conceived a novel and startling 38 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL idea for dramatic treatment. Why Paris has had to wait all this weary while to hear the marvellous "cock " crow appears to have been due to illness, to a death in the poet's family, and, later, to the lamented demise of the actor Coquelin. In regard to the genesis of the new play, its author is reported to have expressed himself at some length in a recent interesting interview. That he had taken a hint from Aristophanes or any other writer, he would not admit. "It may be possible," he acknowledged, "that others have had the same idea as mine. They tell me that in the Middle Ages certain parts of 'Le Roman du Renard' were arranged for the stage and acted; but I have not verified the statement, and no one can show me the text." Pressed with questions as to whence came his first suggestion for the play, the poet replied: "Where did the idea come from? By chance, while idling in the coun- try. Soon after I had produced 'L'Aiglon ' I was ill, and to convalesce I established myself at Cambo. Near the house I then occupied there was a farm. One day, while walking about, I entered the farm- yard. I can still see this farmyard, full of light and thronged with happy animals. There were all sorts of them. . . . There was a magpie. There was a cage on the wall full of birds. All these creatures seemed to be thinking and talking together of a thousand things. Suddenly the cock came in, and there was a general commotion. It seemed as if his entrance had been made the topic of a new conversation; they really talked about this rooster. . . . Then these animals, I know not why, seemed to me the characters in a sentimental, ideal play, of which the background was this barnyard. I saw the play before beginning it, and I called it ' A Little Corner of the World.' For a long time it lived in my mind under this title. Then a novel, a very good novel, was published with the same title. Thereupon I named my play after the principal character,' Chanticleer,' so called in 'Le Roman du Renard ' to distinguish the cock. At the same time that I found the title I found the actor for the part, Coquelin." A NOTEWORTHY EXHIBITION OF MANUSCRIPTS and rare books, loaned by different persons, was held at the Columbia University Library in connec- tion with the recent annual convention of various learned societies, including the Bibliographical So- ciety of America. Especially interesting to members of the American Historical Society were various autograph manuscripts of famous historians, mediae- val chronicles in manuscript, and early editions of ancient historians. There was also on exhibition the famous Columbus letter announcing the discovery of America in 1492, the first dated edition of Americus Vespucius (1504), Corlear's Journal of 1634 des- cribing the Mohawk Indians, the manuscript rolls of the Concord Minute Men, and other documents of the colonial and revolutionary periods. English his- tory was well represented by the manuscripts of Macaulay's and Hume's Histories, and Gibbon's notes to his great work, by the original proclamation of the Commonwealth (dated May 19, 1649), and by printed books of rarity and interest . From Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's splendid collection came, among other treasures, the famous "Golden Gospels" once owned by King Henry VIII., written in gold on purple vellum, and for a time in the keeping of the Vatican. It was presented by Leo X. to Henry when the latter received the title "Fidei Defensor." It is supposed to be about twelve hundred years old. This remarkable exhibition, after attracting the his- torians and bibliophiles and other savants assembled in convention, continued open for two weeks for the benefit of the general public. The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense, said Hamlet on a certain occasion; but he might have added that through too little employment the hand doth lose what sense it had. In a recent address before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, Sir Frederick Treves, the eminent surgeon to the King, lamented the decline of manual dexterity and nice skill, with the increasing use of machinery in the arts and manufactures. The loom, the sewing machine, and the typewriter, he declared, have re- duced to a soulless level of uniformity what formerly were the diversely excellent products of a million hands; the stamping machine displaces the wood- carver and the decorator; and the human hand is in some danger of forgetting its cunning. The book-lover deplores the passing of hand-made paper and hand-bound books. In a letter from Edward Everett Hale to Colonel Higginson, quoted in the latter's recent book entitled "Carlyle's Laugh, and Other Surprises," the letter-writer says: "I see that you can write intelligibly. I wish I could — But I cannot run a Typewriter more than a Sewing- Machine. Will the next generation learn to write— any more than learn the alphabet?" Personal letters from both these men now lie before us and give point to the above passage, although Dr. Hale's pen- manship was not (fifteen years ago, the date of our letter) nearly so cryptic as many that we have seen, or indeed as he himself seemed to imagine. Another letter of Dr. Hale's, dictated and typewritten, also lies before us, and perhaps helps to explain the com- parative illegibility of the one executed by the little- used pen. After all, if the time has passed (or soon will have passed) when the Japanese worker in ivory could spend half a lifetime in carving a series of con- centric hollow spheres, his energies are set free for what may well prove to be higher and worthier activities. • • • Some curious phases of biblioklepsis (the Greek word sounds less harsh than "book-stealing") attract now and then the notice of those interested in such things. The dexterity with which an invet- erate book-thief will gain his end would, if turned into legitimate channels, win him fame and fortune in a short time. The man who succeeded in abstract- ing a Webster's "Unabridged" from the reading- 1910.] 39 THE DIAL, room of the Boston Public Library presented a clear case of perverted genius. There has been recently recalled, by a chronicler of the vandalism com- mitted in that library, the instance of a professional biblioklept who managed to make off with a copy of the rare first edition of Hawthorne's "Fanshawe," and, after removing the book-plate, to sell it to some obscure and conscienceless or uninformed dealer, from whose hands it finally reached a New York auction house, and was returned thence to the lib- rary. Such treasures are too rare and too easily identified to be of much commercial value to thieves. A curious sequel to this incident was the search that it led to, on the part of those who read or heard about it, for stray copies of the valuable little book that might be lurking in ancestral attics or cupboards; and, as a result of all this rummaging, several copies were actually unearthed and put on the market, so that the price speedily fell from eight hundred to four hundred dollars. Often enough it has been noted that the bibliokleptic desire seizes upon persons otherwise honest and respectable; a survival, pos- sibly, of primitive predatory instincts. The book of the teak in London cannot be named with ease and certainty by any reviewer of the extensive literary output of the last twelve months in England. But probably more general attention has been drawn to Sir Ernest Shackleton's work, "The Heart of the Antarctic," than to any other book of acknowledged worth and importance. Its extra-literary or practical interest of course greatly overshadows its purely literary merit, al- though it is written in a style admirable for its strength and effectiveness, and deserves to live as a narrative of vivid and fascinating quality. Curiously enough, the book of the coming year in the English- speaking world, if not in the world at large, prom- ises to be another autobiographical account of polar exploration, — namely, Captain Peary's story of his dash to the North Pole and his safe return, which will next month begin its serial appearance. The public appetite has been whetted by a most extra- ordinary series of events for this true account of a genuine exploration, and it will be cause for surprise if the book does not attain an enormous circulation. The censorship of books for Sunday-school libraries, as carried on by a volunteer body known as the Church Library Association, organized at Cambridge, Mass., thirty years ago, appears to be most thorough. We read in regard to the monthly routine duties of this body, that its forty members, earnest men and women of the Episcopal Church, are divided into a certain number of reading com- mittees, and that every book examined by its appro- priate committee is reported upon in writing by each member of that committee. If a majority of these written opinions are favorable, the book is brought before the monthly meeting of the association, the opinions are read aloud, discussion follows, and a vote is taken on the eligibility of the book. A nega- tive vote from a fourth of those present casts the book into extra-ecclesiastical darkness. All this work is of course primarily for the benefit of Sunday- school and parish libraries of the church which the association represents; but the published catalogues (of which four have now appeared) are obtainable by anyone on request from the Secretary of the Church Library Association, Cambridge, Mass. No books are sold and no orders are taken by the society for books, but all its expenses are said to be met by voluntary contributions of twenty-five cents each from those receiving the catalogues. If such a thing as sterilized literature is possible, the books sanc- tioned by this reading committee may surely be recommended with a tolerable sense of security. ■ • • The original of "The Chambered Nautilus," or the first suggestion of it, was once pointed out by the poet Stedman in a letter to his friend and dis- tant kinsman, Colonel Higginson. The latter pub- lishes the letter in his latest volume of miscellanies. It is interesting to learn, and it is doubtless new to some, that the poet-physician, Holmes, found his "Nautilus" (in crude enough form, to be sure) in the works of another poet-physician, Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell. Turning up his name in Duyckinck's "Cyclopaedia of American Literature," we encounter an "Elegy on a Shell — The Nautilus," irregular in metre and far less admirable in form and substance than the poem to which it appeal's to have given birth. The curious will like to read the older verses in full; but the less eager may be satisfied with these three sample stanzas, which in thought and expres- sion are the best of the set. "Thou wast a house with many chambers fraught, Built hy a Nautilus or Argonaut, With fitness, symmetry, and skill, To suit the owner's taste and sovereign will. "In curves of elegance thy shape appears, Surpassing art through centuries of years, By tints and colors brilliant made. And all, —the finished workman has displayed. "So man erects in sumptuous mode A structure proud for his abode, But knows not, when of life bereft, Who'll creep within the shell he left." ■ • ■ An English annotator of Dr. Holmes lias been contributing to the gaiety of the American nation. An edition of "The Autocrat of the Break- fast Table " which is furnished with a critical analy- sis of the author's genius by Mr. Chesterton, and a text commentary by Mr. Blakeney of Trinity College, Cambridge, has this note on a passage in "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay": "' Hahnsum kerridge': surely an anachronism. The patent for 'Hansom Cabs' was not taken out till 1834, or twenty-four years after the date 1810, given here." Then, to leave undone no duty of the complete commentator, the same conscientious pen adds this footnote: "So named from the inventor, Hansom, architect of Birmingham town-hall." Other gems are to be found in the volume, and the only regret is that the Autocrat is no longer with us to enjoy their brilliance. 40 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL COMMUNICA TIONS. SCHOOL BOARD AND SUPERINTENDENT. ("To the Editor of The Dial.) The problem of school administration is filled with many practical difficulties, and has never been quite comprehensively solved. True, it is always easy enough to say what ought to be; but it is not quite so easy to determine just how to secure the exact thing desired. There exists, for instance, among some school boards, the view that the superintendent, as the expert head of the school system, should have pretty full swing in the conduct of the purely pedagogical side of school work. These school boards hold that the superintendent should have both the initiative and the final word in these matters; that any attempt at official interference is un- warranted, and likely to be disastrous to the best inter- ests of the school. Another view existing in some quarters is that the school board is, and of necessity must be, the final authority upon all matters, both of a professional and a business nature; that the initiative may and should be accorded to the superintendent in strictly professional matters, but beyond this is dangerous ground; that no well-equipped school board will permit the superin- tendent to extend his official acts beyond the field of the initiative. The superintendents themselves are not wholly agreed as to the exact scope and extent of their duties and authority. But the consensus of opinion seems to be in favor of their complete and absolute control of purely professional work, the school board exercising only a perfunctory relation to such matters. The writer has been a somewhat interested student of the problem for a score or more of years, during which, both as a teacher and a member of several school boards, as well as a parent and patron of the schools, he has tried to consider the subject from every point of view. And he is frank to say that from the view-point of the public interest — which, as he views it, is always of paramount consideration, his conviction is firm that the school board should have the final word upon every important educational question and matter of policy. It seems right and necessary that this should be so. The superintendent is at most but the servant of the board. He is not its superior; he is employed to do its will. It is true that he is, or ought to be, an intelli- gent, conscientious, and wise servant; and he can, and does, do much to further the interests which he is em- ployed to conserve. His advice and services upon pro- fessional subjects are admittedly invaluable. But while all this is true, it is the school board that is and must be responsible to the people. The school board is the trustee of the educational interests, — not the superin- tendent, and not any other employee of the board. There is always danger in giving great and exclusive authority to an individual. The superintendents of schools are not less human and not a whit wiser than their fellows in other walks of life and other fields of endeavor. As a school board is answerable to the people that put it in power, so should a superintendent be subject to the power that gave him his position and authority. There is safety in numbers; and a school board, if wisely and judiciously selected, may be trusted with the final word. To say that such selections are not always made wisely and judiciously does not mili- tate against the main contention. A school board of three, or five, or seven, or more members, will care- fully weigh important school questions before pronounc- ing the final verdict. The danger from favoritism, from chicane, from trick or fraud, is never inconsiderable. School systems have been known to suffer severely on these accounts. Here is where the right to review the actions and to keep a check on the recommendations of superintendents be- comes vitally important. This is a field which offers opportunity for independent investigation. It is a field which, if properly worked, means much to the defence- less teacher in every school system. The writer has known of superintendents who wel- comed the right of review, of independent investigation and inquiry; but their number is not large. Most of them smart under any attempt at the exercise of authority over their professional acts. They assert that it is an unwarranted exercise of authority, an exercise of the right of review and of criticism which belittles them in the public eye and does harm to the system. The writer has never become convinced of the correct- ness of this professional point of view. On the contrary, he believes that the best interests of the schools demand that the right to the final word be always reserved to the board itself, which, after all, is only the voice of the people whom the board represents and serves. To say that the voice of the people is not always wisely ex- pressed is to say, in another way, that all human effort is imperfect. Duank Mowry. Board of Education, Milwaukee, January 5, 1910. "I SWAN!" (To the Editor of The Dial.) My eye has just caught the following passage in Thk Dial of October 16, p. 273: "A writer in the London 'Nation' comments on our sup- posed use of 'I swan.' '1 frequently ask my American friends,' says this writer, 'if they can give me the derivation of " I swan," and never yet have I heard even an attempt to do so. Fifty years ago " I swan " was in regular use by poets and novelists, and to-day it is employed in current American speech, though a certain class of Americans seem to find it necessary to apologize for the use of what they think is slang.' Then we are confidently assured that it is not slang, bat merely a corruption of 'I warrant you,' through 'I'se warrant,' ' A's warn,' of the Liddesdale farmer. Thus what has been considered a bit of Yankee slang turns out to be an idiom of the Scottish border that'fifty years ago . . . was in regular use by poets and novelists.' Henceforth, onr polite circles of Boston, or Chicago, or Kalamazoo, or any other centre of refinement and culture, may feel at liberty to con- tinue the daily use of 'I swan,' bnt with no longer any need of the hitherto customary apology. What a relief!" We all know that many words and phrases, popularly supposed to be Americanisms, were brought over by the early settlers from England, where they have become obsolete. So often has an alleged Americanism been proved to be a survival of an English provincialism, that there are times when we Americans may well ask ourselves, "Is our reputed faculty for coining words after all a delusion?" Our British cousins are too apt to insist that it is. The easy way in which your re- viewer accepted the gold brick handed out by the writer in the London "Nation" confirms this. It may be necessary to haul down the Stars and Stripes, but let us not do so without at least striking a blow. Permit me to offer the following comments on the above passage. (1) The writer in the London " Nation " has never 1910.] 41 THE DIAL "heard even an attempt " to explain "I swan." Ad attempt, doubtless a successful one, was made twenty years ago in the Century Dictionary, where we read: "A euphemistic variation of swear; cf. susom, a similar evasion." (2) The notion that "I warrant you" is "an idiom of the Scottish border" which originated a beggarly half-century ago is diverting, seeing that it has been in vogue among English poets and authors for at least three centuries. (3) The writer's further notion that " I warrant you" and " I swan " are identical in meaning is also amusing, for "I swan" is an expletive. Moreover, though no fewer than twenty-eight forms of "I warrant you" are recorded in the English Dialect Dictionary, "I swan" is not one of them. (4) "I swan" is declared by lexicographers, even English ones, to be an Americanism. This of course is not conclusive, for even lexicographers are not infallible; but as the examples they quote are all American and run back to 1842, clearly the burden of proof lies on him who asserts that it is not an Americanism. (5) In their "Slang and its Analogues," Farmer and Henley quote an example from Mrs. Kirkland's " Forest Life," published in 1842 — or before the idiom is said to have originated along the Scottish border. But that is a much-belated example, for in a letter written from Boston and printed in the "New York Packet" of November 22, 1784, we read: "When 1 left this town last April, I was (you will remem- ber) very desirous that we should obtain a charter of incor- poration. . . . Go, go to New York, gentlemen, go and see what pickle that town is in, and then tell me (if you dare) of getting Mayors, Aldermen, and the Lord knows what besides! Cut bono, my friends? Nay, I swan (as the old saying is), we of Boston, after all, are the better off than those of New York; have we not got a fine public walk, now well planted, gravelled and fenced in? Whereas, at New York (although they have what they call their fields), yet none of them have ever thought as yet of planting a single tree for public ornament or utility. Ergo, no charter for Boston; and I will vote against every attempt to bring jn this new mode of govern- ment." Note the words "as the old saying is," showing that one hundred and twenty-six years ago the idiom was well established. (6) Finally, the expression carries on its face proof that it is an Americanism. Your Britisher comes out with a good honest " damn," but your American, ever fond of soft swearing, dilutes it to "darn." Hence, "I swan " is eminently characteristic. Albert Matthews. Boston, January S, 1910. SECTIONALISM IN LEARNED SOCLETIES. ("To the Editor of The Dial.) It ought not to be necessary to point out to the writer of the communication on "A Localized American Academy," in your last issue, that such institutions as the American Academy of Arts and Letters cannot be established on a geographical basis. It is not a question of where a man lives, but what he has done. Naturally, it is the tendency of men eminent in art or literature to gravitate to the great cities of the country, and par- ticularly to the older centres of culture. Artists, in- deed, as in the cases of Sargent and Abbey, are quite as likely to make their homes abroad. But they are none the less American by birth and inheritance. The Academie Francaise is made up almost wholly of men who live in Paris, yet no one would think of denying its claim to represent fairly the literary ideals and per- formance of the French nation. I suppose your correspondent credits Mark Twain to New York, because his home is not far from that city. But no man could be less of a " New Yorker," or repre- sent more perfectly the great region of the central Mississippi Valley. The various cities and states of the country, the great universities of the West and the Pacific Slope, cannot legitimately be represented as such in an American Academy. Of course if your corre- spondent believes particular members of the Academy unworthy of the distinction, in comparison with other men who have not been so honored, that is another matter. He would not in that case be without sympa- thizers. But the Academy is not less American because most of its members happen at present to live near the Atlantic seaboard. Henry S. Chapman. Boston, January 5, 1910. [It seems but just to our previous correspondent to recall that he himself said that "for such an in- stitution the best men should be chosen, wherever found," and that his whole point seemed to be that geographical considerations had counted too much, not too little, in the formation of the Academy. — Edr. The Dial.] A LONDON LITERABY HAUNT. (To the Editor of The Dial.) I have been reading your paper with much interest, as I always do, and I notice in a recent issue a review of "The Literary History of the Adelphi and its Neigh- bourhood," by Mr. Brereton. May I observe that I am the publisher of this work, and my friends Messrs. Duffield & Co. issue it for me in America; of course the book is of London origin. Like my friend the author, I am also a resident in the Adelphi. You ask what part of the neighbourhood de- scribed in this book is known as the Adelphi. I think it is that part which forms a square with its front to the Thames known as Adelphi Terrace, its west side Robert Street (named after Robert Adam), its east side Adam Street, and its north side John Street (after John Adam), in which will be found the well-known Adams House occupied by the Society of Arts. This square block was practically all built by the Brothers Adam, architects; and, as you will note, is named after the family. Your notice fairly describes the book and its literary associations. I am glad to say they continue to this day, as we have as neighbors on this Terrace some good American citizens, such as Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell; there are also J. M. Barrie the dramatist, Sidney Low the historical writer and journalist, Bernard Shaw, novelist and dramatist, J. B. Atley, another well- known man of letters; and of course my publishing business is housed at No. 1 Adelphi Terrace and No. 19 Adam Street — houses which show the characteristics of the art of the brothers for whom the street was named. I may add that should any of your friends desire to visit this interesting neighbourhood, they will find the "quartier," as Mrs. Pennell calls it, by taking the first turn westward after leaving the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy, and it certainly will give me great pleasure to show them anything of interest there is to be seen in the Adelphi. T. Fisher Unwin. 1, Adelphi Terrace, London, January 4, 1910. 42 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL % £efo looks. A Southern Woman's Reminiscences.* If Mrs. Pryor's volume of " Reminiscences of a Long Life " does not sell with the best novels of the season, the reason will lie elsewhere than in its power to seize and hold the interest of any intelligent reader. American autobiography and reminiscence has attained many a high level during the past decade, but here is a book which the reader will unhesitatingly put on his choicest shelf with the best of it all. A happy girlhood and a happy marriage in the best circles of the old Virginia life of the middle of the last cen- tury, the fiery test of extreme poverty and humil- iation in the wreck of that society incident to the Civil War, the removal to New York City and the grim struggle there to pick up the broken threads of life and weave them once more into a comely fabric, with the slow but ever advancing march to a position of usefulness and influence and honor beyond anything which either she or her gifted husband had dared hope for,—this is the framework of Mrs. Pryor's story. At the outbreak of the war Mr. Pryor was a member of the House of Representatives. When the fateful news of the secession of South Caro- lina reached Washington, the Pryors, President Buchanan, and others in high social and official station, were attending a wedding. Mrs. Pryor herself bent over the back of the President's chair and gave him the momentous information, just received over the wires by Representative Keitt of the seceding state. Falling back in a dazed condition, the President grasped both arms of his chair, and begged her, in a whisper, to have his carriage summoned. She and her husband immediately called their own carriage, and drove away, "with no more thought of bride, bridegroom, wedding-cake or wedding breakfast." "This," she continues, "was the tremendous event which was to change all our lives, — to give us poverty for riches, mutila- tion and wounds for strength and health, obscur- ity and degradation for honor and distinction, exile and loneliness for inherited home and friends, pain and death for happiness and life." Although Mrs. Pryor's husband threw him- self energetically into the cause of his section and attained distinction as a brave and effec- tive commander in the Confederate army, he •My Day. Reminiscences of a Long Life. By Mrs. Roger A. Pryor, author of "Reminiscences of Peace and War," " The Mother of Washington and Her Times," etc. Illostrated. New York: The Macmillan Co. accepted defeat in good faith and used every effort in his power to hasten the healing of the wounds that had been made. At one time or another he had met in battle Generals Hancock, Slocum, Butterfield, Sickles, Fitz-John Porter, McClellan, and Grant, all of whom became his firm friends in later years. "They had fought loyally under opposing banners, and from time to time, as the war went on, one and another had been defeated; but over all and through all, their allegiance had been given to a banner that has never surrendered — the standard of the universal brotherhood of all true men." In November, 1864, while she was leading a painfully economical life at Petersburg, virtually in a state of siege, with a babe less than a year old in her arms, came the news that General Pryor had been captured and was held as a prisoner of war. It was at first ordered that he be taken to Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor; but he was finally committed to Fort Lafayette instead, where his privilege of a daily walk upon the ramparts allowed him to look upon the mist- blurred outlines of the great city where in later years he was destined to an honored position upon the Supreme Bench, and his no less worthy wife to a place of effective leadership, especially in the benevolent and charitable activities of the best social life of the metropolis. But in the meanwhile, what grief, toil, and humiliation! In the little cottage at Petersburg an old trunk full of the finery of a happier day is dragged forth. The laces are remorselessly ripped from evening gowns, made deftly into the forms then in vogue, and sent to Richmond to be sold. Silks and muslins and artificial flowers followed the laces when it was found that Richmond could furnish a market for the tasteful creations which her ingenuity could devise under the keen spur of want of food for herself and children. But there was humor to season even that dish of woe. "Aunt Jinny," an old negro woman, was vexed in conscience because Mrs. Pryor was "sho'ly leadin' de po' young lambs in Richmond into vanity" by the powerful halter of such finery, when the Almighty has told us that we should clothe ourselves rather with the garment of righteousness. But Eliza, another negro friend in need, cut her short right at that point: "You 'pear to me to be mighty intimate with God A'mighty. Now you just run 'long home an' leave my mistis to 'er work. How would you look with nothin' on but a garment of righteousness?" When Petersburg was occupied by the Union forces, Mrs. Pryor was held as a prisoner in two 1910.] 43 THE of her rooms for ten days, by General Sheridan, who took possession of her house for an adju- tant's office. A little later she was compelled to apply for rations for her family to Major- General Hartsuff; but the first consignment brought to the house was unspeakably beyond the point of edibility. She turned to her table and wrote, " Is the Commanding General aware of the nature of the ration issued this day to the destitute women of Petersburg?" The delivery of this note brought in haste an orderly with an official slip commanding the Quartermaster and Commissary to "furnish Mrs. Roger A. Pryor with all she may demand or require, charging the same to the private account of George L. Hartsuff, Major-Genera! Commanding." But he soon learned a little more of the spirit of the woman with whom he was dealing. "Mrs. Roger A. Pryor," the response went back to him, "is not insensible to the generous offer of Major-General Hartsuff, but he ought to have known that the ration allowed the destitute women of Petersburg must be enough for Mrs. Roger A. Pryor." Even the tearful ap- peal of Mrs. Hartsuff, who came at once on a personal visit, failed to move her to accept the private favors which in the nature of the case others could not have; and the next day saw rations of another character. We might fill columns with choice extracts from this most interesting volume, which de- serves the widest reading. It lets the light in upon phases of the Civil War and its sequels with which too many are unacquainted, and it makes for the sympathy and good feeling between North and South which alone can give the key to problems even yet unsettled. W. H. Johnson. Dantk in English Literatubk.* Thanks to the author of the Dante Diction- ary, we now have a full, perhaps exhaustive, collection of materials for the history of the in- fluence of Dante on the English mind. By En- glish, Dr. Toynbee evidently means British, as he includes the Scotch but excludes the Ameri- cans. Here are some 1400 pages of citations containing all the discoverable allusions to, or •Dantk in English Literature, from Chaucer to Cary (C. 1380-1844). By Paget Toynbee, M.A., D.Litt., Oxon. With Introduction, Notes, Biographical Notices, Chronologi- cal List, and General Index. In two volumes. New York: The Macmillan Co. The Moral System of Dante's Inferno. By W. H. V. Keade, M.A., Tutor of Keble College. Oxford : The Claren- don Press. New York: Henry Frowde. comment upon, the Tuscan poet, which were made in Great Britain down to the date of the death of Cary the translator. Translations are also noticed and liberally cited. Biographical notices, based upon the " Dictionary of National Biography," of all the known authors, are pro- vided. The author exhibits again the vigilance, industry, and scholarship which he has taught us to expect from him. The arrangement of all this material is "in the chronological order of the first work quoted," the several citations from one author being grouped together. It is ill looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but the re- viewer is constrained to say that this plan results in some confusion of different eras. For ex- ample, Merivale, commenting in 1843 upon Francis Horner's studies in Dante, undertaken to beguile his dying days in 1817, is made to precede Horner himself by some forty pages, all but three lines of those forty pages being de- voted to citations of dates between 1814 and 1822. Again, an anecdote is taken from Thomas Moore's Diary illustrating the prefer- ence entertained by Moore for Wright's trans- lation as compared with Cary's. But before coming to Wright himself we have to traverse no less than 540 pages, a long gap which Dr. Toynbee has neglected to bridge by cross- references. This quite mechanical arrangement has the merit of bringing all the comment of each author together, all the material being rendered accessible by means of the Index, the numerous notes and cross-references, and the Chronological List of Authors — which, how- ever, is not chronological, but is arranged in the order described above. Dr. Toynbee has en- riched the work with an Introduction in which he gives a brief outline of the course of Dante criticism in England. Here, and in the Index, under the heads "Commedia" and "Dante," are grouped together some of the more terse and distinetive pronouncements, pro and con, many of which are illustrations of the English genius for denouncing what it cannot under- stand. A noticeable feature of the work is the hom- age done to the Rev. H. F. Cary, by making his death the terminus ad quern, an homage jus- tified rather by the reputation of Cary than by his real merit as a translator. Indeed, Cary bulks bigger in these pages than anyone else except Dante, whose "English Duplicate and Re-incarnation " Coleridge declared him to be. No work in the English language, except Macpherson's Ossian, has been more persistently over-rated. To parody Voltaire's unlucky 44 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL prophecy about Dante, it does seem that Cary's reputation has gone on increasing because he has been so little read. To the Cary legend, Dr. Toynbee has contributed an impetus, not only here but in an annotated edition of Cary's translation. Scholarship, however, not poetic taste, is the forte of our author. Why Cole- ridge should have so praised Cary in the first place, is an interesting question. Certainly, Coleridge was a good judge of poetry; that he was not an infallible judge is shown by his extreme admiration for the sonnets of Bowles. An impulsive critic, he was doubtless overawed by Cary's superior knowledge of Dante, whose work had hitherto been imperfectly known in England, and scantily appreciated. Cary offered the first presentable translation; Coleridge, who was getting up Dante about that time, found the translation and notes serviceable; he paid his debt to Cary in the most effectual way by praising the latter in the famous lecture of 1818; having set up as an authority on the subject, he could not conveniently withdraw anything he might have said, especially after all the world had taken up the laud from him as critical cory- pheus. All this, I admit, is little better than reading between the lines; but it may have as much foundation as some of Coleridge's own critical divinations. At all events, one has only to analyze the first passage which Coleridge quotes from Cary in the notes of his lecture, to perceive how uncritical was the praise he lavished to the misleading of the nation. The fact is that Cary's traducement of the divine Tuscan could have found acceptance only among a people essentially ignorant of the poet, and at a time when interest was just beginning to awaken. To be sure, he is a competent writer of blank verse, but in a movement which does not sug- gest the movement of any great poet except sometimes Milton. Does Dante soar easily and swiftly, like an eagle? Cary flutters like a bird whose plumage is entangled in the lime-twigs. Does Dante say a thing and have done? Cary says it twice. Is Dante simple and severe? Cary is turgid and ornate. Does Dante stamp the precious metal with his own image and super- scription? Cary deals forth the featureless fool's gold of poetic commonplace. Dante's "broad stream of speech" becomes "copious floods of eloquence "; Dante's " poets," a " tune- ful train." Dante says to Virgil: "May the long study avail me and the great love, which have made me search thy volume!" Vagliami il lungo studio e il grande amore Che m'ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume. Cary: May it avail me that I long with zeal Have sought thy volume, and with love immense Have conn'd it o'er. The trailing repetition is intolerable; nor is to seek a book the same thing as to search it. It would take up all the space which utmost edi- torial indulgence could allot to this review, to point out all the crimes which Cary manages to commit in the three stanzas selected by Cole- ridge for special praise. He sometimes does better, but oftener far worse. Chaucer and Milton knew Dante well, and show many traces of his influence. Sir Philip Sidney must have had some acquaintance with him. Shakespeare sometimes says a thing in a way that makes one think of Dante, but such parallels occur everywhere when great writers touch upon the same human or moral themes. Lowell asserted that Spenser had read his Dante closely, but Dr. Toynbee is inclined to think the resemblances, like those in Shake- speare, mere coincidences. Between Milton and Coleridge, there are few allusions to Dante in the great English writers. If he be mentioned at all, it is likely to be with disparagement, or, what is worse, with condescension. In his "Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learn- ing," Sir William Temple gives his list of " the great wits among the moderns "; these were, in Italy, Boccaccio, Machiavel, and Padre Paolo; in England, Sir Philip Sidney, Bacon, and Selden. What names shine by their absence! The gen- erous shades of Sidney and Boccaccio might well be indignant that they also were not omit- ted from the enumeration of a critic who could forget their betters. Temple's protege, Swift, does not mention Dante; nor does Addison, who wrote a book about his literary pilgrimage through Italy ; nor yet does Burke, who was so great a lover of Virgil. Pope and Dr. Johnson show no symptoms of familiarity with the Tuscan poet, whose name does not occur in the famous life of Milton. To Horace Walpole's jaunty philosophy, the greatest of modern poets is "in short, a Methodist parson in Bedlam"; while the Earl of Chesterfield warns his hopeful son against wasting his time in the attempt to understand an author who is not worth the pains. Goldsmith, in his "Enquiry into the present State of Polite Learning," pronounces that Dante owed most of his reputation to the obscurity of the times in which he lived. Akenside, who in his curious " Ballance of Poets " applies to the great poets what is known in the schools as the "marking system," places Dante on the same 1910.] 45 THE DIAL form with Ariosto, Horace, Pindar, Pope, Ra- cine, Sophocles, without indicating whether he should be first or last " tra cotanto senno." In taste, Dante is marked 12 (on a scale of twenty), with Cervantes and Tasso, no one being lower except that ill-bred Shakespeare. In dramatic expression, Shakespeare and Homer get the best mark (18), while poor Dante goes to the foot of the class with a mark of 8. In critical ordonnance, Dante gets off with the middling mark of 12 ; Boileau, Homer, Sophocles, and Terence receiving the highest standing, while Shakespeare and Ariosto — careless fellows — are " flunked " with a zero apiece. As to moral, Dante is placed on the same indifferent footing with Horace — who appears to have been no better than he should be, — but is able to look down upon the inferior virtue of his compatriots, Tasso and Ariosto, to say nothing of that basest of the base, Lucretius, with his zero. But amid all the "Rash judgments and the sneers of selfish men" recorded in these 1400 pages, perhaps nothing is worthier of bad eminence than the remarks of Dr. Thomas Warton in his History of En- glish Poetry: "We are surprised that a poet should write one hundred cantos on hell, para- dise, and purgatory. But this prolixity is partly owing to the want of art and method, and is common to all early compositions in which every- thing is related circumstantially and without rejection, and not in those general terms which are used by modern writers." So carefully is all truth here reversed, that the sentence, stand- ing alone, might pass for a laborious effort at irony. Particularly to be admired is the rare excellence of modern poets which consists in the use of general terms! In a later age, indeed, Landor, that most treacherous of critics, at- tacked Dante, just as he attacked Milton, in the guise of a friend. He did what in him lay to promote the false and superficial view which sees in Dante little to admire but the episodes of Francesca and Ugolino, and three or four others. Non ragionam di lor! In that dark age of "enlightenment," Gray, in his admiration for Dante, as in other things, stood almost alone. After Coleridge had spoken, it became the fash- ion to prophesy in Dante's name, as did Hazlitt without ever knowing him, and Leigh Hunt with better right. In those days every critic felt bound to come out with a parallel between Dante and Milton. To this whole discussion, Leigh Hunt contributes what seems to me the most penetrating observation: Milton, he says, " had not the faith in things that Homer and Dante had, apart from the intervention of words. He could not let them speak for them- selves without helping them with his learning." The year 1818 produced two memorable winged words about Dante. Coleridge said: "You can- not read Dante without feeling a gush of man- liness of thought within you." Hallam said: "His appearance made an epoch in the intel- lectual history of modern nations. ... It was as if, at some of the ancient games, a stranger had appeared upon the plain, and thrown his quoit among the marks of former casts which tradition had ascribed to the demigods." Hallam is inclined to prefer " Paradise Lost" to the " Divine Comedy"; but Macaulay, who knew Milton by heart, thinks Dante the superior poet. "He runs neck and neck with Homer, and none but Shakespeare has gone decidedly beyond him." Again: "His execution I take to be far beyond that of any other artist who has operated on the imagination by means of words." In temperament, Macaulay is a typical Englishman, who would have found himself very comfortable in the eighteenth century beside Johnson and Akenside. His frank and not undiscriminating admiration for Dante is there- fore significant of the immense change that had come over the English mind with respect to the vital things of poetry. It is quite to be ex- pected that men of spiritual insight — such, for example, as Shelley, the younger Hallam (he of the " etherial brows "), Gladstone, Carlyle — will be attracted to the divine Poet. The general impression made by this volum- inous comment is one of relative poverty. It is a dark mass of prejudice, error, and ignor- ance, shot through only here and there by bright flashes of insight. So this, we murmur, is the reaction of the great English nation upon the most spiritually inspired of modern poets! Even those who were most persuasive in drawing the attention of the English middle-class to Dante, themselves walked rather by faith than by sight. Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle say so much of true and good that the critic may well wink at the times of this ignorance. Carlyle has much the same fanciful Orphic mode of dealing with Dante as has Victor Hugo with Shakespeare. Much in the same way, Petrarch divined Homer through the cloud of the unknown tongue. Prob- ably these writers were just the teachers needed by their time. The well-known anecdote of Robert Hall, employing at the last his spent strength in learning enough Italian to verify Macaulay's parallel between Milton and Dante, 46 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL may be taken both as an example and a symbol of the effect which all this discussion was having upon the class whose chief source of literary culture for generations had been first Milton and the English Bible, to which more recently had been added Shakespeare. It will do much to deprovincialize the English-speaking race if we ever make the vital discovery that another modern nation has produced a poet not decisively inferior to Shakespeare in size and range, and fully Milton's equal in art, in piety, in loftiness of character. In 1850, six years after the date chosen by Dr. Toynbee for the hither limit of his collec- tion, appeared the first really adequate critical survey in English of the Tuscan poet. It is a pity that a somewhat undue respect for the per- formance of Cary should have induced the editor to stop short of a date that would have made it natural to ornament his collection with Church's Essay on Dante, which in absolute value far transcends all that these volumes con- tain. For just and sympathetic and intelligent criticism of Dante in English, no reader need go back farther than to that Essay. The present work, valuable as it may be historically, is only a history of the wanderings in the Wilderness, and brings one barely to the border of the Land of Promise. Theophile Gautier somewhere observes that the human race is so wanting in originality as never to have invented more than seven deadly sins. He had only to read the "Inferno" to learn that Dante himself had recognized the inadequacy of that sevenfold framework to close in all human badness. Dante follows the con- ventional category down to the walls of the City of Dis, whereupon he abruptly drops it, widen- ing his classification of sins with the narrowing of the bottomless pit. On the other hand, in the "Purgatorio " he finds the sevenfold divi- sion sufficient for his purpose. This variation has puzzled many critics, who have made rather inconclusive attempts to account for it. There is a legend that the composition of the " Inferno" was interrupted, after the completion of seven cantos, by the exile of the poet. Such a cir- cumstance might explain an apparent change in the scheme of the work. Probably most readers have been content with the feeling that too exact a parallelism between the parts would have been inartistic. The "Inferno" and the "Purga- torio " are symmetrical, without being identical, in plan. In his dissertation upon the moral system of the " Inferno," Mr. Reade, as becomes an Oxford don, approaches the subject by the dialectical road. It is a very cogent piece of reasoning, bristling with quotations in Latin from St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante's great theo- logical authority, from whom, as Mr. Reade proves, the poet does not radically deviate. The learned and logical author is not lacking in trenchancy. He remarks that if the Jinis, or inward criterion, of all crime must always have been one of the seven capital vices (which, by the way, are not to be confused with the seven deadly sins), then " iniquity seems, after all, to be a meagre profession, failing in a very marked manner to satisfy the ambition of those who find the path of virtue too narrow." Students will find this work a valuable criticism of, and sup- plement to, the essays of Witte and Moore on the subject. Melville B. Anderson. A Venerable American Preacher.* The beneficent life and interesting personality of a venerable American preacher, teacher, and reformer, the Rev. Washington Gladden, are revealed in the recently published volume of his " Recollections." Not only to members of his own congregation, to each of whom Dr. Gladden is both a devoted pastor and a sincere friend, but to his wider parish, the American people, the book makes its strong and direct appeal. The earlier chapters are distinctly autobiographical, sketching the influences and the environment that shaped his character. Later chapters, for perhaps the second third of the book, are in chronological order; while the portion of the work centred around his pastor- ate in Columbus, Ohio, deals with the more important phases of religious and social thought, the industrial and civic questions, of the past thirty years. A fine sense of personal reserve and broad tolerance for opinions from which the author dissents are shown throughout the book. Whatever savors of fraud, of political hysteria or moral delinquency, is sternly though briefly rebuked ; but otherwise a spirit of optim- ism and kindliness sheds gentle light alike upon memories of the past and prophecy of the future. Himself one of our foremost religious teach- ers, whatever Dr. Gladden tells us of his own religious experience possesses particular interest. His boyhood training was strictly Calvinistic, and he unquestioningly accepted the doctrine "Recollections. By Washington Gladden. Boston Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910.] 47 THE DIAL of original sin, by which all mankind had lost communion with God. This communion, even as a child, he desired above all things to regain; but though he tried a thousand times, he never felt that " emotional or ecstatic experience" he had been taught to expect. He says: "I have often wondered, in later years, that my faith did not give way; that I did not become an atheist. It was the memory of my father, and the consistent piety of my. uncle, I suppose, which made that impossible. But that little unplastered room under the rafters in the old farmhouse, where I lay so many nights, when the house was still, looking out through the casement upon the nnpitying stars, has a story to tell of a soul in great perplexity and trouble because it could not find God." It was not till his eighteenth year that a wise friend showed him that he had but to trust in God's love, walk in the ways of service, and confide in his friendship. This single word friendship has since then dominated all his religious thought. He sums it up in almost the last paragraph of the book: "I am fain to believe that the time is drawing near when the Christian church will be able to discern and declare the simple truth that Religion is nothing but Friendship; friendship with God and with men. I have been thinking much about it in these last days, and I cannot make it mean anything else; so far as I can see, that is all there is to it. Religion is friendship — friendship first with the great Companion, of whom Jesus told us, who is always nearer to us than we are to ourselves, and whose inspiration and help is the greatest fact of human experience. To be in harmony with his purposes, to be open to his suggestions, to be in con- scious fellowship with Him, — this is religion on its Godward side. Then, turning manward, friendship sums it all up. To be friends with everybody; to fill every human relation with the spirit of friendship; is there anything more than this that the wisest and best of men can hope to do?" The consistent avowal of this faith has always put Dr. Gladden among the leaders who turned away from dogma to the practical test of con- duct. In consequence, his right to stay in the fellowship of the church was called in question; but as a " Stay-inner" rather than as a " Come- outer," he preferred to hold to fellowship that was dear and needful, and that, as differences once emphasized have disappeared, has grown increasingly dear. Of his feeling on this point he speaks very clearly: "The duty of liberal men to stay in the churches to which they belong — if they can be tolerated there — and, by kindness and patience and fidelity to the truth as they see it, to do what they can to enlighten and broaden the fellowship of those churches, has always appeared to me very plain." How far such conduct on the part of a few leaders has liberalized popular opinion is illus- trated by the fact, cited in this connection, that in the early seventies Dr. Gladden stood alone in a company of twenty Congregational clergy- men in feeling that it was safe to tell the people that the verse 1 John, 5: 7, was admitted by scholars to be spurious. Dr. Gladden was for several years, from 1871 to 1875, engaged in editorial work on the staff of "The Independent." In that capacity he contended vigorously against "immoral theol- ogy," as he unequivocally termed the Calvinistic theories. The issue can perhaps be best stated in the concluding words of one of his editorials, reproduced in this volume: "For our own part we say, with all emphasis, that between such a theology as this and atheism we should promptly choose the latter." In his pulpit he has never hesitated to speak with equal directness, and in mentioning various calls to undertake educational work he expresses himself as follows: "I do not believe that there is any place of influence in the world in which a man can be as free as in the Christian pulpit. . . . Unquestionably there is cowardice and subserviency in the pulpit, as everywhere else. But there need not be. ... I have been saying things, with no sense of restraint, during the last fifty years, that I should not have been so likely to say if I had been a journalist or a college professor. ... I doubt if any other kind of work would have given me so large an opportunity as my churches in North Adams and Springfield and Columbus have given me to speak my deepest thought. "But it has not all been criticism or controversy. How far from it! The great themes of the ideal life are, after all, the supreme interests. The insights, the aspirations, the convictions, the hopes, the purposes which flow into our lives from the realms about us and above us —how much of our peace and strength depend upon them! These things of the Spirit are the great realities. The existence of that world in which our higher nature dwells and from which we draw our inspirations is not a matter of conjecture. Herbert Spencer himself, the great agnostic, declared that we are more sure of the Unknown Reality, out of which all physical forces and laws proceed, than we are of our own existence. By our scientific logic we cannot define it, but we cannot think without assuming it. And that which our scientific logic cannot define is made known to us in our religious experience. It is with these realities of the unseen realm that our faith makes us acquainted. And these, after all, are the < fountain light of all our day, the master light of all our seeing.' It is in the light of them that everything else gets value and significance. They are the only certainties." Especially the conclusion of this passage is note- worthy. The abiding sense of spiritual verities, together with the idea of God's friendship,— these two things are the cardinal points of all Dr. Gladden's teaching and living. More than once Dr. Gladden has been instru- mental in the settlement of social and political questions. He initiated and guided to its suc- cessful consummation the movement to amend 48 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL the Constitution of Ohio abolishing the October elections. He also drafted the petition to Presi- dent Roosevelt, in 1902, to intervene in the coal strike. All facts of this sort are modestly men- tioned in this volume, but they may serve here to call attention to the deep sympathy with the working classes that has always characterized his ministry. On the duty of the clergy to inform themselves upon social and economic questions, he expresses himself very strongly. "The plea of religious teachers that they are incom- petent to deal with social questions is a fearful self- accusation. They have no right to be incompetent. Whatever else they are ignorant of, they must not be ignorant respecting matters which concern the very life of the organization they represent. . . . Shall the teacher of religion confess that in the arena where char- acter is mainly lost or won, where the life of the church is at stake, where the destiny of the nation is trembling in the balance, he is unfit for efficient service?" Space forbids further consideration of this interesting and suggestive volume. The just and kindly characterizations of many men of distinction, the occasional flashes of humor, and the sense for diction everywhere shown, make it a book that is hard to lay aside till the last page has been read. But the best thing about it all is that it reveals the personality of the author. Lewis A. Rhoades. The Government of Cities.* Among recent substantial additions to the literature of municipal affairs are two notable books by Professors Goodnow and Munro, law- yers and political scientists both, who have set forth the product of recent research in that always interesting field of our "conspicuous failure." Their purposes are distinct, but they have an important relation, and the conjunction is interesting. Mr. Munro's three chapters are so many monographs, describing with intense concreteness and little generalization the present condition of French, Prussian, and English cities. Mr. Goodnow, on the other hand, is analytical. For him, the " city," whenever and wherever he can find it, is a political and admin- istrative form, whose evolution is to be traced, whose structure and functions are to be studied, that he may discover the laws of its being, the principles of its organization. We have long been told that, whatever the constitutional unsatisfactoriness of European * The Government of European Cities. By William Bennett Munro, Ph.D. New York: The Macmillan Co. Municipal Government. By Frank J. Goodnow. New York: The Century Co. states, their cities at least are well governed. Mr. Munro's book is intended, the author says, to provide an "introduction to the study" of those foreign city governments. About one-half the volume is given to the cities of England; the remainder, in equal portions, to those of France and Prussia. In each case an historical intro- duction gives us the background for our picture of the present day commune, or Stadt, or borough; then follows an account of the repre- sentative bodies and the magistracies, their re- spective powers and their relations to each other. Incidentally, numerous striking features are described, to a very few of which attention may here be directed. A singularly valuable feature of Mr. Munro's book is the discussion of elections. Suffrage qualifications, parties and their methods, pro- visions against corrupt practices, the calibre of men elected, — all these and other features are treated elaborately. Regarding supplementary elections, required when the first ballot shows no majority or an insufficient proportion of the registration, it is perhaps a little surprising to find a preference shown for the French over the Prussian system. The Prussian voter must choose between the two standing highest at the first balloting; the Frenchman is free, and may even elect, by a mere plurality, one not men- tioned at the first ballot. However, he concludes that in both cases equally the system encourages a first ballot that is scattering and ineffectual, inconsiderable factions making such showing as they can to win recognition from the favorities. The protection of the voter's independence by a secret ballot, he shows to be utterly wanting in Prussia; with the result (partly due to other causes) that abstention is an evil of serious pro- portions. In France, he says, the ballot is secret only when the voter " troubles to make it so," and apparently it is made a matter of trouble to him. The American reader cannot fail to be struck with the shortness of the ballot abroad. The annual choice of a councillor or two, possibly a prominent executive officer also, is an electoral task which the voter can be expected to perform with some degree of satisfaction. It is feared that much of the " intelligent vote " in America would wander, hopelessly lost, on our vast blanket-ballots, but for the convenient party emblem. In these days of legislation by statute or constitution as the cure-all for our municipal pains, it will be wholesome to reflect that the change in English boroughs, from 1832 when conditions were " about as bad as they could well be," to the admired present, was wrought by an alteration in 1910.] THE DIAL 49 the "spirit not the form of local administration, for the organs of municipal government . . . are now almost exactly the same in structure and in functions as they were before 1835." Professor Goodnow has long been regarded as an expert in municipal affairs; in lecture, text- book, scientific treatise, and commission report, he has been forming opinion and solving prob- lems with increasing influence and authority. We suspect that college classes may be disap- pointed in his present book. His paragraphs do not lend themselves readily to analysis and orderly grouping; the paragraph headings are useless and often misleading; the argument is sometimes obscurely developed. But it is not as text-writer that we value Mr. Goodnow; rather is he an expert, whose opinions we must have and shall rely on. And the book is crammed with suggestive comment, comparison, conclu- sion. After introducing us to the phenomena of urban life generally, he devotes several chap- ters to an historical exposition of the thesis that cities have progressively played their part as (1) city-states, (2) mere administrative districts of states, (3) local political beings, having needs of their own and requiring organization adapted to those needs. At once we are in the presence of the problem with which our author seems to be constantly preoccupied; viz.,municipal home- rule. It is interesting to observe that he regards home rule as desirable, not in itself and of course, but only where populations are fit to be entrusted with the right to vary municipal policy, and when municipal policy may be varied without detriment to the state. Centralization, he has told us before, may be legislative or administra- tive. He now observes that England has for some years past been experimenting with the continental method, and has found that this substitution of administrative for legislative control, instead of repressing local life, has "been accompanied by a great increase" in municipal activity. He distinctly favors a further introduction of administrative control among us. He believes that "the legislature must in the nature of things be a partisan po- litical body," and, as we should readily agree, administrative control stands a better chance of being firm, consistent, and expert. The author is well persuaded that America is wrong in the method by which she distributes powers to municipalities. Enumeration of powers granted by the legislature, and strict limitation to those powers by the judiciary, — the municipal corporation on the same plane with any private corporation, bearing the burden of that hostile presumption which public welfare requires that the ordinary corporation shall bear, — this arrangement is inconvenient and unjust to cities; for the latter are public rather than private bodies, and the first requisite for the public welfare is that their powers shall be adequate. The Continental method is preferred, endowing cities with powers by general grant, limited only at need by general legislation, or more conveniently by the devices of administra- tive control, a system which affords sufficient safeguards but allows free growth according to varying circumstances. Having thus dealt with the position of the city in the modern state, Professor Goodnow devotes a chapter each to the Executive, the Council, and the Participation of the People; and then a chapter each to the five great admin- istrative departments of Police, Charities and Correction, Education, Local Improvements, and Finance. He holds that the city electorate in the United States is not properly safeguarded, and has doubts, therefore, of the general utility of the municipal referendum. As to the city legislature, it is interesting to observe that "both practical men and theorists . . . are tending towards a partial rehabilitation of the municipal council." The commission system has this important characteristic, that in con- centrating legislative and administrative author- ity in the same hands it wholly abandons the idea of the separation of powers in city gov- ernment. That principle had never been appli- cable, and the attempt to secure it was found by bitter experience to be "most disastrous." The official system and the organization of its mem- bers presents a very difficult problem, whose discussion brings in valuable incidental remarks on several features of administration in general, e. g., tenure of office, removal for cause, appoint- ment by competitive examination. A properly organized administration must show, (1) amen- ability to popular control, (2) administrative efficiency. The German system sacrifices the former to the latter, the American vice versa. The English system (to which the author con- stantly displays strong leanings) secures both in a high degree. The English administrative officer is well paid, and is thus supplied with a motive for becoming expert; he is protected in office not so much by law as by public opinion; there is an antidote to bureaucracy in his legal position, for he is under, and not superior to, the council com mittee, the non-expert element of the system. Upon the form of the headship of departments conflict has long raged between the advocates of 50 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL the board plan and the single-commissioner plan. Granting that the latter secures greater responsibility, and expecting to be branded as "heretical," Professor Goodnow argues for the board plan, (1) from English and German ex- perience generally, (2) from our own experience in educational administration, (3) because it se- cures greater permanence of tenure in the heads of departments, boards being only gradually re- newed from year to year, (4) because " it is the only form . . . which makes permanently pos- sible popular non-professional administration," that is, that participation of laymen in adminis- tration which he admiringly observes on such a wide scale in Prussia under Gneist's influence. Finally, a word must be said as to the rela- tion of municipalities to public services, the ab- sorbing political issue of " municipal trading." European opinion is almost unanimous that cities should " under proper limitations have the power to enter upon the field of municipal ownership and operation, and even in the United States opinion is gradually coming to approximate the opinion of Europe," though as yet few American cities have the requisite legal powers. Local regulation of transportation services has often proved unsatisfactory, partly because of the in- adequate legal powers of cities, partly because of inefficiency and corruption in their govern- ments. Possibly for this part of the problem a proper solution has been found in the state commission, already used to good effect by New York and some few other states. But in other departments, lighting, housing, etc., the sphere of direct municipal activity is gradually extend- ing. Private parties can often render better service at less cost, but the question is not only economic ; it is social. "It is wise to endure a slight waste in processes of production in order to secure greater equality in distribution or a greater regard for general social needs." As the sewers have been universally municipalized, so are water-works generally; and other services will probably follow the same way. In every case the city must sit down first and count the cost, for what it gains in general social conven- ience it must pay for, often not from dividends, but in taxes. This absolutely requires that realization of the community of interest between voters and tax-payers that is so essential to so- cial peace, and yet so far from obvious or easy to secure. It was easy and natural, perhaps, in primitive times. It is extremely difficult in these days of highly concentrated wealth and vast voting but property-less populations. Henry R. Spencer. Recent Poetry.* When a poet has '• climbed to the snows of age," his voice may lose something of its warmth and richness, but acquire in their place the note of prophecy. "From labours through the night, outworn, Above the hills the front of morn, We see, whose eyes to heights are raised, And the world's wise may deem us crazed. While yet her lord lies under seas, She takes us as the wind the trees' Delighted leafage; all in song We mount to her, to her belong." There is little need to name George Meredith as the author of these lines, or of the following equally characteristic quatrains: "Once I was part of the music I heard On the boughs or sweet between earth and sky, For joy of the beating of wings on high My heart shot into the breast of the bird. "I hear it now and I see it fly And a life in wrinkles again is stirred. My heart shoots into the breast of the bird, As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh." These examples from the precious sheaf of Mere- dith's "Last Poems" vividly recall the brave free spirit that winged its flight a few months ago. Sev- eral of the poems offer retrospective pictures of the Napoleonic days at which Meredith's imagination always took fire. "Their facts are going headlong on the tides, Like commas on a line of History's page; Nor that which once they took for Truth abides, Save in the form of youth enlarged from age. "Meantime give ear to woodland notes around, Look on our Earth full-breasted to the sun: So was it when their poets heard the sound, Beheld the scene: in them our days are one." •Last Poems. By George Meredith. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Songs and Poems Old and New. By William Sharp (Fiona Macleod). New York: Duffield &, Co. Mimma Bella. By Eugene Lee-Hamilton. New York: Duffield & Co. New Poemb. By William Watson. New York: The John Lane Co. New Poems. By Richard Le Qallienne. New York: The John Lane Co. Drake. An English Epic. Book I.-XH. By Alfred Noyes. New York: The Frederick A. Stokes Co. The Collected Poemb of Arthur Upson. Edited, with an Introduction, by Richard Burton. Two volumes. Minneapolis: Edmund D. Brooks. The Poemb of William Winter. Author's Edition. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. The Soul's Inheritance, and Other Poems. By George Cabot Lodge. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. The White Beeb, and Other Poems. By Henry van Dyke. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. The Giant and the Star. Little Annals in Rhyme. By Madison Cawein. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. New Poems. By Madison Cawein. London: Grant Richards. Sono for the Ter-Centenary of Lake Champlain. By Clinton Scollard. Clinton: George William Browning. Pro Patria. Verses Chiefly Patriotic. By Clinton Scollard. Clinton: George William Browning. 1910.] 61 THE DIAL Nelson and Trafalgar are the subjects of two noble poems, and the moral drawn from these historical musings is thus convincingly put: "Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are still The three-parts brute which smothers the divine, Heaven answers: Guard it with forethoughtful will, Or buy it; all your gains from War resign. "A land, not indefensibly alarmed, May see, unwarned by hint of friendly gods, Between a hermit crab at all points armed, And one without a shell, decisive odds." Ireland, Russia, and Italy receive generous tributes in this volume. The stanzas upon "The Centenary of Garibaldi " come to this splendid close: -' Down the long roll of History will run The story of these deeds, and speed his race Beneath defeat more hotly to embrace The noble cause and trust to another snn. "And lo, that snn is in Italia's skies This day, by grace of his good sword in part. It beckons her to keep a warrior heart For guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize. "Earth gave him: blessed be the Earth that gave. Earth Master crowned his honest work on earth: Proudly Italia names his place of birth; The bosom of Humanity his grave.'' The stately lines for the Milton tercentenary also call for thankful mention, and we reluctantly refrain from quoting a part of them. Enough has been said to show that these new poems are much more than crumbs swept from the Meredithian board; they constitute indeed a substantial addition to the poet's finer work. Mrs. William Sharp has made a selection from the poems of her late husband, drawing upon the five volumes published under his own name, for the purpose of supplying a companion to the volume which he published under the assumed name of "Fiona Macleod." A few poems never before brought into book form are added to the closing section. One of these later poems, "On a Night- ingale in April," may be taken for our illustration of a poet whose sweet and wistful song has qualities that repay a close examination. "The yellow moon is a dancing phantom Down secret ways of the flowing shade; And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper Where the alders wave. "Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper: Only the moon is a dancing blade That leads a host of the Crescent warriors To a phantom raid. "Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons, A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:— The grey-green glooms of the elm are stirring, Newly afraid. "Last heard, white music, under the olives Where once Theocritus sang and played — Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder O moon-white maid!" Since several of Sharp's volumes are now out of print, this selection of the best in all of them is highly acceptable, coming, as it does, from the hands of the person most competent to make it . The last work done by Eugene Lee-Hamilton took the form of a cycle of twenty-nine sonnets conse- crated to the memory of his lost child who died when but two years old. "Mimma Bella" he caressingly called her, and that is the title given to the poems in which she is enshrined. The one which we quote, beautiful and impressive as it is, offers only a fair average example of the extraor- dinary series to which it belongs. "Mantled in purple dusk, Imperial Death, Thy throne Time's mist, thy crown the clustered stars. Thy orb the world; — did Nature's countless wars Yield insufficient incense for thy breath? "Hadst not enough with all who troop beneath Thy inward-opening gates, whose shadowy bars Give back nor kings in their triumphal cars, Nor the worn throngs that old age hurrieth? "0 sateless Death, most surely it was thou, (A thousand ages, yea, and longer still, Before the words were heard in Galilee) "That saidst with dark contraction of thy brow, While through all Nature ran an icy chill: 'Now let the little children come to me ?'" The pathos of these poems is almost intolerable, but it is redeemed and sanctified by their loveliness. The cycle is a worthy pendant to those " Sonnets of the Wingless Hours " which first revealed to the world the full stature of this poet. The present volume is edited by his widow, who contributes a few pages of biographical notes. Mr. Watson's "New Poems" include the sting- ing and indiscreet verses to "The Woman with a Serpent's Tongue" that recently provided the jour- nalism of two nations with a nine days' sensation. The volume contains much other matter far worthier of attention, and notably — since the author is now a visitor to these shores — a stately invocation " To the Invincible Republic," from which we take pleas- ure in producing the central passage. "And as thou art vast, So are thy perils vast, that evermore In thine own house are bred; nor least of these That fair and fell Delilah, Luxury, That shears the hero's strength away, and brings Palsy on nations. Flee her loveliness, For in the end her kisses are a sword. Strong sons hast thou begotten, natures rich In scorn of riches, greatly simple minds: No land in all the world hath memories Of nobler children: let it not be said That if the peerless and the stainless one, The man of Yorktown and of Valley Forge, — Or he of tragic doom, thy later born, He of the short plain word that thrilled the world And freed the bondman, — let it not be said That if to-day these radiant ones returned, They would behold thee changed beyond all thought From that austerity wherein thy youth Was nurtured, those large habitudes of soul." These lines will illustrate Mr. Watson's chief poetic gift — an aptitude for the fitting characterization of significant men and events. When he attempts 52 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL this task, he is always restrained and dignified, provided only his theme is far enough removed from the passions of his own time and environment. His "Purple East" sonnets, and his denunciation of the war in South Africa, were marred by over- vehemence and cloudiness of judgment. Probably this should be said also of the present lines upon the late King of Belgium, although their effectiveness is not to be denied. "No zeal, no Faith inspired this Leopold, Nor an; madness of half-splendid birth, Merely he loosed the honnds that rend and slay That he might have his fill of loathsome gold. Embalm him, Time! Forget him not, O Earth! Trumpet his name, and flood his deeds with day!" A group of seventeen " Sonnets to Miranda," clearly of the nature of a personal oonfession, forms a con- spicuous feature of this volume. Mr. Watson is not so happy when he affects playfulness, for his gambols are rather like those of a dancing bear. Vivacity is not his affair, and his efforts to be sprightly do not exactly come off. But, despite his misguided experi- ments, he remains one of the noblest of our living poets —a fact strangely forgotten by those who have recently been overwhelming him with vituperation. The "New Poems " of Mr. Richard Le Gallienne seem to be the product of about ten years — at least they go back to the war in South Africa. Most of them are pretty futilities, although now and then a simple, sincere strain appeals to us in the deeper fashion. Such a strain is heard in "The Cry of the Little Peoples." "The Cry of the Little Peoples went np to God in vain; The Czech, and the Pole, and the Finn, and the Schleswig Dane. "We ask but a little portion of the green, ambitions earth; Only to sow and sing and reap in the land of ouj birth." A rather striking story (with a moral) is told in the "Ballad of the Sinful Lover." "Four years he sinned, because she died — With base corroding anodyne He numbed the noble pain in him, Four years he herded with the swine. "And then at last he died, and went, With hurry of immortal feet, To seek in the Eternal Life The face that he had died to meet. "Up all the stairways of the sky Laughing he ran, at every door Of the long corridors of heaven He knocked, and cried out' Heliodore!' "In shining rooms sat the sweet saints, Each at her little task of joy; Old eyes, all young again with heaven, Watched angel girl and angel boy. "And o'er the fields of Paradise, Scattered like flowers, the lovers passed All rainbows — saying each to each Heaven's two words: 'At last! At last!'" But Heliodore would have nothing of the sinner, which is the moral already referred to. It takes courage to write an epic nowadays, but Mr. Alfred Noyes, greatly daring, has essayed no less a task, and carried it to triumphant success. His subject is " Drake," probably the greatest epic theme that English history can offer, and his poem is a full-blooded composition of such high and sus- tained interest that it makes breathless reading, and causes us almost to forget that we are dealing with a supposedly outworn literary form. It culminates, of course, in the defeat of the Armada, and its heightened diction may be adequately illustrated by this passage: "None but the everlasting voice Of him who fought at Salamis might sing The fight of that dread Sabbath. Not mankind Waged it alone. War waged in heaven that day, Where Michael and his angels drave once more The hosts of darkness ruining down the abyss Of Chaos. Light against darkness, Liberty Against all dark old despotism, unsheathed The sword in that great hour. Behind the strife Of men embattled deeps beyond all thought Moved in their awful panoply, as move Silent, invisible, swift, under the clash Of waves and flash of foam, huge ocean glooms And vast reserves of inappellable power. The bowsprits ranked on either fore-front seemed But spear-heads of those dread antagonists Invisible: the shuddering sails of Spain Dusk with the shadow of death, the sunward sails Of England full-fraught with the breath of God." This noble poem is almost worthy to be named in the same breath with Swinburne's magnificent ode upon the same subject, and it was, indeed, completed just in time to greet the eye of the master now dead, and to win his unstinted praise. The " Collected Poems of the late Arthur Upson" are published in two dignified and almost sumptuous volumes, with an editorial introduction by Professor Richard Burton. From this introduction we learn that the poet was born in Camden, N. Y., in 1877, that he was busily writing at the tender age of nine, that in 1894 he removed to St. Paul and entered the University of Minnesota, that his college life was suspended from 1896 to 1900 on account of ill health, that it was finally resumed and all but com- pleted, that in 1906 he was appointed an instructor in the University, and that in 1908, at the age of thirty-one, he was drowned from his boat in a Minne- sota lake. We may hardly say of him, in view of the volume and value of his accomplished perform- ance, that he is to be classed with "the inheritors of unfilled renown ;" but we may express a more than perfunctory regret that the springs of a fountain of beauty should have been sealed in such untimely and tragic fashion. The evidence is clear in these two volumes that their author was a poet of the kind that can transmute all experience into beauty, and that our literature suffered no ordinary loss in his death. He had not become widely known, although no less than seven volumes of his verse were published before he died, and he had won the esteem of those whose business it is to keep themselves informed con- cerning the poetic movement. Aldrich, for example once wrote: "I am afraid he is too fine for imrae' 1910.] 53 THE DIAL. diate popularity; but that does n't matter. It is not the many but the few that give a man his place in literature. The many are engaged canning meat and manipulating pious life insurance companies." Certainly he was not one of the "Failures" char- acterized in his fine sonnet thus entitled. "They bear no laurels on their sunless brows, Nor aught within their pale hands as they go; They look as men accustomed to the slow And level onward course 'neatli drooping boughs. Who may these be no trumpet doth arouse, These of the dark processionals of woe, Unpraised, unblamed, but whom sad Acheron's flow Monotously lulls to leaden drowse? These are the Failures. Clutched by Circumstance, They were — say not too weak! — too ready prey To their own fear whose fixed Gorgon glanoe Made them as stone for aught of great essay; — Or else they nodded when their Master-Chance Wound his one signal, and went on his way." Of the thirty-three stanzas that bloom "In an Oxford Garden" we cull two of the fairest. "Some dust of Eden eddies round us yet. Some clay o' the Garden, clinging in the breast, Down near the heart yet bides unmanifest. Last eve in gardens strange to me I let The path lead far; and, lo, my vision met Old, forfeit hopes. I, as on homeward quest. By recognizing trees was bidden rest, And pitying leaves looked down and sighed,' Forget.'" "A great nelnmbo heavy on the breast Of heaven's tranquil lake must be the moon Above this garden in the still night's noon, Bending the gold of her refulgent crest. Thus to the surface of these days of rest Through all my absent idlesse, late and soon, The thought of you doth blossom and the boon Of the dear face that waits me down the West." As an example of the pure lyric, it would not be easy to match the following: "Flame at the core of the world, And flame in the red rose-tree; The one is the fire of the ancient spheres, The other is Junes to be; And, oh, there's a flame that is both their flames Here at the heart of me! "As strong as the fires of stars, As the prophet rose-tree true, The fire of my life is tender and wild, Its beauty is old and new; For out of the infinite past it came With the love in the eyes of you!" The range of this poet is wide, and he finds inspira- tion alike under home and alien skies. Many of his pieces are occasional or tributary, fancies elab- orated at sight of some quaint object or compelling monument, at thought of some noble deed or heroic soul. He has the Midas touch that turns every- thing to gold. And often, when some matter of deep human concern compels his imagination, his utterance becomes prophetic. His fine sonnet on "The Statue of Liberty (New York Harbour, A. D. 2900) " sounds a needed note of warning to an over-complacent nation. "Here once, the records show, a land whose pride Abode in Freedom's watchword! And once here The port of traffic for a hemisphere, With great gold-piling cities at her side! Tradition says, superbly once did bide Their sculptured goddess on an island near, With hospitable smile and torch kept clear For all wild hordes that sought her o'er the tide. 'T was centuries ago. But this is true: Late the fond tyrant who misrules our land, Bidding his serfs dig deep in marshes old, Trembled, not knowing wherefore, as they drew From out this swampy bed of ancient mould A shattered torch held in a mighty hand." This is worthy to be set beside Aldrich's no finer son- net, "Unguarded Gates." The more we delve within this quarry, the more we bring treasure-trove to the surface. Sweetness and light, intelligence and spirituality, are here, and always united with a fluent and admirable technique. Two of the longer poems are dramatic in form, and a third of this kind, "Gauvaine of the Retz," went down with the poet in his Lake Spezzia of Minnesota. We have space only to quote the gnomic lines which end "The Tides of Spring," a dramatic romance of ancient Scotland. "I think each soul spins wisely as he may, And God, who weaves the garment of this life, Draws tight the meshes of our crossing threads, And bleaches in the sunshine of His love." "The Poems of William Winter" again offer us an example of a poet's collected life-work, in this case, however, of one whose chief distinction is that of the essayist and dramatic critic, and, happily, of one who in advanced age still lives to exemplify unchilled sensibilities and undimmed intellectual vigor. Mr. Winter's poetical output lias been con- siderable, and even this large volume includes only the author's final selection from a much larger mass of material. He is an adept in the facile old- fashioned rhythms, and is most felicitous when pay- ing tribute to some great spirit or mourning the loss of some cherished friend. His feelings " At Shake- speare's Grave" are thus expressed: "Here the divinest of all thoughts descended: Here the sweet heavens their sweetest boon let fall: Upon this hallowed ground began and ended The life that knew, and felt, and uttered all." It is a commonplace thought, perhaps, but one made beautiful by sincerity of feeling. From the "Coronal for Stedman " — a fifty years' associate — we take these stanzas: "Thy soul is music: from its deeps o'erflowing, — With the glad freedom of the wild-bird's wing, Where icy gales o 'er sunlit seas are blowing, — It sings because divinely born to sing. "No stain is on thy banner: grandly streaming, Its diamond whiteness leads the tuneful host, Forever in the front of honor beaming, And they that knew thee best must love thee most." This singer's wonted garb is that of a graceful and tender melancholy, and it becomes him well. Possi- bly a bit too sentimental or lachrymose in his strain, he is nevertheless a warm-hearted and appealing 54 [Jan. 16, THE DIA1, poet, whose voice we would notwillingly miss from the chorus of the now swiftly-dying generation. And it is a voice that has never been raised, either in verse or prose, save for things lovely and of good report. The poems collected under the title of ''The Soul's Inheritance" were prepared for publication by George Cabot Lodge just before his death. They are eight in number, and embody a novel structural plan. In each case, the main body of the poem (usually in heroic verse) is followed by a group of three sonnets, rounding out the thought. Mr. Lodge dwelt in an atmosphere of large abstractions, typified by such lines as these: "Sun, moon, and stars — inviolate firmament — Phases of earth's inveterate alchemy Of life and death — profound tranquillities, Thunders and trepidations of the sea — How often have you been to man in spirit A liberation and an ecstasy! How often has the soul gone forth with you, As with the tide, a stranded caravel Issues by noble estuaries, impelled By streaming winds and led by the low sun, Into the light, into the infinite spaces!" Such verse as this is dignified, but hardly escapes the charge of being turgid also. One of the poems, "Love in Life," is written mostly in octosyllabics, and we quote the concluding sonnet for the sake of the unwonted measure. "I saw her sandals of grave gold Move on the marble, soft as light, Her motion was like birds in flight; The bountiful, the new, the old Deep secret that no tongue has told Was born of her—as is the white First flame of day-break from the night. As song-birds wake, as flowers unfold. And then I kissed her sandals of Grave gold, and kissed her hands and mouth; And knew how more serene than song, How spacious and how strong is Love! -— Spacious as thought is of the truth; Strong as the conscious soul is strong." Two of these poems are occasional — one written for the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the other for a Forefather's Day celebration. Mr. Henry van Dyke is a felicitous writer of occasional and personal verse, and we take pleasure in extracting from his new volume, "The White Bees," two of the four stanzas which he read at the funeral of Mr. Stedman. "The blue of springtime in your eyes Was never quenched by pain; And winter brought your head the crown Of snow without a stain. The poet's mind, the prince's heart, You kept until the end, Nor ever faltered in your work, Nor ever failed a friend. "You followed, through the quest of life, The light that shines above The tumult and the toil of men, And shows us what to love. Right loyal to the best you knew, Reality or dream, You ran the race, you fought the fight, A follower of the Gleam." From Mr. Madison Cawein we have two new volumes. In "The Giant and the Star'' he works a new and charming vein, for the book is a collection of poems which view the world with the eyes of a child. "Whenever on the windowpane I hear the fingers of the rain, And in the old trees, near the door, The wind that whispers more and more, Bright in the light made by the lamp I make myself a hunter's camp. "The shadows of the desk and chairs Are trees and woods: the corners, lairs Where wolves and wildcats lie in wait For anyone who walks too late; Upon my knees with my toy-gun I hunt and slaughter many a one." This is an excursion into Stevenson's own child garden, and there are others equally awesome in their suggested possibilities. There are also accounts of "Toyland" and "The Land of Candy," which should make any child's eyes and mouth water. We are a little dubious about the pieces in which "The Boy Next Door " figures, for the youth seems to be a graceless iconoclast. "And he said that Old King Cole Was a fraud upon the whole; Never had a fiddler That could fiddle any where By the side of him; and joked While he drank the vilest brew From a cracked old bowl; and smoked Worse tobacco; smiling, too. "Cinderella, too! why, she Was a slomp; just naturally Would n't work; and had big feet — Could have seen them 'cross the street. Didn't marry a Prince at all, But the ashman. Never at Court Or a ball! She had her gall To put that in her report!" Mr. Cawein's "New Poems" is an English edition, from which we infer than the poems may not all be new for American readers. But many of them certainly are, such as the "North Star" series of sonnets, and the centenary tributes to Poe and Lincoln. We quote one of the sonnets. "There is a place among the Cape Ann hills That looks from fir-dark summits on the sea, Whose surging sapphire changes constantly Beneath deep heavens, morning windowsills With golden calm, or sunset citadels With storm, whose towers the winds' confederacy And bandit thunder hold in rebel fee, Swooping upon the fisher's sail that swells. A place where Sorrow ceases to complain, And Life's old cares put all their burdens by, And Weariness forgets itself in rest. Would that all life were like it; might obtain Its pure repose, its outlook, strong and high, That sees, beyond, far Islands of the Blest." In such work as this, and some other that we have observed of late, Mr. Cawein seems to be acquiring the touch of virility which has hitherto been lacking in his work, — to be no longer satisfied with the rich imagery and melodic loveliness that formerly suf- ficed him. 1910.] 55- THE DIAL Being on the spot, and a poet of approved worth, it was fitting that Mr. Clinton Scollard should write the "Song for the Ter-Centenary of Lake Cham- plain" to grace the celebration of last July. His poem is in quatrains — numbering thirty-two — and the hero is thus characterized: "Roland and Bayard ! — he was kin to these; Swerved he no more than magnet from the pole As forth he sailed upon the uncharted seas With dreams of high adventure in his soul. "What foes he faced, what dangers dread he dared, — Patient in peace, in war unwavering! Unmoved he toiled, unmurmuring he fared, Like saintly Louis, the beloved king. "Since then the great Recorder of the Days Thousands has scrolled upon his golden book, Yet still a sheet of shimmering chrysophrage The great lake spreads for whomsoe'er may look." In "Pro Patria," Mr. Scollard gives us a score of pieces, ballads, and lyrics, upon themes belonging to American history. We quote some simple verses upon Lafayette. "He left the pleasant primrose-bowers, The paths of ease, He sought a soldier's arduous hours Far o'er the seas. "Within his high, impulsive heart Burned freedom's flame, And he espoused the patriots' part With ardent aim. "He fought unfaltering till the end, — The goal, — was won; The fearless and the faithful friend Of Washington." Correct in sentiment, but hardly more than mechani- cal, Mr. Scollard's verses may be allowed a humble niche in the temple of our patriotic minstrelsy. William Morton Payne. Briefs ox New Books. Judged according to President Had- tiuSZ&Z:' lev's recent definition of culture - "the opposite of absorption in the obvious " — Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton is one of the most cultured of mortals. It is the unobvious that he sees in every incident, in every commonplace ob- ject, in every person; his whole life, indeed, seems to be passed in absorption in the unobvious. His latest book, " Tremendous Trifles " (Dodd, Mead & Co.), is made up of thirty-nine short talks on the unsuspected significance of common things. "Let us exercise the eye," exhorts the author, "until it learns to see the startling facts that run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud." The commonest things, in his hands, become fruitful of suggestion and instruction and entertainment. Once he planned to write a book of poems about the things in his pockets ; but he found it would be too long, and the age of the great epics is past. In one chapter we have metaphysics, " the only thoroughly emotional thing," in an animated inquiry into the meaning of Certainty — even more baffling to Mr. Chesterton than the meaning of Truth to some of his contem- poraries. Amusing, to those acquainted with the author, must be his conception of himself as a pigmy viewing the smallest objects as thing's of vast bulk. He aspires not to climb high mountains and over- look the kingdoms of the earth. "I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help," he declares; "but I will not lift up my carcass to the hills, unless it is absolutely necessary," a not un- natural resolution, considering his weight and bulk. These hasty sketches, reprinted from the London "Daily News," are not uniformly admirable or in- teresting,—in fact, they contain pages of whimsical trifling wherein the author seems to be writing only to fill his allotted space; but they also contain obser- vations and reflections that are so fresh, so droll, so shrewd, or so suggestive, as to make the book well worth reading. Thettrentiih ^he main thesis of the stimulating and weakliest book by "A Diplomatist," on out- er diplomacy. "American Foreign Policy" (Hough- ton), is that "A purely defensive diplomacy on the part of a great state is as much a heresy as is a navy built only for defense." We are open, says the author, to attack in two quarters — South America and the Orient; yet we are without allies. For a century we were indifferent to foreign intercourse; but the acquisition of the Philippines, which are a source of diplomatic and military weakness, has put us in the same position as other nations with Asiatic possessions, and we must imitate their policies. This can be done without an absolute abandonment of our traditional policy of no entangling alliances. The problem is to find a desirable partner for mutual insurance, with no conflicting interests. Our dearest foreign policy, the Monroe Doctrine, is as likely to be attacked in Manila as in the Caribbean. Dip- lomacy would be a far better means of defense than an enormous military establishment. The history of England in Egypt is a case in point. She first secured the consent of disinterested nations, and finally that of France, which at first viewed this policy through the cannon's sight. Germany and Italy are the nations most likely to attack the Monroe Doctrine; but at present the latter is in no position to do so. If we could now secure the assent of Great Britain, Russia, and France, while Italy is weak, she would not later dare to oppose us. In this way also Germany and her ally (Austria) might be check-mated. That is, something like this might be done, if we did not recklessly throw away every pawn. A bit of African jungle is no tempting for- eign possession, but it might be valuable to cede for just such recognition of the Monroe Doctrine as has been suggested. Yet we foolishly declined to take shares in the Morrocan bank. Likewise we failed to lay Japan under any obligation to us, though we were decidedly friendly toward her in the recent 56 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL war with RuBsia and were the first to abandon the legation at Seoul. Now it is our turn to ask favors, and we have nothing on the other side of the ledger. The Monroe Doctrine defines our policy toward Europe in South American affairs, but it is a nega- tive policy on our part toward that region itself. It is now time to develop an active South American policy, —- or, rather, two policies. South of the Orinoco our policy should be that of disinterested friendliness; north of that region it should be to maintain a sort of suzerainty. The latter might be called our Caribbean policy, as it must apply to all territory in that region. The Piatt amendment was only a foolish tying of hands in Cuba to put off the inevitable. Such, in outline, is the foreign policy which "A Diplomatist" sets before us. It is not a pleasant prospect to contemplate, but we must con- fess that the author's reasoning is not altogether illogical, if our faces are to remain set as they are at present. — , , . Those who remember Macaulay's The last days . » of papal Rome, vigorous condemnation of papal mis- government, recorded in his journal in 1848, will turn with lively interest to Signor R. de Cesare's " Last Days of Papal Rome " ( Houghton), in order to study in more detail the features of Roman administration, and to discover whether Pius IX. had mitigated the evils of priestly rule which the English traveller summed up in the sen- tence, " Old women above, liars and cheats below — that is the Papal administration." The subject has also a larger interest, because it is the fall of a princely power, the beginnings of which run back to the last days of the Roman empire. The spectacle of such a fall has deep dramatic significance. It was something more than a tragic close of an ancient rule; it was the vanishing of the final barrier to the completion of the great task of Italian unification. Signor de Cesare's treatment ignores none of these elements of interest; but it has other claims upon our attention. To the student of types of character, it offers that finer kind of gossip out of which one is able to gain impressions of the personality of the principal actors in the drama, — Pius IX., Cardinal Antonelli, the Duke of Sermoneta, and of Mgr. de Merode. Some of de Cesare's stories of Pius IX. remind one of those told by Grant Duff. The Pope certainly had a sense of humor, which occasionally found strange manifestations. For example, after Mentana he received the victors over Garibaldi by declaiming "in a loud voice the first octave of 'Gerusalemme Liberate,' to the great amusement of all present"; and in 1870, an hour after the white flag had been raised over the Porta Pia, he "re- sumed his easy good-humor, and, seating himself at his writing-table, composed in all tranquillity a charade in three verses on the word tremare (to tremble)." In his serious moods the Pope was no less individual. De Cesare describes the intense interest he took in the direction of the discussions on the doctrine of papal infallibility. After the results of the war of 1859 have been explained, the interest of the volume centres about the attempts to settle the Roman question, of which the most startling were the schemes of Cavour and Ricasoli. These were the first steps toward the Law of Guarantees. The fate of Father Passaglia, who was one of the negotiators, recalls the recent painful experiences, in another field of reconciliation, of the Modernists. De Cesare brings out clearly the weak and hesitant policy of the Italian ministry on the eve of Mentana. He notes, apropos of the battle, that although the French chassepots may have done "wonders," the "Sttttzen carbines of the Pontificals were more murderous." In reference to the book as a whole it may be added that those who know the Rome of the present day will find many interesting pages on the topography and social organization of the city of a generation or two ago. "It is a recognized fact that the work fJZZTvZS.* the world is largely done by neu- l'asthenes." Whether this sentiment is likely to receive wide endorsement or not, the story reported by Dr. Margaret A. Cleaves in "The Auto- biography of a Neurasthene" (Richard Badger) tells a remarkable tale of success in the active practice of medicine on the part of one who, by reason of weak inheritance, dwelt for years in the dismal shadow of neurasthenia. The incapacitating effect of this most serious handicap to success seems in this case to have been met by an indomitable will; and it is an open question how far the advice, "Go thou and do like- wise," may really be offered to those of like condition. It seems to make surprising differences in the inter- ference with normal life which this dread disorder induces, whether it attacks one group of activities or emotions, or another. But there can be no doubt that the most courageous persons are the neurasthenics, who accomplish all their ordinary tasks in spite of the terrific, if irrational, fear which obsesses them. It is indeed a notable document that is recorded in this unusual autobiography. Here and there are inconsistencies, both of statement, of attitude, and of grammar; but on the whole the account rings true, even though disguised in the interests of anonymity. Its reading may be recommended as a consolation to nervous invalids, and as a warning to those who by temperament are likely to become so. a book for In *ke preface to his work on "Sailing the lover of Ships" (Lippincott), Mr. E. Keble •ailino c-aft. Chatterton states that his history has been written "primarily for the general reader." Yet the sort of general reader he has in mind surely has sea-legs under him and a weather-eye suffi- ciently peeled to distinguish a "butter-rigged" top- sail schooner in the offing from one whose to'gallant sail is not set flying, or a genuine barque from the "jackass " variety. To understand Mr. Chatterton's book, the reader must be a real sailor-man, who knows what brails and braces are, as well as the difference between a to'gallant yard and a stun'sail 1910] THE DIAli 57 boom, — no mere fore-and-aft fresh-water man, but a genuine sea-dog such as has become a rarity even in the navy. Fancy the sympathy and horror of a land-lubber upon reading that "running with her bonnet off, she gripes badly." He might fancy that Mr. Chatterton referred to some poor old lady with the colly-wobbles, instead of a Norfolk wherry labor- ing with shortened sail in a gale of wind. Decidedly, then, Mr. Chatterton's volume is not for the "gen- eral reader," but for him who loves salt water — for the sport-loving sailor, in fact, who believes that the sailing ship bears the same superiority over the mere steamer that the horse does over the automobile. To such a reader it will be heartily welcome, for it traces succinctly — and clearly, if one understands sailor's talk—the history of the sailing ship from the first Egyptian craft of which we have knowledge down to the time when a Gloucester boat left the ways so gracefully that a bystander, exclaiming "See how she scoons !" added the word " schooner" to the language; aye, even to the day of the racing machines that defend the America's cup. It is just the sort of book to have for handy reference on board the yacht when one sits on deck in the gloam- ing of the second dog-watch smoking a pipe and arguing with a nautical friend. It is a book, too, for the marine artist, its one hundred and thirty illustrations being technically correct; in a word, a ready means to prevent the sad mistakes that mar the average marine-drawing for the sailor-man's eye. Though not a work for the land-lubber, it should find a place on the book-shelf of every true lover of sail- ing craft. Literature and What mUst 8trike one in reading Mr. advertuina in Lawrence Lewis's "The Advertise- "The Spectator." menta0{ The Spectator" (Houghton) is the comparatively slight difference between the advertisements of the present day and those of the days of Steele. We, of course, advertise more ex- tensively and much more aggressively; we go out into the highways and hedges and compel the buyer to come into our shops. But the advertisers in " The Spectator " were none the less assured of the supe- riority of their goods to all others, as witness: "The most acute and violent Tooth-ache instantly cured, by a liquid remedy prepared without Mercury." The accompanying pictures of the dismal persons cured were reserved for our long-suffering age. Fraudulent schemes now exploited in the Sunday issues of our papers of negligible morals were given the dignity of insertion in the highly moral "Spec- tator." Addison and Steele condemned in their arti- cles what as "practical men" they approved of in their advertising columns. When the " ads " fell off as a consequence of the tax, the paper ultimately died from non-support. That even the "agony column" is not a modern invention for the relief of distressed lovers, the following bears witness: "Florinda, the letter, you was desirous to know, was received." The news "ad" too was not un- known. Thus it seems likely that Addison's seven- teen critiques on "Paradise Lost" were written "with the ulterior motive of promoting the sale of Tonson's edition of Milton's epic." In like manner we find Addison making all manner of fun of Italian opera till the management " came down " with some paying advertisements, when a most complimentary notice appeared. All this is strangely familiar, but we had believed better things of "The Spectator." The book has an interesting selection of specimen advertisements, and through these it throws very valuable light on the times, as well as on some lit- erary questions that had not before been satisfac- torily answered. The peaceful Thfi death of General Gordon conquett of and the subsequent defeat and dis- the Soudan. persal of the Mahdi's forces are matters of history unsurpassed in the annals of the English expansion in Africa for tragic interest. To-day, amid the tropic heat and dust of Khartoum, another conquest is going steadily on, not by cannon and sword, but by the patient, unobserved, unap- plauded and largely unnoticed efforts of a group of investigators and physicians in the scientific depart- ments of Gordon Memorial College of Khartoum. The third "Annual Report" of the Wellcome Re- search laboratories of this institution gives a glimpse of the lines of investigation, fraught with unknown and perhaps untold consequences to the future of this land and the teeming population of the Upper Nile regions; for they are all designed to increase man's knowledge and mastery of that tropical envi- ronment. The Report contains investigations on the diseases of men and of animals due to parasites, including observations on the protozoan, the cause of the much dreaded "sleeping sickness" of man and of allied diseases in lower animals; on poisonous serpents; on the native medical customs and super- stitions, and the healing art as practised by the dervishes; on the insects injurious to fruits, crops, and goods, in storage or transit; and anthropological investigations on the native and sometimes still- savage tribes. No outpost of modern civilization contends with forces of nature and savagery so malign in character, so entrenched by the process of evolution, by custom and by inheritance, as this English colony at Khartoum. The Report, quite aside from its scientific value, is an interesting human document, recording the first steps in this second, and, let us hope, permanent and peaceful conquest of the Soudan for modern civilization. Stage iettingi Much has recently been done toward in the time of the determination of the stage condi- Shaketpeare. ditions under which Shakespeare's plays were presented to their first audiences, as well in special monographs like Brodmeier's and Reynolds's as in the more general works of Schelling and Baker. It is well to know that the Shakespearian stage is not a mere matter of curtains, which itinerant dramatic companies can foist upon the public at a convenient cost to themselves. The latest treatise 68 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL, upon this subject is Dr. Victor E. Albright's "The Elizabethan Stage" (Macmillan), which appears with the imprimatur of Columbia University. A study is made of the rude staging of the old miracle plays, the interludes, and the moralities, so as to trace the development of the stage to Shakespeare; and a corresponding study is made of the Restora- tion stage so as to carry back what is evidently a survival from the time of Shakespeare. In this way a determination of the actual stage of Shake- speare's time is made from both ends. The con- clusion arrived at is that" the typical Shakespearian stage contained the following parts: an outer and an inner stage separated by a curtain, two proscen- ium doors, a gallery closed by a curtain, two balcony windows, and a ' hut.'" There was, of course, no curtain of any kind in front, nor was the curtain at the back painted; consequently there was no "per- spective in scenes" such as came in with D'Avenant at the Restoration. The stage was therefore not a part of indefinite space, as with us, but a mere room or enclosure. There were very few properties, only enough to indicate the character of the scene. Everything was arranged for the presentation of the play with as little loss of time as possible. The audience was of imagination all compact, and did not need the elaborate background of a modern theatri- cal production. A.oundmind An extremely interesting group of with the aid of essays by ten distinguished physi- a sound bodv. cians js published under the just now popular title of "Psychotherapeutics" (Richard Badger). They form the addresses given at New Haven, in May of this year, at a meeting of the American Therapeutic Society, devoted wholly to this topic. These essays will appeal to the physi- cian who has no special acquaintance with nervous disorders, and equally to the layman who has. They cover a variety of aspects of this question, such as the value of hypnotic suggestion, the treatment of fatigue states by mental means, the methods of analysis (which amount to a special psychological technique), the application of similar measures to prevent disaster in childhood, the relation of char- acter to psychotherapy, and the several medical and psychological purposes underlying this form of pro- ducing a sound mind with the aid of a sound body. The general impression of this symposium is at once to enforce a caution against the shallow or hasty use of psychotherapeutics, and equally a very encour- aging endorsement of its value when applied with the expertness and technique indispensable to every art. BRIEFER MENTION. Mr. Henry Frowde publishes an "Oxford edition" of the "Poems of Robert Southey" in two forms, one being somewhat higher-priced than the other. Mr. Maurice H. Fitzgerald has edited this work, which will be very welcome as a compact representation of a poet who gets something less of attention from modern readers than is his due. It includes the four epics, "Thalaba," "The Curse of Kehama," " Roderick," and "Madoc," besides a large selection from the rest of Southey's poetical writings. We may say quantum satis, on the whole, despite our usual objection to editions that are less than complete. Miss Mary B. Ehrmann is the composer of two col- lections of songs for young people, "The Child's Song Treasury " and " The Child's Song Garden," both pub- lished by Messrs. H. W. Willis & Co. Her selection of texts for musical setting is excellent, nearly all of the poems having some value as literature, and particularly as literature within the reach of a child's appreciation. Both melodies and accompaniments are simple and graceful. "The Englishman in Italy " is a very charming little book published by Mr. Henry Frowde. It is edited by Mr. George Hyde Wollaston, and quite adequately de- scribed upon its title-page as "a collection of verses written by some of those who have loved Italy." Most of the familiar pieces are here, and some less familiar, but riohly deserving of acquaintance, drawn from the writings of such men as Symonds, Dobell, Trench, Mil- man, and Hare. There is a good equipment of notes and indexes. The first thing to be noted about "Terry's Mexico," a guide-book to our sister republic by Mr. T. Philip Terry, is the marvellous exactitude with which it imi- tates the familiar Baedeker manuals. In every mechani- cal respect, binding, typography, and engraving of maps and plans, it looks as if it might have come straight from the Leipzig establishment. But as a matter of fact, it is a product of the Riverside Press, and, although it is ostensibly published in the City of Mexico, the Houghton Mifflin Co. are its agents in this country. The text also, in arrangement and selection of material, follows the Baedeker example (and there is no better) so closely that nothing is left to be desired. It is a book that is calculated to fill anyone possessed of the traveller's instinct with a wild desire to pack up and set off at once in search of the multitudinously interesting places and objects described in its pages and to be traced in its alluring maps. Nothing iu book form could well be mor