-
ance, with school mortality, with illiteracy, with
legislation upon building construction, with free
text books, and with medical inspection, in order
to reach the final showing, which judges each
state by the ten most important tests of effi-
ciency, and gives to each a general rank in
accordance with the way in which it meets these
tests, besides giving in separate columns its rank
under each separate test. Taking as an example
our own state of Illinois, we find that while its


1913]
88
THE DIAL
general ranking is eight, its special ranking is
as follows:
Children in school . .
. 14
7
Expense per child . . .
. 8
School days per child . .
. 8
Length of school year . .
. 15
11
Expenditure and wealth . .
. 28
13
20
. 11
It obviously behooves us as a commonwealth
to spend upon education something like twice
what we now spend, which would give us third
place in the scale, to do much more than we
now do for high schools, to lengthen the school
year in the rural districts (for it is they that
now bring it down to 171 days), and to get
more of our children into school. These are
the reforms that are ear-marked for us by the
pamphlet, and, effectively made, would enable
us to feel fairly proud of our state. Of course,
as a counsel of perfection, each state of the forty-
«ight should wish to get into the first place, but
as this is obviously impossible, should aim to
outdistance as many of the others as possible.
"The object of this booklet," we are pithily
informed, "is to make the indifferent different."
It can hardly fail of this effect upon the mind
of anyone who gives it an intelligent examina-
tion.
A LITERABY PEACE MOVEMENT.
At a banquet recently held in Paris, when the
spectre of a European war had barely been ban-
ished, a German speaker proudly asserted that
Maupassant was as familiar to German readers as
any native modern writer; and a French speaker
pointed with pride to the familiarity of French
literati with the works of Sudermann and others,—
adding, with a shaft of sarcasm directed at his own
people, that even the "Faust" of Goethe, long a
favorite through the opera of Gounod, was being
prepared for production by M. Antoine!
There was enough, however, in the addresses of
the evening that called to mind some remarks of
Romain Holland, who perhaps knows his French
and knows the Germans as well as any Frenchman
or German living:
"We must not indulge in illusions. We are at present
more ignorant of the world than the men of the past.
Translations of a few foreign novels and a rapid survey of
the papers do not suffice to make one penetrate the genius
of another people. They only relieve us too easily of any
personal effort at knowing them first hand, they favor
ignorance, vanity and laziness. Compare with that shabby
curiosity the eagerness of mind and the untiring labor of a
Voltaire, a Diderot, an Abbe Pr4vost and their friends, not
to mention Leibnitz or Goethe."
There is little doubt that, notwithstanding the
greater facilities of travel, the rapid interchange of
news through the press and the telegraph, and other
features of modern international intercourse, famil-
iarity and sympathy with the intellectual achieve-
ments of the neighbors across the Rhine were greater
in the period of the Huguenot immigration into
Germany, of the royal Francophile Frederick the
Great, and of the French encyclopedists, than it is
now. If, however, the Germans seem more familiar
with French letters than the French with German
literature, it is well to remember that the Huguenot
element was so thoroughly assimilated in the Ger-
man people that its influence lingers in many a
German town, and in a part of Berlin which they
had called Moabit, where French is to this day the
dominant language in a college likewise dating from
that period. But the violent reaction against any-
thing French which succeeded the Napoleonic inva-
sion of a century ago seems no less justified than the
indifference of the French to-day towards German
literature of the decades following upon the war of
1870-1. For the patriotism of a people is ever at
the beck and call of the powers who need the backing
of the mass for the realization of their plans, and
the chauvinism of a nation is rooted in ignorance
and nurtured by misguided patriotism.
Yet the tide of intellectual sympathies does not
always swell and subside with the tide of political
developments. Said Ludwig Borne in " Die Wage"
in the year 1836:
"The political history of a people is the biography of its
egotism, but the literature is the history of its humanitarian
life, for it does not stop before legal barriers, or geological
frontiers, but leaps across laws, customs, antipathies, and
prejudices."
Thus in the wake of the post-Napoleonic Franco-
phobia in Germany had come the romantic school,
with its revival of a cosmopolitan culture which had
distinguished the writers of the past. In France,
Gerard de Nerval had translated "Faust," and had
published an anthology of German verse embracing
selections from Goethe, Schiller, Bttrger, Uhland,
Kttrner, Jean Paul, and Heine. Heine himself had
made Paris his home, and wrote for German maga-
zines on French letters, music, and art, and for
French reviews on German philosophy and litera-
ture. In the course of the century many other less
known writers served as mutual literary interpreters
between the two politically hostile nations. Rudolf
Lindau, the gifted though less popular brother of
Paul Lindau, wrote in French and German. The
polylingual feuilletonist, A. Mels, who died in Chi-
cago a year after the Columbian Exposition, which
he attended as foreign correspondent, had when a
resident of Paris in his prime written for German,
French, English, and Spanish papers.
With the Franco-German war came a brief reac-
tion against this literary internationalism in both
countries. But the generation of Germans that grew


84
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
up after the glamor of military glory had faded again
sought in France the source of much of its inspira-
tion, and trained its literary talents upon the models
of French masters, foremost among them Zola. Nor
was the younger generation in France slow at recog-
nizing the one great personality that rose above the
horizon of the new German empire—Nietzsche,
who with the penetrating searchlight of his genius
covered the world's culture, past and present, and
found it ''all too human." Through him was revealed
to independent French thinkers the intellectual re-
valuation that had begun in Germany, when the glit-
ter of the wealth acquired by the war had vanished
and symptoms of intellectual stagnation and moral
decadence had begun to appear. Nietzsche intro-
duced the young Germans to the philosophy of
Gobineau and to the subtle art of Stendhal-Beyle.
He was an admirable mediator between Teuton and
Gaul, and a light-bearer to both.
But while the French intellectuals studied Nietz-
sche's philosophy, the literature which followed in
the wake of his iconoclasm remained practically un-
known in France. Of that young Germany which
gives such striking proofs of his far-reaching influ-
ence, and of the lessons learned from Ibsen, Tolstoi,
and Zola, only Gerhart Hauptmann has reached a
French audience eager to know something of the
forces at work in the literature of the so-called arch-
enemy across the Rhine. Even of the extent of
German interest in French letters, of the amazing
number of German editions of French authors, the
French themselves are supremely ignorant. For
chauvinist currents are strong in the intellectual
world of France. Even the faculty of German let-
ters at the Sorbonne was made to feel these influ-
ences a few years ago, when Professor Andler and
a number of his students, returning from a journey
to Germany undertaken for purposes of study, were
made the butt of hostile demonstrations on the part
of the "nationalist" students backed by Maurice
Barres.
Thus there is decided room for a propaganda of
better mutual understanding, such as was inaugu-
rated not quite a year ago and culminated in the
banquet referred to at the beginning of this article.
There was truth in the remark of one of the speakers
that even though the achievements of the two nations
were known and appreciated by a small minority on
both sides of the Rhine, there was need of having
the men and women behind those works meet face
to face and found upon the basis of social relations
the work of mutual understanding. That is one of
the most practical aims in the programme of the
society "Pour Mieux Se Connaitre," and of the most
direct appeal. The number of Germans residing
in Paris has been estimated at six thousand. A large
percentage consists of members of various intellect-
ual professions,—teachers, students, artists, writers,
whose opportunities for direct personal contact with
their French colleagues are limited. There is the
Alsatian element, whose position whether on this or
the other side of the Rhine is surely not enviable.
The very existence of these people is at all too fre-
quent intervals menaced by the war-clouds that keep
looming up on the political horizon of the two coun-
tries. The mission of the society is of vast import-
ance, and its possibilities are equally vast. For the
French senator, Baron d'Estonrnelles de Constant,
who said, "Le rapprochement franco-allemand est
la condition de la paix du monde," has given voice
to a sentiment the truth whereof can scarcely be
doubted. Nor can this mutual approach be more
successfully attained than by an inofficial intercourse
between representatives of both nations and by the
intellectual exchange which mutual familiarity with
their science, art, and letters insures. For, after all,
the world of intellect is neutral ground, and if repre-
sentatives of both nations can meet at international
congresses of science for the exchange of experiences,
and by striving in common for the promotion of
knowledge forget the barriers that separate them in
the political arena, there is no reason why men and
women in the world of art and letters should not
meet for the purpose of personal acquaintance and
a more intimate understanding of the foreign mind,
and by mitigating the spirit of mutual distrust pro-
mote the possibility of peace.
The membership of the society bids fair to repre-
sent that intellectual world which should know no
national boundaries. Among its French members
one notes Octave Mirbeau, Leon Frapie-, Jean Rei-
brach, Victor Margue'ritte, J. H. Rosny aine\ Re'ne'
Ghil, Leon Bazalgette, Henri Guilbeaux, Gabriel
Faure", Claude Debussy, Charles Leandre, Paul
Signac, Leopold Mabilleau, Charles Wagner, Jean
Richard Bloch, Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, and our ex-
patriate Francois Vie'le'-Griffin. The president is-
M. J. Grand-Carteret, a writer on problems of inter-
national politics, such as the Alsatian and Moroccan
questions, who is equally well-known in Germany as
in France. The secretaries are Loyson, the son of
the famous Pere Hyacinthe, who made his debut as
dramatist some years ago and is now editing a mag-
azine, and Guilbeaux, a Belgian by birth, and a poet
and critic of rare ability, who writes on German
letters for French and on French letters for Ger-
man reviews. The list of German members shows
the names of Ernst Haeckel, Wilhelm Ostwald, Karl
Federn, Karl Lamprecht, KrCch Schmidt, Richard
Dehmel, Ludwig Fulda, Clara Viebig, Carl and
Gerhart Hauptmann, Karl Henckell, Felix Wein-
gartner, Richard Strauss, Max Liebermann, Franz
von Stuck, and others. There is an international
committee to which belong, among others, Maeter-
linck, Verhaeren, Edouard Claparede, A. Forel, the
Baron ess von Suttner, E. Jacques-Dalcroze, and
Miss Anna B. Eckstein of the International Peace
Society.
The propaganda of this movement for an intellec-
tual Franco-German "rapprochement" includes the
arrangement of exhibitions of French art and con-
certs of French music in Germany, the organization
of travel-clubs in France for the purpose of visiting
Germany, and the introduction into France of the


1913]
85
THE DIAL
works of modern German writers—chiefly those who
have shown unusual familiarity with French history
or a profound understanding of the French tempera-
ment. Among the works of this kind to be presented
in France is the monumental double drama by Carl
Hauptmann, "Burger Bonaparte — Kaiser Napo-
leon." A review called "Cahiers Franco-Allemands"
is the temporary organ of the society; but a large
review, taking its name from the one dreamed of by
Heine, "France-Allemagne," is to be founded, and
will be devoted to the discussion of Franco-German
problems and to the exchange between French and
German letters. This propaganda of ideas, supple-
mented by banquets and other social reunions, is
likely to bring about relations between the French
and the German members which will deliver both
from the burden of preconceived notions and enlarge
their vision towards an appreciative understanding
of the spirit of the people whom the political machi-
nations of the powers would make their enemy. The
influence radiating from such a nucleus of unbiased
minds seems one of the most promising factors in
the propaganda for a permanent peace between the
French and the Germans, whom Victor Hugo called
"les deux nations maitresses" and whose perpetual
misunderstandings disturb the whole world.
A. VON Ende.
CASUAL COMMENT.
The lure of the novel loses nothing of its
strength with the progress of the suns and the
enormous increase in the number of novels. But
it is encouraging to note at the same time an occa-
sional sign of the increasing attractiveness of other
departments of literature. In the city of Wash-
ington, for instance, the people are learning, not to
like fiction less, but to like history and science more.
In the current yearly report of the Public Library
of the District of Columbia, Mr. Bowerman, the
librarian, records with satisfaction a nearly station-
ary condition in the number of story-books circu-
lated in recent years, with a marked increase in
the circulation of more serious reading matter. In
brief, the fiction figures for the last eight years
show a relative shrinkage amounting to twenty-six
per cent in the total circulation of to-day; that is,
from a fiction circulation of eighty-four per cent
in 1904, there has been a gradual fall to fifty-eight
per cent last year. Without reference to a possible
change in readers' tastes, the factors supposed to
have produced this encouraging result are the per-
sonal help and guidance given by assistants, pro-
gressive extension of the open-shelf system, and
special displays of works on various subjects in a
case labelled " Some Readable Books " and holding
about two hundred and twenty-five volumes, which
need frequent replenishing. The library's plan of
compiling its occasional press notices into a monthly
bulletin, and of cooperating with other institutions
or associations in the preparation of bibliographic
aids, calls for commendation.
• • •
A cheerful fessimist, facing unabashed the
world's proneness to evil, and having always as a
final resource the courage of despair, is a more
inspiring personage than the fatuously smiling op-
timist, reiterating his optimism with the unconvinc-
ing emphasis of him who protests too much. Mr.
Alfred Russel Wallace, who has just completed his
ninetieth year, declares with the Preacher: "I have
seen all the works that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Im-
mense industrial and scientific progress has been
witnessed by this eminent man of science, but he is
reported as denying that man has advanced in
morals or intellect in the last seven thousand years.
"Everything is as bad as it can possibly be. From
top to bottom our whole social system is rotten, full
of vice and everything that is bad." Yet the outlook
ahead seems to him hopeful, perhaps because of what
the new science of eugenics, in which he is said to
have great faith, is expected to accomplish. And to
hasten the coming of the good time he has in pre-
paration a work of which he says that it is "a book
suggesting the necessary work for the labor party in
its campaign against poverty, and laying down what
I believe to be the fundamental principles and means
by which continuous progress in the well-being of
the community can be secured." Meanwhile, as a
sort of counterpoise (however light) to the weight
of this eminent thinker's utterances, the jocular Mr.
Chesterton is declaring himself in the press a staunch
unbeliever in the good things promised by the eugen-
ists, and he has a new book about to be issued on
"The Evil of Eugenics." But he will have abund-
ant time and possibly sufficient cause to change his
mind before he is ninety years old.
Postal legislation fob the discouragement
of education now stands on the statute-book, and
should receive early revision. By the terms of the
new parcel-post law, potatoes and turnips and other
produce may be mailed for local delivery at five
cents for a single pound, or fifteen cents for eleven
pounds, with corresponding rates between these
weights; but a book weighing a pound must bear
eight cents in stamps, and no book exceeding four
pounds may be sent by mail. Packages of books
aggregating eleven pounds in weight would call for
at least eighty-eight cents' worth of stamps as com-
pared with fifteen cents for the same weight of
bricks or cabbages or shingle nails. A public library
or a bookshop may not supply its near-by patrons
with reading matter through the mail at a lesser rate
than eight cents a pound, but the grocer or dry-goods
dealer is allowed to fill the orders of his customers
throughout a fifty-mile zone at a postal rate varying
from five cents for a single pound to thirty-five cents
for eleven pounds. When the old rate on merchan-
dise other than printed matter was fixed at one cent
an ounce, it was considered a handsome concession


86
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
to the cause of education and of literature to allow
books to go by mail at one-half that rate. But now
the general merchandise rate for short distances has
been diminished about eighty per cent, while the
book-rate remains as before. That this unfair dis-
crimination may soon be corrected is the prayer of
all who handle books or are interested in the spread
of literature and learning.
The passing of the period, in sentence construc-
tion, such as our ancestors knew it, is not cause for
unmixed satisfaction. An impatience that cannot
tolerate a period of more than twenty words, or of
more than two clauses, is not an impatience to be
humored. The present mode of cutting up one's
written discourse into snippets, or verbless interjec-
tions, makes in reality hard reading and produces
an unsightly page. In a recent piece of writing by
an author of repute occurs one sentence of only ten
words with three full-stops, two of which might much
better have been commas. The mail has just brought
to us an anonymous communication in the form of
a copy of our sentence beginning at the bottom of
the first column of page 40 of our last issue, with a
parenthesized exclamation-point added, presumably
in protest at the length of the sentence. Yet it con-
tains only forty-five words. We have this moment,
at the very first page turned up in opening Ruskin,
chanced on a sentence of one hundred and seven
words — which is short for Ruskin. (The sentence
is the second in the third chapter of "The Seven
Lamps of Architecture.") It is true our own sen-
tence contains a double involution, a relative clause
within a relative clause; but who with any head at
all on his shoulders need get lost in so unintricate
a maze? After ten minutes' reading of Macaulay
or Gibbon the offending passage might almost strike
one as curt. Scott and Dickens and Thackeray, not
to mention Meredith and Mr. Henry James, do not
hesitate to pack into a single sentence all that it can
comfortably carry. But those of us who cannot stand
the strain of sentences more than ten words long can
always go back to our primer and enjoy the brevity
and lucidity of its style. "See the cat. The cat
has caught a mouse. The cat will eat the mouse.
Poor mouse I" ...
Fiction as a pleasant poison has withstood
unnumbered attacks of the anti-Hedonists, and will
withstand unnumbered more. Canon Barry, writ-
ing in "Everyman," is the latest bitter foe to the
novel; and Temple Scott, in the Boston "Transcript,"
rushes valiantly to its defense. "The tyranny of
the novel," avers the churchman, "betokens that
faith has given way to feeling, and that feeling is
debauched by excitement following on the loss of
long-cherished ideals." "We cannot be so bad as
the Canon pictures us," is the reply, "or he would
not take this trouble to make us see the error of our
ways. There must be a sense for the right in us if
he expects us to respond to his appeal." Of course
the whole discussion will only leave each side more
firmly fixed in its opinion than before. Instead of
wasting so much good printer's ink in obvious gen-
eralities the contestants might wisely have come to a
short and simple agreement to the proposition that
there are novels and novels, the best of them good
for the head and good for the heart, the worst too
worthless to claim an intelligent person's attention,
and the middling ones regrettably numerous and by
no means tonic in their action on the reader, but less
injurious than many forms of diversion or sensation-
alism that lure those who know not the pleasures of
reading. . . .
The incineration of "Tom Jones," which was
solemnly performed the other day at Doncaster by
order of the committee of the Doncaster Free Li-
brary, will happily not deprive the rest of the world
of the privilege of reading that masterpiece in early
British fiction. It seems that one of the worthy
Yorkshire men composing the committee or govern-
ing body of the above-named library chanced to take
the book home, having never read it before, and was
scandalized at certain characteristics of the author's
style. He reported the story an immoral work and
thus precipitated a heated debate in the committee
room, where, though one member staunchly stood up
for the book as being superior to history as a faithful
picture of Fielding's times, the prevailing sentiment
was adverse to its retention on the shelves of the
Doncaster library; and so it was sentenced to death
by fire, and met its cruel fate with the true martyr's
noble fortitude. But, as hinted above, there are
other copies of the famous work known to be still
extant, and for the next few weeks booksellers and
delivery-desk attendants are likely to note an in-
crease, slight but nevertheless perceptible, in the
demand for the book, because of the action of the
Doncaster Corporation Free Library Committee.
Thus it is that the cause of morality is advanced—
as they imagine in Yorkshire.
A new "game of authors" might take the form
of preposterous proof that every writer's works were
written by somebody else; that Wordsworth, for
example, wrote Scott's novels, and that Lamb wrote
Shelley's poems. The Baconians have led the way
in this recreational exercise, and Mr. Chesterton
hilariously follows suit in a late amusing contribu-
tion to the "Illustrated London News." Under the
heading "Who Wrote Bacon?" he proceeds to de-
monstrate, in a manner calculated to convince those
who have just indulged in "a heavy and Pickwickian
Christmas dinner," that the author of Bacon's writ-
ings was none other than Shakespeare. The histori-
cal proofs are handled with masterly skill. After
referring to the execution of Essex and Southamp-
ton's imprisonment in the Tower, and to the friend-
ship between Essex and Bacon and that between
Southampton and Shakespeare, he concludes, with
irrefutable logic: "Could anything in Baconian mud
be clearer? Shakespeare in some state of penitence
(or drink) told Southampton that he himself was
'Bacon.' Southampton was just about to warn his
friend Essex against the impostor, when the impos-


1913]
87
THE DIAL.
tor had the sense to strike first and kill the man who
might know, and imprison the man who did know
—and only fawn on him when his tongue was free.
Is it not a connected story? Is it not a conceivable
hypothesis? Why, no; it is a new Christmas game."
B • •
"Cumulative" bibliography, as devised and
practiced by the H. W. Wilson Co. of Minneapolis,
has its history related in an interesting illustrated
pamphlet issued by the above-named publishing house.
It was in 1889 that the first modest beginnings of the
* present business took shape in a partnership between
two students of the University of Minnesota who un-
dertook (on a capital of one hundred dollars, partly
borrowed) to deal in students'text-books and supplies.
This firm, Morris & Wilson, lost its senior partner
when he was graduated in 1892, and since then Mr.
Wilson has been head of the house, which is now
an incorporated company. Its cumulative-catalogue
work dates from 1898, and includes the now well-
known and, to library workers and book-dealers,
almost indispensable "Cumulative Book Index,"
"United States Catalogue," and "Readers' Guide
to Periodical Literature," with an increasing list of
other bibliographic aids such as "Library Work"
(now taken over by the "Library Journal"), "Book
Review Digest," a series of handbooks for debaters, a
fiction catalogue, and a catalogue of children's books.
The now large business and large body of employees,
with their "cafeteria" lunch-room, their annual
Christmas tree and summer picnic, and their evident
esprit de corps, make an impressive appearance as
the outgrowth of that tentative student enterprise of
two youths working their way through college.
A MEMORIAL TABLET TO THE AUTHOR OF "THE
Star-Spangled Banner" was unveiled, with ap-
propriate ceremonies, January 11, in the Mt Vernon
Place Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore, the
site of the house in which Francis Scott Key died just
seventy years earlier. The tablet was presented to
the church by the Baltimore Chapter of the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution, and was afterward
set in its permanent place on the corner of the build-
ing, facing Charles Street. Mrs. Charles W. Bassett,
honorary regen i of the chapter, conceived and largely
brought to accomplishment this tribute to Key, and
the Baltimore sculptor, Mr. Hans Schuler, designed
the tablet, a medallion portrait set against a partly-
furled flag, with appropriate inscriptions and orna-
mentation. In her address Mrs. Bassett called
attention to the little-remembered fact that the
Maryland lawyer, poet, and gentleman to whom we
owe our national anthem, as many call the poem,
was also a prolific hymn-writer, having produced,
among others, the hymn beginning, "Lord, with
glowing heart I praise Thee."
a • •
A staunch defender of Shakespeark against
the assaults of the Baconians died at his home in
Boston on the thirteenth of January. Judge Charles
Allen, formerly of the Massachusetts Supreme Court,
but latterly a gentleman of leisure devoting himself
to literature and authorship and travel, uttered his
protest against the Baconian madness in a volume
modestly entitled "Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare
Question," which was published in 1900 and won the
warm commendation of Sir Henry Irving and others
whose praise was worth having. Judge Allen, as an
experienced jurist, naturally devoted himself espe-
cially to a refutation of the charge that the Shake-
spearean plays contain such evidences of legal learning
as Shakespeare could not have possessed. This and
other points in the controversy are ably, succinctly,
and interestingly treated. The combined brevity
and cogency of the argument are in marked contrast
to the diff useness and inconclusiveness of the custom-
ary Baconian contention. Judge Allen had attained
the ripe age of eighty-five years and nine months
(lacking four days) when he died.
New books for old, if cried through the streets,
might bring the crier not a few treasures almost
as precious as Aladdin's wonderful lamp. A hasty
and afterward much regretted exchange of this sort
was not long ago made by Sir Herbert Maxwell, as
report avers; and he is now cautioning others to
learn a lesson from his experience. Desiring the
latest edition of a standard work of reference, and
feeling unwilling to pay out the thirty-five pounds
demanded for it by the bookseller, he searched his
library for sometbing to offer in exchange, and
chanced upon a set of "The Sporting Magazine"
complete (1793-1870), which he innocently offered
for the reference work. The offer was accepted
without delay. Not many weeks afterward he ex-
perienced a sensation upon reading that a set of the
periodical in question had just been sold at auction
for nine hundred and fifty pounds. And now he is
advising deliberation and care in the weeding out of
old books from one's library.
COMMUNICA TIONS.
WHY THE DIERESIS AND HYPHEN TO
INDICATE PRONUNCIATION?
(To the Editor of The Dial.)
Will you not add your Amen in a tilt against the
habit of attempting to teach the pronunciation, or for-
mation, of words by means of the dieresis and hyphen?
Authors, editors, typesetters, proofreaders, and even
general readers, will surely welcome the suggestion.
Labor and worry will be spared all these classes, and a
deal of expense to the community will be avoided.
The dieresis and hyphen are almost the last of some
five thousand symbols, contractions, or abbreviations of
words, elisions of suffixes, etc., invented by the copyists
of the middle ages to save labor and vellum. The
palimpsest is an eloquent proof that the tax for vellum
was severely felt. With the exception of a very few
they suddenly disappeared when printing and paper were
invented. In the French language a few were retained,
but it is suggestive that often the modern French author
does not write them in his copy, but leaves the typesetter
to put them in according to old custom and rule. His


88
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL
acute, grave, and circumflex accents indicate quality
not emphasis, while we long ago gave up both attempts.
The Germans still retain the umlaut, and we £he dier-
esis, hyphen, and, half ashamed of it, the ligature. This
last, one may note in passing, by hurry and shortening,
degenerated long ago into the dieresis and hyphen. We
English have grown to disuse the ligature except in the
antique a and ce, rapidly now and at last passing into
obsolescence.
As to the dieresis, it is self-evident that printing is
one art, pronunciation another, the two at best most
awkwardly and ineffectively interrelated. The printed
form of words inevitably drifts into fixedness and uni-
formity, while pronunciation varies constantly in place
and time. The labors of the mirthful bands of spelling
reformers are in proof, — and still more, the failure of
their labors.
Take a multitude of our words such as cooperate,
coincide, zoology, zoophilist, reenter, reinter, reiterate,—does
the dieresis or hyphen in the least aid a person of intel-
ligence and education to write or pronounce them cor-
rectly? If so it is plain that the rule should be observed
in a thousand words not now so marked. Many of these,
moreover, cannot possibly be given the dieresis, for
instance, coincide, ptomaine, reiterate, etc., because three
dots would be required over one i. If, also, the rule is
necessary in one class of words, it should be in others,
such as react, to distinguish it from other words of
similar spelling but pronounced as one syllable. Extra-
ordinary is another example, and so on indefinitely. Do
rational folk believe that cooperation needs the dieresis to
avoid confusion with the idea of the cooper, his barrels,
or his trade? A learned bookmaker once so contended.
The linotype and other typesetting machines have
recently revolutionized the typographer's business, and
writers and proofreaders have already been tormented
by the machines' omission of the dieresis — as well,
also, in the output of a million typewriting machines—
and, if dictionary slaves, they have been compelled
to order the plaguey dots reinserted by hand. In
oomycetes, oophorectomy, zoology, and scores more, are we
in danger of pronouncing the first three or four letters
as if they constituted one syllable? Gott beicahr!
Lastly, why persist in the ludicrously unnecessary
use of the hyphen to hold together parts of words which
need not and should not be separated either a little or
wholly? Proofreaders and editors often seem to think
that anti, for example, demands the hyphen before it
can be joined to toxin, while on the same page they will
omit the Siamese-twin ligament in antipathy, antimony,
antinomy, ahd so on. Q_ J,I_ (j_
Atlantic City, N. J., January 21,1913.
ART IN THE MAGAZINES.
(To the Editor of The Dial.)
In the "Century" for January appears a colored
picture named "The White Rose," after a painting by
Henry Golden Dearth: one of a series representing mod-
ern American art. I am assured on the best authority
that this picture "is representative of one branch of the
impressionist school," and that Mr. Dearth's work in
this school "was considered last year the hit of the
artistic season." So be it; but I do not know how to
describe the effect it had on me by any word milder
than disgusting. I felt quite upset for some hours. The
feelings of a single individual, no expert in artistic mat-
ters, are of little or no consequence in themselves; but
if (it is impossible to be original, even in one's distastes!)
they are representative of any large body of opinion, or
especially of any fundamental truths, they may be worth
taking into account. Even speaking objectively, we may
venture to maintain that a lady whose mouth, nose, and
eyes are all awry is contrary to good anatomical princi-
ples, and take some stand on this point, though our hatred
of her expression and our abomination for the lurid un-
natural colors be dismissed as psychological curiosities.
It is impossible for an English-speaking person who
reads at all not to feel some sense of proprietorship in
the "Century." It is one of our great Anglo-American
institutions, quite as much as if it were a public building,
— nay, more so, since a building cannot be on both sides
of the Atlantic at once. It has published at different
times many beautiful pictures, and to this extent has
contributed to the general taste for good art. It there-
fore follows that one who is convinced that this and
other of our standard magazines are giving us some
essentially bad, and therefore immoral, illustrations, has
good cause to be alarmed. The particular picture now
criticized would not be so distressing, were it not an
extreme example of a general type.
Our fiction, our drama, our presentation of life in all
forms, suffers from the same disease. This is, perhaps,
a desire to cheaply attract notice, a product of our
modern commercialism. It is not true that all standards
have been abandoned; on the contrary, the most offen-
sive products exhibit a large amount of technical skill.
This skill, however, is considered the chief thing, while
good taste, based on fundamental morality, is forgotten,
— or perhaps not forgotten because never thought of.
This description must not be taken as literally applying
to every case; it merely indicates a tendency, which in
itself justifies the language used, but which, as a matter
of fact, varies through all degrees in its intensity.
Creatures of our age, we who condemn it can perhaps
not wholly avoid its influence.
If this point of view is in any degree sound, it is use-
less to argue that these things are produced because the
public demand them. Those who control in these mat-
ters are in the same position as teachers, whose duty it
is to bring before their classes whatever is good, wise,
and true. No practical teacher doubts the fact that it
is more than easy to degrade the tastes and morals of
his young people,—he has seen it done in many a school.
In the present state of education in this country, our
adults are as children, the majority of them readily
responding to degrading influences, while magazine
literature also reaches the young.
It has been suggested that we cannot successfully
combat these tendencies. Whether we can do so depends
on what we call success. There never will be a time
when the struggle for good things can be abandoned,
for lack, if you put it so, of windmills to tilt against.
In a sense, all attempts at education are doomed to
failure, but in another sense they are bound to succeed.
I think it would be very interesting to know how
"The White Rose," in the "Century," affected a num-
ber of people. May I, with the Editor's permission,
ask the readers of The Dial to send me postcards
describing in a few words how the picture affected them
when first seen? In addition, I should greatly like to
hear what may be said in its favor by those who think
well of it. Should I receive a number of communica-
tions resulting from this request, I will prepare a sum-
mary or abstract of them for The Dial.
T. D. A. Cockerell.
Boulder, Colo., January 20, 191S.


1913]
89
THE
DIAL,
The Conquest of the South Pole.*
Captain Amundsen and his book on "The
South Pole" make their appearance among us
at the same time, and both are cordially wel-
come. The man is of as much interest to us as
his gallant exploit in the Antarctic regions, and
his engrossing account of that exploit is both
a faithful picture of the author himself and a
modest but detailed representation of the diffi-
culties and dangers faced and overcome by the
explorer and his trusty band of followers.
That within three years of Captain Peary's
attainment of the northern extremity of the
earth's axis its southern end would likewise be
reached, was probably expected by few familiar
with the history of Polar exploration and the
considerable intervals commonly separating one
step of marked advance from the next. And,
indeed, there is a good deal of what some might
call lucky accident, but others would more truly
call intuition and genius, to explain the quick
following of victory in the South upon the heels
of success in the North. Captain Amundsen
was in the very act of preparing for his five-
year drifting voyage across the North Polar
Sea, which he still purposes accomplishing,
when the telegraph flashed the news of the
North Pole's discovery (if the word "discovery"
is permissible in this connection), and he at once
altered his plans, but kept his own counsel in
the matter, so that not until the good ship
"Fram" had touched at and departed from
Funchal on her supposed voyage around the
Horn to Alaska did he explain to his company
as a whole that his destination was at the
antipodes of the one attributed to him. This
occurred in the summer of 1910. Early in Jan-
uary of the following year the vessel anchored
in the Bay of Whales, and after a winter (our
summer, of course) in camp at that point the
polar party made its successful dash to ninety
degrees south, and was back in camp on the
twenty-fifth of January, 1912, the exact date
set down beforehand in the leader's schedule.
While every part of the programme may
seem to the hasty reader to have been carried
out with a happy concurrence of favoring cir-
cumstances, and the final success may present
*Thb South Polk. An Account of the Norwegian
Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram," 1910-1912. By Roald
Amundsen. Translated from the Norwegian by A. 6.
Chater. In two volumes. With maps and illustrations.
New York: Lee Keedick.
itself somewhat in the light of a lucky accident—
so little emphasis does the chronicler lay upon
his far-sighted plans for the avoidance of un-
toward conditions—a careful study of the nar-
rative reveals indications of forethought and
generalship, and of reliance upon the prompt-
ings of something very like genius, that greatly
heighten one's admiration for the ability and
courage of the Norwegian explorer. It was con-
trary to the apparent teachings of Sir Ernest
Shackleton's experience for Captain Amundsen
to make the Bay of Whales his landing point
and the site of his winter quarters. The great
southern barrier of ice was supposed to be afloat
there, with extensive tracts of the bay's borders
continually crumbling away and drifting sea-
ward. But by entering this inlet the "Fram"
would be able to land the explorers nearer their
destination than would elsewhere be possible,
the leader had studied the problem and chose
to take the risks, and the result showed the
soundness of his judgment. Again, both Captain
Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton had declared
against Eskimo dogs and in favor of Manchu-
rian ponies as a motive power for the sledges
in Antarctic exploration. Indeed, a motor car
was taken along in the Shackleton expedition, so
little confidence was felt in the traditional method
of polar sledging. But here, too, the Norwegian
trusted to his instinct, or to instinct and judg-
ment combined, and provided himself with a
hundred picked Eskimo dogs from Greenland,
though the possibility of transporting them,
alive and in a condition for service, across the
equator was derisively denied by the wiseacres.
It is true that Captain Amundsen was not with-
out some experience of Antarctic conditions;
nevertheless he showed remarkable prevision on
this occasion. In respect to the time allowed
by him for the work in hand we read in the
opening pages of his narrative:
"I worked out the plan as here given, at my home
on Bundel fjord, near Christiania, in September, 1909,
and as it was laid, so it was carried out to the last
detail. That my estimate of the time it would take
was not so very far out is proved by the final sentence
of the plan: 'Thus we shall be back from the Polar
journey on January 25.' It was on January 25, 1912,
that we came into Framheim after our successful jour-
ney to the Pole."
Another rather novel item in the equipment
of this expedition — novel at least to readers
of American and English accounts of polar
exploration — was the supply of shi instead of
snowshoes for travel over the great white plains
in the high latitudes. The advantage of this
form of foot-gear to the Norwegian, who is used


90
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
to it from boyhood, is apparent enough. Speed
and a great extent of bearing surface on yielding
snow, or on the thin crust bridging a crevasse,
were thus secured. There were no leads or open
channels of water to be feared on the final dash
to the southward, as was the case in Captain
Peary's strenuous race to the North Pole and
back, with the ever-present danger of finding
himself marooned on an ice-floe; but there
were regions treacherously cut up by concealed
chasms of unknown depth, over whose frail
snow-bridges the Norwegian ski could carry a
man much more swiftly and safely than the
American snowshoe.
What the expedition accomplished in addi-
tion to the attainment of the South Pole should
not fail to receive mention. While the leader
with four companions made his dash for the goal,
Lieutenant Prestrud and two others started on
an eastward exploring journey to the little-
known King Edward VII. Land which Captain
Scott had discovered in 1902. A considerable
section in the second volume of the book is
devoted to Lieutenant Prestrud's narrative of
this expedition and what it accomplished.
Another section is given up to Captain Nilsen's
account of what he and his shipmates achieved
in the way of oceanographic research with the
stout ship "Fram" during the long winter
while the land party was reduced to com-
parative inactivity at Framheim. The south
Atlantic between Africa and South America
was traversed and investigated, temperatures
taken, specimens of the plankton collected, and
much information added to the world's knowl-
edge of that part of the ocean. Appended
papers at the end of the book contain many
details of meteorology, oceanography, and other
matters interesting to the student.
To return for a little to the more popularly
pleasing sections of the work, one cannot but
note the buoyant, high-spirited, adventurous
tone of the narrative as a whole. There is more
of frolic and fun in Captain Amundsen's pages
than we are accustomed to in those of his north-
polar rival, or colleague, Captain Peary — which
is natural enough, in view of the Norwegian's
comparative youth. The entire expedition
assumes something of the complexion of a grand
lark in such passages as the following, which
takes up the story immediately after the ship's
destination had been made known to all on
board, upon her departure from Funchal:
"It was pure enjoyment to come on deck the morning
after leaving Madeira; there was an added note of
friendliness in every man's 'Good-morning,' and a smile
twinkled in the corner of every eye. The entirely new
turn things had taken, and the sudden change to fresh
fields for thought and imagination, acted as a beneficent
stimulus to those who, the day before, had contemplated
a trip round the Horn. I think what chiefly amused
them was their failure to smell a rat before. 'How
could I have been such an ass as not to think of it long
ago?' said Beck, as he sent a nearly new quid into the
sea. 'Of course, it was as plain as a pikestaff. Here
we are with all these dogs, this fine "observation
house," with its big kitchen-range and the shiny cloth
on the table, and everything else. Any fool might have
seen what it meant.' I consoled him with the remark
that it is always easy to be wise after the event, and
that I thought it very lucky no one had discovered our
destination prematurely."
Then followed a great amount of reading-up
in Antarctic literature on the part of these
newly-enlightened members of the party. The
ship's library numbered three thousand vol-
umes or more, and from Captain Cook to Cap-
tain Scott the Antarctic voyagers were well
represented. "I considered it an imperative
necessity," says our author, "that every man
should acquaint himself as far as possible with
the work of previous expeditions; this was the
only way of becoming in some measure familiar
with the conditions in which we should have to
work."
Wintering within the Antarctic Circle, in
cold immeasurable by ordinary thermometers,
and in all but total darkness so far as sunlight
is concerned, would not seem a very exhilarating
experience; but the Norwegian party appears
from the narrative to have taken it much in
the spirit of a picnic, and to have found an
abundance of both work and play ready to hand.
Snow-tunnelling and cave-digging, to enlarge
the available accommodations for the company
of nine, occupied considerable time and energy;
and there was a great amount of preparation of
sledges and dog-tackle to fill in spare moments,
not to mention the daily routine of housework
and mending or alteration of garments, and
other humble tasks. The snug quarters at
Framheim, cheerfully lighted and comfortably
heated with petroleum, became homelike to the
occupants, and with unlimited seal steak and an
abundance of other good provisions the chief
of the party avowed that he never before had
lived so well. But now let us turn to some of
the perils and hardships attending the great
work of the expedition. After the start for the
Pole had been made with five men and four
sledges, trouble was encountered with crevasses,
which revealed themselves unexpectedly be-
neath the snow. At one moment a sledge broke
through and threatened to drag all its thirteen


1913]
91
THE DIAL
dogs to destruction. But a rope and two pairs
of strong arms saved the day while a cool-
headed volunteer climbed down, with another
rope around his body, to relieve the suspended
sledge of its load, two of his comrades hauling
up as he unlashed.
"These two fellows moved about on the brink of the
chasm with a coolness that I regarded at first with
approving eyes. I admire courage and contempt for
danger. But the length to which they carried it at last
was too much of a good thing; they were simply playing
hide-and-seek with Fate. Wisting's information from
below — that the cornice they were standing on was only
a few inches thick — did not seem to have the slightest
effect on them; on the contrary, they seemed to stand
all the more securely."
A later passage gives an idea of the sufferings
caused by the extreme cold and raging winds.
When the mercury rose to zero, Fahrenheit, the
hardy Norsemen called the temperature sultry
and oppressive. We read, for example:
"The warmth of the past few days seemed to have
matured our frost-sores, and we presented an awful
appearance. It was Wisting, Hanssen, and I who had
suffered the worst damage in the last south-east blizzard;
the left side of our faces was one mass of sore, bathed
in matter and serum. We looked like the worst type
of tramps and ruffians, and would probably not have
been recognized by our nearest relations. These sores
were a great trouble to us during the latter part of the
journey. The slightest gust of wind produced a sensa-
tion as if one's face were being cut backwards and for-
wards with a blunt knife. They lasted a long time, too; I
can remember Hanssen removing the last scab when we
were coming into Hobart — three months later."
In making this final dash, Captain Amund-
sen adopted tactics quite different from Captain
Peary's in his similar adventure at the North.
The American had started with five detachments,
sending back first one and then another until
he with a single one of his company and four
Eskimos were left to complete the perilous jour-
ney. No tents were used, but igloos, or snow
huts, were built at each stage. The Norwegian,
on the other hand, pushed on with his original
party, camped each night, or day, as the case
may have been, under cover of a tent, celebrated
(briefly) with his comrades the attainment of the
Pole, and returned with no loss of life except
the dogs killed and eaten on the way. The Pole
was reached on the day planned long beforehand,
December 14, 1911, and the return to Fram-
heim, as already noted, was on schedule time.
Captain Amundsen's book has a fulness and
variety of interest, and is written in a bright,
often amusing, style, that distinguish it among
works of its kind. The translator, too, has
done his part well. One would not suspect the
book of being a translation, unless told before-
hand. The many illustrations, maps, charts,
and other subordinate features of the work help
to make it the complete and satisfactory pro-
duction it is found to be. The author's earlier
account of his memorable Northwest-Passage
voyage in the "Gjba" had aroused expectations
of a noteworthy book as the literary fruit of this
more difficult undertaking, and these expecta-
tions have not been disappointed.
Pekct F. Bicknell.
The Bbillat-Savarin of the Drama.*
When my attention was first attracted to Mr.
Archer's new book, ostensibly dealing with the
making of plays, I not unnaturally concluded
that it would embody rules and precepts for the
guidance of the beginner, the tyro, who wished
to be given an adequate recipe for constructing
a play. Perusal of the work itself quickly dis-
pels any such notion. The title is at once allur-
ing and deceptive. The discovery one speedily
makes is that this is not, in reality, a book for
the dramatic craftsman. Indeed, the author
begins with the asseveration that there are no
rules for the writing of plays, and even disclaims
writing for the benefit of would-be playwrights.
Confessedly, he writes for the "manypeople with
moderately developed and cultivable faculty";
and modestly ventures the hope that "even the
accomplished dramatist may take some interest
in considering the reasons for things which he
does, or does not do, by instinct."
The reason for all this is not far to seek. Mr.
Archer is a dramatic critic, concerned with plays
not as a constructive craftsman, but as an analy-
tical critic. It is inevitable that his treatment
parallels the phase of his dominant interest. So
we actually have, not a book on play-making,
but an analysis of the made play. In a word,
we have a book of definitions, of criteria, for
analyzing plays. The real title of the book, I
venture to suggest, might more fittingly be,
"How to Write Good Dramatic Criticism."
This is not, in any way, to minimize the value
of the book, but simply to arrive at a just descrip-
tion of its scope. At the same time, we shall
find, on further examination, that in analyzing
the structure of the drama, the author not only
holds out sane standards for the observation of
the dramatic critic, but often consciously, more
often unconsciously, sets up warnings and pre-
cepts for the instruction of the practicing crafts-
* Play-Making. A Manual of Craftsmanship. By Will-
iam Archer. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co.


92
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL,
man. This latter is the rble in which Mr. Archer
shows up to least advantage. Mr. Archer, ac-
cording to his own admission, is lacking in the
innate competency of the dramatic craftsman—
which, to be sure, in no sense invalidates his
conclusions as a critic of the drama. Also, if I
remember aright, the bureau for the purpose of
advising budding playwrights, which Mr. Archer
opened in London, was short-lived. As given
in the present book, Mr. Archer's advice is, for
the most part, either too general or too self-
contradictory to carry with it the momentum of
constructive helpfulness. An excellent example
of Mr. Archer's weakness in this department is
found in the following inimitable specimen of
innocuous shilly-shally:
"It might in many cases be wiser to warn the aspir-
ant to keep himself unspotted from the play-house.
To send him there is to imperil, on the one hand, his
originality of vision; on the other, his individuality of
method. He may fall under the influence of some great
master, and see life only through his eyes; or he may
become so habituated to the current tricks of the thea-
trical trade as to lose all sense of their conventionality
and falsity, and And himself, in the end, better fitted
to write what I have called a quack hand-book than a
living play."
Apparently, it is the idea that the young aspir-
ant has no power of originality, no strength of
individuality, which prompts Mr. Archer's fears.
Such an intellectual invertebrate as Mr. Archer
posits may perhaps not be worth while worrying
over. He goes on, however, to hedge with too
facile glibness: "It would be ridiculous, of
course, to urge an aspirant positively to avoid
the theatre; but the common advice to steep
himself in it is beset with dangers." It may
well be that Mr. Archer is thinking of Ibsen; for
after a certain point in his career was reached,
Ibsen absented himself deliberately from all
contact with the playhouse. It must be clearly
pointed out, however, as a fact of crucial signifi-
cance, that Ibsen began his career with the most
attentive and pertinacious study of all the actual
details of the theatre, of production, representa-
tion, the art of acting, in the playhouses of Eu-
rope, as well as of Norway. It was only after
he had acquired a mastery of the materials of
his art, both by practice and by intensive study
'of the theatre itself, that he felt strong enough
to assert and maintain his independence.
It is just as well that Mr. Archer did not at-
tempt to write a book of receipts for play-making.
It is related of Bronson Howard that, on being
asked to compile a book of rules for playwriting,
he declined on the ground that he feared being
tempted to follow them! Mr. Archer has done,
rarely well, something that needed to be done
for our particular generation: the narration, in
easily understood terms, of the structural history
of the play, as it has developed, biologically as
it were, up to the present time. As Mr. Archer
wisely says: "One thing is certain — namely,
that if any part of the dramatist's art can be
taught, it is only a comparatively mechanical
and formal part—the art of structure." Per-
haps Mr. Archer somewhat underestimates the
relative importance of the art of structure. Pro-
fessor Matthews takes the view that anything
which may be learned can be taught; and if we
carry this principle to its logical conclusion, the
indispensable part of the art of playwriting,
namely the art of structure, may be taught,
since it undoubtedly can be and always must be
learned. Dramatic genius—the faculty for situ-
ation, the sense for character, the stereoscopic
imagination—this is innate, and cannot be ini-
tially imparted through any system of instruc-
tion: it can only be strengthened and developed
through exercise, furnished both by self-acquired
knowledge of the conditions of dramatic repre-
sentation and by practice in the making of plays.
It will be recalled that Ibsen once violently ban-
ished from his presence a young playwright who
wished Ibsen to hear the reading of his latest
play—because, forsooth, the nincompoop had
no scenario! A study of the various drafts of
Ibsen'8 plays, made at different stages in their
evolution, reveals the truly remarkable way in
which the structural broadening and deepening
of the bases of a play forwarded the psychologi-
cal purposes of the creator of character and the
master of climax.
Upon one occasion, Mr. Bernard Shaw was
asked to define the precepts that govern the
dramatist in his selection of themes and methods
of treatment. In his reply to that question,
which is too long to be quoted here in its en-
tirety, he shamelessly confesses: "I find myself
possessed of a theme in the following manner.
I am pushed by a natural need to set to work
to write down conversations that come into my
head unaccountably. At first I hardly know
the speakers and cannot find names for them.
Then they become more and more familiar; and
I learn their names. Finally I come to know
them very well, and discover what it is they are
driving at and why they have said and done the
things I have been moved to set down." I am
not to be deceived into thinking this just a piece
of Shavian fooling; for I have often seen Mr.
Shaw at work, in trains and elsewhere, doing
just what he describes himself as doing. A


1913]
93
THE DIAL
series of conversations by imaginary characters
not even fully individualized is the natural start-
ing point for the dramas of a playwriter who has
invented the drama of dialectic and has the hardi-
hood to label a play a " Conversation." A germ
idea of general significance; usually arising out
of an incident in real life, experienced or, as
Ibsen phrased it, " actually lived through," fur-
nished the starting point for the majority of
Ibsen's greatest plays — such certainly is the
evidence furnished by the volumes of his Nach-
gelassene Schriften. Indeed, nothing so piques
the fancy as the image of the master craftsman,
whoever he be, spinning out the threads of his
creative imagination and weaving the magic pat-
terns of human life which shall enrapture mul-
titudes in that palace of light and sound, the
theatre. A profoundly interesting book on play-
making yet remains to be written, embodying
the true relation of the methods actually em-
ployed by dramatists of rank in the writing of
their plays.
The significance of Mr. Archer's book—the
feature which constitutes it a popular substitute
for any work on the technique of the drama
now available—rests in the fact that it is, for
the most part, couched in simple and compre-
hendable terms. It is a sort of Scotch Frey-
tag, for the " man in the street." Dispensing
with the horrible jargon of the academic student
of the drama, Mr. Archer manages to put in all
the essential facts in regard to structural detail,
without expressing himself in "hifalutin"
terms. We cannot blame him for coining the
word "Peripety" (Greek, peripeteia) to indi-
cate a complete reversal of fortune; and we are
grateful for the skill and perspicuity which char-
acterize his definitions and distinctions, notably
the distinction between "character-drawing"
and " psychology." Peculiarly clarifying are the
chapters entitled respectively,"Foreshadowing,
not Forestalling," and " The Obligatory Scene."
Much profit may be derived from careful perusal
of the chapter, "Curiosity and Interest."
Mr. Shaw—and I am sure some incidents
narrated to me by Madame Ibsen justify the
implication in regard to Ibsen — once defined
the drama, or at least the temperamental con-
dition under which drama is created, as " sane
hallucination." This, however, cannot serve to
convey any working basis for an adequate de-
finition of drama. The boldest of Mr. Archer's
chapters is entitled "Dramatic and Undra-
matic." Here he tilts squarely against those
contemporary critics, with Brunetieire at their
head, who see in drama a clash of contending
wills. "The theatre in general," said Brune-
tiere," is nothing but the place for the develop-
ment of the human will, attacking the obstacles
opposed to it by destiny, fortune, or circum-
stances." And again, " Drama is a representa-
tation of the will of man in conflict with the
mysterious powers or natural forces which limit
or belittle us; it is one of us thrown living upon
the stage, there to struggle against fatality,
against social law, against one of his fellow-
mortals, against himself, if need be, against the
ambitions, the interests, the prejudices, the folly,
the malevolence of those who surround him."
Mr. Archer boldly denies that struggle is the
indispensable differentia of the dramatic form,
basing his denial upon the difficulty of forcing
many plays to conform to such confinement of
definition. He prefers to discover the marrow of
drama in crisis. Such a definition, interesting
though it be as a critical tentative, is far less
comprehensive, it appears on reflection, than the
definition of Brunetiere. It may be said with
equal justice that crisis is a defining character-
istic of the short-story. In the short-story, all
the lines converge to a predestined end or crisis.
When that crisis is reached, the story is com-
plete. Mr. Archer's differentia thus breaks
down for the drama. On the other hand, some
of the greatest short-stories in the world are in-
dependent of any conflict of human wills, and
so fall outside the definition of drama as posited
by Brunetiere. A crisis is a turning-point in
the progress of a series of events; and is as-
suredly a concomitant attribute of drama, which
is a series of events, physical or psychological,
induced in general by a struggle of wills. In
other words, Mr. Archer has made the rather
trivial blunder of choosing for his differentiat-
ing characteristic merely one phase, the culmi-
nant phase, of that struggle which he maintains
is not the quintessential attribute of drama!
In recent years, there has been a sharp
break, among the younger playwrights, away
from the restrictions of the ancient standards.
Mr. Granville Barker, whose "The Voysey
Inheritance" reads like a novel of the mid-
Victorian era, has proposed the drama of the
future as one which "leaves Aristotle out."
So far has this new movement of secession and
revolt progressed that many dramatic critics of to-
day, suffering from no obsession by Aristotelian
definitions, have frankly recognized that the so-
called "laws" of the drama are nothing more
than integrated formulations of the prevailing
practice of dramatists up to any given date in
the drama's history. There is certainly some-


94
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL
thing to startle a Matthews or a Walkley in
Mr. Archer's statement: "The only really valid
definition of the dramatic is: Any representa-
tion of imaginary personages which is capable
of interesting an average audience assembled
in a theatre." How broad, how marvellously
inclusive, is this iconoclastic definition! Un-
fortunately, Mr. Archer has been guilty of
another of those lapses in logic which betray
him always in the hour of his sorest need.
Clearly, such definition fails to correspond with
Mr. Archer's former definition of drama as that
art-form the essence of which is crisis. It is
patent that there is an infinity of "representa-
tions of imaginary personages which are capable
of interesting an average audience assembled
in a theatre" which yet may be lacking in any
form of crisis, physical or psychological. Nu-
merous modern plays do actually interest an
average audience in a theatre, and yet, it must
be confessed, betray an almost total deficiency
in either struggle or, its culminant phase, crisis.
The genre is found in playwrights so funda-
mentally dissimilar, in outlook and method, as
Maeterlinck and Shaw. To be specific, one
might cite Gorky's " Nachtasyl," Barker's " The
Madras House," Hauptmann's "Hannele,"
Shaw's Socratic Dialogue in Hades from " Man
and Superman,"and Maeterlinck's "L'Intruse."
Mr. Granville Barker has recently said in a
public address which was subsequently printed,
J4 A play is anything that can be made effective
upon the stage of a theatre by human agency."
This definition, which parallels Mr. Archer's in
boldness and comprehensiveness of statement, is
equally inadequate. For it throws into the class
of the dramatic such a spectacle as a prize-fight.
By the same token, Mr. Archer's definition per-
mits the inclusion of so mechanical a perform-
ance as a moving-picture show, since the films
are made from photographs of the class which
Mr. Archer labels "imaginary personages,"—
namely, people playing parts in a coherent series
of concocted events.
The time is ripe for the critic who will bring
clarity and convincing statement of the essen-
tial meaning of the terms " drama" and " dra-
matic" out of the present welter of confusion
and chaos. If "dramatic " were accepted as a
descriptive term for only a certain class of plays,
and it were acknowledged once for all that there
are other plays lacking in this specific character-
istic which are nevertheless highly successful
upon the stage, from both the artistic and box-
office standpoints, a much-needed rebuke might
thereby be given to the academic dogmatism
which so unrelentingly endeavors to force the
new art into the mould of antiquated conception.
The dramatists of the contemporary era have
constructively demonstrated one tremendously
significant fact: that a play may be eminently
successful in stage representation, judged by
both artistic and commercial standards, and yet
be intrinsically " undramatic."
Archibald Henderson.
The Great History of the Pilgrims.*
Governor William Bradford's "History of
Plymouth Plantation" has been described as
"the chief book in our New England Old Tes-
tament." It is the history of Plymouth Colony
to 1647,—a noble record of exile, suffering,
and triumph. These sturdy, God-fearing Pil-
grims, after many vicissitudes, crossed the water
to lay the sure foundations of state; and the
human interest of their story, told in the living
words of a leader, is second only to its historical
importance.
Although the "History" remained in manu-
script for more than two hundred years, it con-
stitutes the principal part of Nathaniel Morton's
"New England's Memorial," first published in
1669, and was also used by later historians—
notably Prince and Hutchinson. The precious
manuscript was probably taken by an unknown
person from the Old South Church in Boston
during the Revolution, and was lost sight of for
many years. It was thought by some to have
shared the fate of other documents which were
at that time carried away or destroyed. But a
better destiny was in store for the "History,"
so carefully prepared by the second Governor
of Plymouth Colony; for it was finally located,
in 1855, in the Library of the Bishop of Lon-
don at Fulham. Dr. Charles Deane caused the
manuscript to be carefully copied, and under his
able editorial direction it was first printed by
the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1856,
with an introduction and notes. The work, how-
ever, was not very freely annotated,— through
no fault of Dr. Deane, but rather in deference to
the policy of the Society under whose auspices
the book was given to the world. A facsimile
of Bradford's beautiful manuscript—in marked
contrast to the wellnigh indecipherable chirc-
graphy of his contemporary, John Winthrop,
Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay
•History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647. By
William Bradford. In two volumes. Illustrated. Boston:
Published for the Massachusetts Historical Society by
Houghton Mifflin Co.


1913]
95
THE
DIAL
— was published in 1896, with an introduction
by Mr. J. A. Doyle, who for many years was an
earnest and able student of our beginnings. In
1898, the year following the restoration of the
manuscript by the ecclesiastical authorities of
England, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
issued the "History" without notes, but with
preliminary matter respecting the return of the
document and addresses made upon that happy
occasion. There was also published, in 1908,
a reprint edited by the late William T. Davis
of Plymouth, in the "Original Narratives of
Early American History " series; unfortunately,
however, Mr. Davis's notes do not adequately
meet all requirements, to say nothing of im-
portant omissions from the text.
It therefore seems both fitting and wise that
the present edition, in which the text is printed
in full for the first time, should have been under-
taken by the learned body that first gave Brad-
ford in printed form to students of history; and
wiser that the editing of these volumes was
intrusted to the competent hand of Mr. Worth-
ington C. Ford. Justin Winsor has said that,
in later years, Mr. Deane was urged to recur to
his work on Bradford's "History," and give a
new edition "with all the amplitude of his eru-
dition in commentary and note." While we
cannot doubt Mr. Deane's great abilities and
ripe knowledge of early New England history—
for much admirable work stands to his credit,—
he was perhaps, to a degree, disqualified for the
undertaking by reason of certain mental char-
acteristics which might have prevented him from
seeing all things in their true perspective. How-
ever this may be, one can hardly regret that the
difficult task of preparing what possibly may be
termed the final edition of Bradford was reserved
for the present editor. Mr. Ford possesses the
learning, the open mind, and the poise necessary
to accomplish the best results; and if he did not
link his name with any other historical work he
would have earned, by his edition of Bradford
alone, a permanent place amongst the foremost
editors of American source books.
An advisory committee of three was appointed
by the Massachusetts Historical Society to aid
Mr. Ford in his work, consisting of Messrs.
Charles Francis Adams, Arthur Lord, and Gam-
aliel Bradford, Jr.; and it is safe to assume that
these gentlemen lent something more than their
names to the undertaking. Of the three, Mr.
Adams has had by far the widest experience as
historian and editor, having edited with great
scholarship two books of the period covered by
Bradford's "History"—" Antinomianism in the
Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1636-1638" and
Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan"—in
addition to much other solid writing. Mr. Lord
is an authority on Pilgrim history; and Mr.
Bradford (of the ninth generation from the Gov-
ernor), best known by his searching studies of
Confederate leaders, must have taken keen and
intelligent interest in the work. Mr. Adams,
as long ago as 1883, expressed himself on the
propriety of reproducing in print the pecul-
iarities which abound in seventeenth-century
manuscripts. Even then he had for years
wished to see Bradford's "History" in "real
seventeenth-century dress"; that is to say, as it
would have come from the press of that day.
This hope, however, has not been fully realized
in the present edition, for it appears to have
been thought best to follow Bradford's orthog-
raphy, except in a few unimportant particulars.
This will delight the historical scholar, and at
the same time will not prove a hindrance to the
general reader who has recourse to the volumes.
Fortunately, Bradford's erratic and sometimes
meaningless punctuation has not in all cases
been preserved.
The work is introduced by a brief "Note,"
signed by the Committee of Publication, in which
it is truly stated that the story of the Pilgrim
Fathers has been told in all necessary detail;
nevertheless, some will regret that the editor
did not see fit to go over the ground once more
and trace in a consecutive manner the Pilgrim
movement. Certainly this would not have formed
a useless complement to the " History."
It would be difficult to praise too highly Mr.
Ford's rich and copious annotation. In this
respect he has left nothing to be desired. His
notes, written with admirable lucidity, have been
prepared with thoroughness and much learning.
He seems to have overlooked nothing of value
or interest, and it will perhaps never be neces-
sary to add much of importance to his labors.
The edition contains more than two hundred
finely-executed illustrations — many of them
very rare, — consisting of maps, views, fac-
similes of manuscripts, etc. The frontispiece of
the second volume is a beautiful reproduction
of a portrait of Edward Winslow, attributed to
Robert Walker, from the original in Pilgrim
Hall at Plymouth, the only authentic likeness
extant of any of the Mayflower company. In
no other book of Pilgrim history can there be
found such wealth of illustrative material. This
feature of the work is attractive and important.
The index is excellent. These handsome quarto
volumes will warm the book-lover's heart. They


96
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
are well made in every particular, and will rank
with the best work of a press which has for
many years been noted for the superiority of
its product.
This edition of Bradford's " History " should
find its way into every public library of the land,
where it will not only be available to the student
and scholar, but also to him who in these days
of stress and turmoil cares to pause long enough
to give thought to the old rock from which we
are hewn.
It will not be out of place here to say that
Mr. Ford is said to have edited, in the manner
of the present reprint of Bradford, an edition
(soon to appear) of Governor John Winthrop's
"Journal." Winthrop heretofore has had only
two editors worthy of the name,— Mr. James
Savage, for many years the honored President of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, and Dr.
James K. Hosmer. Mr. Savage, however, though
thoroughly steeped in the lore of his subject,
was nevertheless far from being an ideal editor;
but withal he was distinctly and racily individ-
ual. Dr. Hosmer's work is excellent, but not
full enough to make it the final word. The
Massachusetts Historical Society is indeed for-
tunate in being able to connect its name with
two great books, which will be read for all time,
or at least as long as there shall survive an
interest in the beginnings of this nation.
John Thomas Lee.
Andrew :Lang'8 Laying of the
Baconian Bogie.*
Andrew Lang's book on the Baconian myth
is his latest and we fear last service to litera-
ture,— though so versatile and industrious a
writer may well have left other surprises behind
him. Never, perhaps, in his career has he ex-
hibited more engagingly his special qualities,
his literary passion, his loyalty, and his light
and dexterous handling of really wide scholar-
ship. His book ought to be the last word on
the subject; but that, alas, is not to be hoped.
The last word in this matter has been said before,
—by Richard Grant White, by Mr. Dowden,
and by others. This is one of those questions
where reason and authority speak in vain; the
realization of which fact leads to exasperation.
Mr. Lang, for instance, begins in perfect tem-
per, with courtesy and Christian charity; he
ends somewhat in the state depicted by " Punch"
* Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown.
By Andrew Lang. Illustrated. New York: Longmans,
Green, & Co.
in its study of " a gentleman disturbed by a blue
bottle fly." What are you going to do with a
theory that evades evidence, defies logic, and re-
fuses to accept the credibilities of human nature?
Against the Pyrrhonic attitude nothing can be
proved. Archbishop Whately wrote " Historic
Doubts about Napoleon Buonaparte." Suppose
a case is tried where a witness for the defense
swears that A is A; and the opposing counsel
blandly remarks to the jury: "Yes, I know he
says so, but what he really means is that A is
B." Another person deposes that he believes
white to be white, and the same counsel declares
that it is perfectly clear that he harbors a mental
reservation that white is black. Then a witness
is examined who is qualified by long acquaint-
ance, comradeship, and rivalry to speak of the
defendant, and who does speak of him again and
again, sometimes in criticism, sometimes in un-
bounded eulogy. The lawyer for the plaintiff
listens and then smilingly declares that all this
is only " Fanny's way,"—that it is quite evident
that the gentleman has his tongue in his cheek;
that the very gruffness of his growling at and the
ardor of his championship of one man, the per-
fect applicability oi every fact he adduces to
him and to no other, is proof positive that it is
another whom he is referring to all the time.
This is a fair statement of the attitude of the
latest anti-Shakespeareans. The mind reels at
such treatment of the verities. Argument is
impossible. All the external evidence and
practically all the internal probability in the
case are on one side. The Baconian or anti-
Shakespearean theory is nothing but a suspicion
backed up by a sneer.
Mr. Lang does not trouble to treat of the
crop of cryptogrammic phantasies of the past.
These the neo-Baconians have themselves rele-
gated to the limbo of the forgotten. Nor does
he go into the so-called parallelisms of phrase
between Shakespeare and Bacon. Richard Grant
White and Mr. Dowden have thoroughly dis-
posed of these. He dismisses any resemblances
of thought as being part of the property of the
age—ideas in the air. It would not be difficult
to make out a case for Charles Darwin's author-
ship of "In Memoriam " and the early poems
of Tennyson. As for basic philosophy, Shake-
speare and Bacon are in antithesis. The one
was an idealist and pessimist, the other an utili-
tarian and optimist. Mr. Lang declines also to
express an opinion as to Shakespeare's legal
learning. He delivers him over to the lawyers,
who, he says, agree as to the accuracy of Shake-
speare's law allusions. Accurate they may be,


1913]
97
THE DIAL
but they are drawn from a slender stock of
knowledge. Shakespeare certainly did not know
Littleton's " Institutes " or the earlier treatises
of Bracton and Fleta. And these were the
English law authorities of his day. When in
1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, Ben
Jonson published his " Works," he was univer-
sally laughed at and regarded as an intruder in
literature.
"The silence about Shakespeare,"—that is
one of the pet superstitions of the Baconians.
Mr. Lang has no trouble in showing that we
know more about Shakespeare than about the
majority of the authors of that age. Here and
there a man like Ben Jonson, who had the
modern advertising instinct, or one like Mar-
lowe, who got himself into picturesque embroil-
ments, made his personality felt; but in the main
the Elizabethan literary group is a congregation
of shadows. This is largely true of the men who
were really considered poets in that day,—
Spenser, Daniel, Drayton. Playwrights were
but little regarded.
But, as Mr. Lang says, "Impossible" is the
banner word of the anti-Shakespeareans. It is
"impossible" that one of Shakespeare's birth
and bringing-up should have risen to such
heights! Why? Probably a good third of the
greatest men of all time have come up from
beginnings more inauspicious than were those
of Shakespeare. To name only three English
writers who have something of parity with
Shakespeare in their genius,—-Burns, Keats,
and Dickens came from a lower social strata,
and had comparatively less opportunity for edu-
cation than Shakespeare. When someone asked
the elder Dickens where his son had been edu-
cated, he answered, "Why—ah, you may say,
sir, that Charles educated himself." Latin was
the only gate to learning in Shakespeare's time.
There was a good Latin school at Stratford.
Up to the time that Shakespeare was thirteen or
fourteen his father was well-to-do—one of the
leading men of the village. If his son did not
attend the school, whose sons did? But learning
is a good deal like vaccination — it may take or
it may not. Or it is like the Scripture parable
of the Sowing of the Seed, some of which fell
on good ground and returned a hundred fold,
and some of which fell on stony ground and did
not come up at all. Granting the fertility of the
ground, little seed might produce a great harvest.
If Shakespeare was Shakespeare, it is hard to
see what better preparation he could have had
for the work he was to do. To spend his early
years in rural England, in daily experience of
those country scenes, customs, and characters
which crowd his plays, and then at twenty-one
or so to go up to the university of London life,
with just enough schooling to appreciate and
profit by the society into which he was thrown
and the books by which he was surrounded,—
does not this seem far more consonant with the
throb and vividness of the world which the plays
exhibit than an exclusively scholastic training?
To seek for accurate and thorough scholarship
in Shakespeare is, in Tennyson's phrase, "to
milk a he-goat."
Mr. Lang devotes a chapter to the First Folio.
There are said to be twenty thousand palpable
errors in this volume, besides a larger number
of mere typographical slips. Bacon corrected his
own works carefully enough. Did he who prized
the "New Atlantis" and the "Apothegms" so
highly, think the plays (assuming them for the
moment to be his) unworthy of the slightest
over-seeing? The Baconians assert that he hired
Ben Jonson to attend to this; but Jonson was
too good a workman to have had a hand in such
a mess as the first folio. A new theory is that
the plays are the work of "a Great Unknown,"
neither Shakespeare nor Bacon, who, indifferent
to money or fame, unrevealed to actors or pub-
lic, took the trouble to go through all the stages
of a playwright's novitiate and practice, and in
the end was so sublimely careless as to let his
works be published in such a shocking way.
Stat magni nominis umbra.
In his chapter on "The Preoccupations of
Bacon," Mr. Lang gives a view of the business
of this man's life—a life so full and varied that
James Spedding, who knew it best, said: "I
think I am in a position to state that Lord Bacon
did not write the plays." Mr. Lang refuses,
however, to set any limits to the powers of gen-
ius, whether in Shakespeare or Bacon. Genius,
indeed, can do much. Bolivar in one of his cam-
paigns captured a fleet of gunboats in a river
by a charge of cavalry. If Bacon had stopped
with his philosophical treatises, his essays, even
his history, it would have been impossible to
say what he might or might not have done in
pure literature. But he furnished evidence
against himself. He tried to write poetry, he
tried to write a romance, he tried to retell
humorous and witty stories. He did all these
things so badly that to credit him with creative
imagination or poetic expression is mere folly.
In these matters he is like an elephant trying to
play the part of an Ariel.
It is impossible to do justice to all the points
at issue which Mr. Lang meets and discusses.


98
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL.
The general aspects of the argument are all that
we can attend to, but as far as we can see he
weaves his minute web of scholarship without
flaw. He writes as one of those who know,
and, as he says in his opening paragraph, " the
Baconian theory is universally rejected in En-
gland by the professors and historians of English
literature, and generally by those who have no
profession save that of Letters." The same can
probably be said for America. In other words,
it is rejected by all those who are competent to
judge.
The conclusion of the whole matter—but we
fear there can be no conclusion, no speedy one
at least. A vagary, a heresy has entered the
world. It appeals to the iconoclasm innate in
many minds, and it appeals somewhat to class
prejudice. It will have to work itself out, as
heresies do. We are sometimes told that having
the Shakespearean work, it really does not mat-
ter to the world who created it. Well, it is a
poor world which refuses gratitude and honor
to its greatest. And if robbing a writer of
his reputation becomes the fashion it will react
on the literary creators to come. Foolishly or
not, an author is usually buoyed up by the hope
of influence and remembrance. If he finds that
he may be frustrate of the future, may very
probably be cheated of his fame, he may turn
his energies to other work, or do only what will
suffice for his own day.
Charles Leonard Moore.
The Philosophy op Walking.*
The true devotee of walking, if he happens
also to possess the knack of writing, will sooner
or later betray his own most cherished prin-
ciple. He knows beyond all other knowledge
that walking is a gift of the gods, to be rever-
ently enjoyed and not to be chattered about; he
realizes to the full the profanity of staining with
inky words those memories of sun-saturated and
wind-swept days that have been his upon the
open road. But the very ardor of his gratitude
for that high gift, the very intensity of his
enthusiasm inspired by those beatific memories,
seem to impel him irresistibly to utterance; and
sooner or later he becomes aware of something
before him, the work of his own impious hand,
—a poem or an essay, perhaps even a book, in
celebration of the mystic joys of the road.
The latest of such apostates is Mr. Arthur
* Walking Essays. By Arthur Hugh Sedgwick. New
York: Longmans, Green, & Co.
Hugh Sedgwick,—the greatest, also, we might
say, for his sin extends to an entire volume of
duodecimo proportions. But Mr. Sedgwick is
no callous or unconscious offender: he pleads
guilty at the very outset, and makes a penitent
appeal for absolution, in the form of a neatly-
rhymed dedication. Here are two of its nine
stanzas:
"How vain my effort, how absurd,
Considered as a symbol!
How lame and dull the written word
To you the swift and nimble!
How alien to the walker's mind,
Earth-deep, heaven-high, unflllable,
These petty snarls and jests ill-laid
And all the profitless parade
Of pompous polysyllable!
"But yet, I feel, though weak my phrase
My rhetoric though rotten,
At least our tale of Walks and Days
Should not go unforgotten;
At least some printed word should mark
The walker and his wanderings,
The strides which lay the miles behind
And lap the contemplative mind
In calm, unfathomed ponderings."
All this is too deprecatory. There is really noth-
ing whatever of the petty or the pompous in
Mr. Sedgwick's pages, and his rhetoric is unim-
peachable. Indeed, of all the fine fellows, from
Hazlitt to Mr. Belloc, who have written of walk-
ing, few have shown a neater facility of composi-
tion, a fuller flavor of wit and high spirits, or a
closer philosophic grasp of the subject. And it
should be remembered that Mr. Sedgwick has
had to sustain his pitch through eight chapters,
whereas the others wrote only a single essay
apiece.
In his first paper, on "Walking and Conver-
sation," while reasserting the basic truism that
walking and talking are wholly incompatible,
Mr. Sedgwick refutes for all time the superficial
corollary that walkers are therefore by tempera-
ment a morose and unsocial tribe.
"Nothing can be further from the truth. Only by
construing sociability in the very narrow sense of com-
pliance with current social conventions, can you justify
such a position; and even so, I would ask, are walkers
the only men who have ever omitted calls or trifled with
dance invitations? But if sociability is taken in its true
sense as indicating a friendly attitude of mind, I say
there is more of it between two walkers treading the
eighteenth mile without a word spoken, than between
any two diners-out talking twenty-four to the dozen, as if
there were a tax on unaccompanied monologue, and a
graduated super-tax on silence. When put to the ulti-
mate test of fact this becomes clear. If you have walked
with a man you will lend him tobacco, half-a-crown, nay,
you will lend him your map; if you have only dined with
him, I doubt if you would lend him a silk hat."
Closely related in substance to this essay is


1913]
99
THE
that on "Walking as a Social Form." Con-
scious of the fact that the walking fraternity
pursue their joys under the shadow of a certain
stigma, as enemies in a way to the recognized
social forms—dancing, teas, calls, dinners, and
what not,—Mr. Sedgwick proceeds to a close
philosophic analysis of social forms in general.
The result of his investigation is as revolution-
ary and liberating to the walker as are the con-
clusions of M. Bergson to the ordinary mortal.
Instead of a cringing apologia or a dogmatic
defiance, as were hitherto his only resources
against the taunts of dancers and diners and
tea-bibbers, the walker may now triumphantly
refute the validity of that "futile decalogue of
mode" to which society has so long given its
sanction, and point with serenity to the not
distant day when walking will be popularly re-
garded as the only authentic expression of the
social spirit.
Greatly daring, though not without reluctance
(for "controversy of any kind is naturally repug-
nant to the amiable nature of a walker "), Mr.
Sedgwick devotes a chapter to " Walking Equip-
ment." Here are revived some mighty questions
which have split the ranks of walkers from time
immemorial,—questions such as those of high
shoes versus low, long trousers versus short,
hats versus no hats, or (turning to the internal
needs of man) of meat versus vegetables, beer
versus water, and so on. Then there are the
finer philosophic distinctions, such as the con-
figuration of coats, the functions of waistcoats,
the necessity of ties, and the moral value of
walking sticks. Within this bristling palisade
of problems Mr. Sedgwick walks with fine tact
and conciliatory discretion; though he does
not hesitate upon occasion to record his own
convictions,— as witness the spirited denuncia-
tion of beer. (It must be owned, however, that
the force of this diatribe is much weakened by
a prefatory note disclaiming any application of
the remarks to Munich beer.)
We wish that space were available for some
indication of the wealth of good things in Mr.
Sedgwick's other chapters,—in that on " Walker
Miles," the humble cicerone of Surrey highways
and field-paths; on "Walking and Music," in
which the iconoclastic digression on dancing is
the best part; on "Walking in Literature,"
where we rejoice to see justice at last done to
that "living embodiment of all that is best in
walking," Vernon Whitford; on "Walking
Alone," with particular reference to walking in
London; and, finally, on " Walking, Sport and
Athletics." But we can do no more than quote
this concluding apostrophe of the essay last-
named:
"Poor, ill-used, neglected, misunderstood body! Our
ancestors soddened you with port: our grandfathers
overlooked you while they muddied with the soul and
mind which are bound up with you: ascetics starved
you and hedonists cultivated you in patches: doctors
analysed you till there was nothing left but a catalogue
of inanimate fragments: economic forces penned you in
dens and prisons: fashion clothed you in impossible gar-
ments, and kept you up at hours and in atmospheres
which outraged your most sacred instincts. And now I
make you sit here writing—writing! For heaven's sake,
come out for a walk."
It would be rather distressing to have to con-
template the mental equipment of any true
"companion of the boot" who did not find
infinite relish in Mr. Sedgwick's pages. Many
of the walking tribe will, with the reviewer, lay
the book down at last in a mood of exalted satis-
faction comparable only to that which comes to
one after a long day's tramp in the open, when,
over tea and a pipe in one of those enchanted
gardens that hide so unsuspectedly behind the
dusty road-fronts of certain well-remembered
English inns — say the " Burford Bridge" at
Dorking or the "Rothay " at Grasmere—one
muses in vacuous complacency over the rosy
aspect of things in general, and the celestial
pleasures of walking in particular.
Waldo R. Browne.
Recent Fiction.*
Mr. Theodore Dreiser has been long-winded
enough in his two previous performances, but in
his third novel, "The Financier," he has carried
analysis and amplification to an extreme hitherto
unattained. There are nearly eight hundred pages
in this book, and the story that they tell might have
been more effectively set forth with half the number
of words. He cannot introduce a new character, of
however minor significance, without telling us all
about him, or a new situation without enveloping it
in a cloud of comment and exposition. The details
of Cowperwood's stock manipulations are explained
in a manner that may be interesting to stock-
brokers, but are unspeakably wearisome to the
reader who is impatient for action and results.
* The Financier. By Theodore Dreiser. New York:
Harper & Brothers.
The Net. By Rex Beach. New York: Harper &
Brothers.
The Olympian. A Story of the City. By James
Oppenheim. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Mrs. Lancelot. A Comedy of Assumptions. By
Maurice Hewlett. New York: The Century Co.
The Strong Hand. By Warwick Deeping. New
York: Caasell & Co.
The Lure of Life. By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co.


100
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
When the financier is on trial for embezzlement, we
are given all the steps of the legal procedure, and
even the twelve good men and true who act as
jurors in the case are individually characterized.
The fault of over-elaboration is much more grievous
than it was in the case of Mr. White's "A Certain
Rich Man," which the present novel resembles in
both theme and construction. Mr. Dreiser gives us
truth, no doubt, and in that fact is the defence of
his method, but it is truth in conglomerate chunks
such as the literary artist is under bonds to dispense
with. Cowperwood, the chief figure in this narra-
tive, is described as a man who "never gave a
thought to the vast palaver concerning evil which
is constantly going on." He is utterly without
moral sense, and devoid of any principle other than
expediency. Born in Philadelphia in the thirties,
the son of a bank officer, his attention is early fixed
upon the financial game, and he determines as a
boy to get into it. While still at school, he carries
out certain sharp business transactions, and thereby
gets his start. After various experimental sallies, he
gets into the stock exchange, and enters upon his
real career. Every trick of manipulation seems to
come to him intuitively, and he becomes an adept at
juggling with values. He makes a specialty of trac-
tion stocks, and drags the city treasurer—a weak
creature—into his toils, acting as agent for the city
loan, and borrowing the city funds to use in his specu-
lative enterprises. His undoing comes with the Chi-
cago fire of 1871 and the ensuing panic, and with
the simultaneous exposure of his liaison with the
daughter of an Irish contractor who has befriended
him. The whole rotten situation is brought to light,
and he is pursued both by the public clamor that de-
mands a scapegoat and by the private vengeance of
the outraged father. In spite of every legal subtlety
that can be employed in his favor, he becomes a
bankrupt and a convict with a prison sentence of
several years. The actual term is cut short to about
a year by means of a pardon, and Cowperwood, a
free man, finds in the panic of 1873 and the failure
of Jay Cooke & Co. the occasion for rehabilitating his
fortunes through his knowledge of the stock market.
Then he starts for the West to build up a new career
in Chicago. Getting his wife to consent to a divorce,
he takes his paramour with him, and there the story
ends. Those who are familiar with the financial his-
tory of recent times know what followed, for, while
the study of Cowperwood is doubtless not an exact
portrait, it presents so many points of similarity to
the figure of a notorious buccaneer of recent days
that the reader early entertains a suspicion of his
identity. It becomes more than a suspicion when
we read this note of his life in the penitentiary.
"Every evening he had studied the sky from his
narrow yard, which resulted curiously in the gift in
later years of a great reflecting telescope to a famous
university." The word "reflecting" may be inten-
tional, but we imagine it to be a slip of a sort which
the author frequently makes, as when (about 1840)
Cowperwood is made to learn the difference between
a state bank and a national one. One of the noticeable
characteristics of the novel is a certain slovenliness
both in the use of language and in the statement of
fact. The following instances may be adduced: "The
great Chicago fire, October 7th, 1871, . . . began
on Saturday, October 7th, and continued apparently
unabated until the following Wednesday." The fire
began on Sunday evening, the 8th, and had spent
its fury early Tuesday morning. Our other instance
is in this description of a waltz: "He had put his
hand to her waist. His right arm held her left ex-
tended arm to arm, palm to palm. Her right hand
was on his shoulder, and she was close to him, looking
into his eyes." A waltz according to these specifica-
tions would excite much admiration in the onlookers.
The author of "The Financier" is committed to a
method of unflinching realism which makes such an
absurdity as this unusually conspicuous. His realism
also leads him, on at least two occasions, to forget
all the claims of reticence in dealing with the rela-
tions between men and women. And we must say
that the minute description of the costume worn by
Cowperwood's paramour, given us whenever she
makes an appearance, is calculated to get on the
reader's nerves.
Mr. Rex Beach has taken for the subject of his
new novel the New Orleans riots some twenty years
ago, the disturbances which subjected a number of
Italians to the summary process of lynch law, and
caused international complications, the echoes of
which have not yet died away. To this theme as a
climax he works up, beginning his tale in Sicily
several years earlier, with the brutal assassination of
a young landed proprietor, just about to become a
bridegroom, through the agency of the Mafia. His
betrothed, maddened by her bereavement, vows ven-
geance, and her cause is also taken up by the Amer-
ican friend of the murdered man, who has come to
Sicily for the wedding. Then the scene shifts to
New Orleans, where the American has his home,
and whither the criminals flee for a refuge. The
girl simply blots herself out of existence, becoming a
nurse in a religious house in New Orleans, and even
her collaborator in the plan of vengeance does not
suspect that she is living in his own city. Then a
series of crimes, presumably attributable to Italians,
arouse New Orleans to indignation, and Blake be-
comes instrumental in bringing them home. Build-
ing better than he knows, he discovers that he has
unearthed the man who had been guilty of the
Sicilian crime of years ago, and reveals a wealthy
and respected Italian merchant of the city as the
secret head of the Mafiosi. Then comes the trial,
in which a pusillanimous jury does not dare to con-
vict, although the evidence furnishes unquestionable
proof of guilt. The sequel is what history records,
and, although we are no apologists for lynch law, it
must be admitted that the author makes a case that
works upon our sympathies. The whole story is
melodrama of the better sort, moving steadily and


1913]
101
THE
DIAL.
relentlessly to its tragic predetermined close. It is
admirable in its construction, and every episode fits
logically into the plot. Not upon a single page does
the interest flag, and the situation is kept tense
all the time. Moreover, the author displays more
knowledge of life and more evident powers of char-
acterization than we have hitherto found in his
romantic inventions. In the end, Blake marries
the girl, which has been a foregone conclusion all
the time.
When Kirby Trask starts from somewhere in the
middle West to conquer the world, he takes with
him the memory of a successful college career fol-
lowed by a brief reportorial experience, and a letter
of introduction to the magnate who controls the steel
trust. The letter does him no particular good, but
he has industry and willingness, and he obtains and
holds several unpromising jobs until he feels himself
on his feet. Eventually, he succeeds to the position
of the steel trust magnate by the romantic process
of winning the latter's daughter. He does not do
anything in particular to deserve such a spectacular
success, and when the story ends, he is well on the
way to develop into the same sort of cold-blooded
and unscrupulous man as the one who has unwill-
ingly taken him for a son-in-law. The story of his
rise to power is unconvincing, because it does not
appear to be a triumph of either business genius or
moral endowment. It is for the most part a "fluke,"
and there is about it no touch of that idealism which
we have a right to expect in stories of the present
sort. This rather unwholesome story is the work
of Mr. James Oppenheim, and its title is "The
Olympian." It is realistic and in many ways vital,
but is rather common and uninspired in treatment.
"A Comedy of assumptions" is Mr. Maurice
Hewlett's description of "Mrs. Lancelot," his latest
novel in the Meredithian manner. Among the
assumptions not specified, which however are borne
in upon the reader's consciousness, are the identities,
respectively, of the heroine (here called Georgiana)
with Sanchia, and of her poet-lover with Senhouse.
As for the Duke of Devizes, we are compelled to think
of him as no other than the Iron Duke, because the
time of the story is that of the Reform Bill agitation,
and there is no other possible Duke of that time whom
we could invest with the powers and the qualities
here attributed to the figure of Mr. Hewlett's por-
trayal. The Duke's infatuation for Mrs. Lancelot fits
perfectly with that well-known trait of his character
which made him silly in the presence of a petticoat,
and there is a certain piquancy in finding him here
presented as the poet's rival for the affections of
Sanchia-Georgiana. Mr. Lancelot is a third contest-
ant for that prize, but being merely her husband, and
a person so mean-spirited as to seek advancement
through his wife's influence with the Duke, he gets
considerably less than a third share of our sympathies,
since we feel that he has brought the pangs of jealousy
upon himself. The story is animated by a spirit of
delicious comedy, and is notable for its psychological
discernment. But we must confess that the material
is thin, and that the story (considered merely as such)
drags not a little toward the end.
Mr. Warwick Deeping is a novelist whose work
is always interesting; his situations are well con-
ceived and firmly handled. It is not, then, greatly
to his disparagement to say that ''The Strong
Hand" is an inferior example of his work. His
story is that of an enemy of the people in Ibsen's
sense — the story of a physician in a country town,
who seta the respectable villagers by the ears when
he pokes into their wells and drains, and discloses
the most shocking conditions of sanitation. The
hero of this crusade is a young surgeon who comes
to the village as assistant to the doddering old practi-
tioner in whose hands the health of the community
has hitherto been trusted. The practical investiga-
tions and the blunt speech of the new-comer soon get
him into opposition with his chief, and into disfavor
with the propertied classes. It takes the horrors of
an epidemic to show that he has been a prophet and
to justify his actions. Meanwhile, dismissed from
his post, he is forced to fight single-handed for
decent conditions, and gains his ends only after a
hard struggle. His triumph is a little qualified, for
toward the end he is forced to make the hard choice
between the claims of love and of duty, and love gets
rather the better of it, thereby weakening his sense
of responsibility, and making him a little less than
the moral hero he has set out to become.
"I had the mind of a monk, and you have put the
passion of a man into me." This may be taken as
the text or the programme of "The Lure of Life,"
the new novel by Mr. and Mrs. Castle. It is the
story of a student, unexpectedly come into possession
of fortune and ancestral acres, who is turned from
the ways of scholarship by the attractions of a house-
hold upon a neighboring estate. It is a Belgian
household, established in England for a part of the
year, and it consists of the Count and Countess de
Braye and their niece Solange de Flodore. It is the
Countess for whom Sir Ughtred first conceives a
passion, although she is many years his senior, but
he thinks to discern in her a soul-mate, until he
makes the alarming discovery that she is only philan-
dering with him, and she is by nature a mangeuse
d'dmes, winning men's devotion for the zest of the
sport, with no idea of playing the game to the limit.
The complication resulting from this sentimental
adventure leads him into a mariage de convenanee
with Solange, a farouche creature who has flouted
him, but with whom he discovers himself on the
honeymoon to be as deeply in love as the most
sentimentally-minded young reader could wish. The
story is wholly artificial, and, as knowledge of its
authorship would lead one to suspect, positively reek-
ing with sentimentality. It sets us wishing, as Mrs.
Glyn's "Halcyone" did, that lady-novelists would
not attempt to rhapsodize about Greek art and the
Greek spirit; they do it so badly.
William Morton Payne.


102
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL
Bkiefs on New Books.
Two French ^'w0 v°lun,es dealing respectively
matten 0/the with Puvis de Chavannes and Edou-
pretentdav- ard Manet inaugurate a new art
series, entitled "French Artists of To-day" (Lip-
pincott), which promises to prove useful to Amer-
ican lay readers as an introduction to contemporary
French art. Paris is at present the eye of humanity,
the place where fresh discoveries in vision and ex-
periments in expression are most constantly being
made, the most highly energized and vitalized centre
of artistic production in the modern world. It is fit-
ting that a set of handbooks interpreting to us a little
of this intense creative activity should begin with
studies of the two men who perhaps more than any
others are responsible for the enthusiasm and the
direction of its progress. Puvis de Chavannes and
Edouard Manet, different as they were in experience
and in method of expression, were alike in courage,
in sincerity, and in power of inspiring their disciples.
Puvis de Chavannes began his work much more itni-
tatively than Manet, — his early pictures as repro-
duced here show little differentiation from the suave
commonplaces of the academicians; but he outgrew
his training, he dared to analyze his own impres-
sions at first-hand and to translate into quietly simple
and exquisite idyls the results of his steady contem-
plation of nature. There is something of Corot in
him and something of Maeterlinck; not that his con-
ceptions are not above all his own (the great series
of frescoes in the Pantheon is original in every sense
of the word), but it is easier in Puvis de Chavannes's
work to find echoes of artistic influences than it is
in such painting as Manet's. "I am myself alone,"
shrieked Manet in the face of his first mystified and
disgusted public, as he presented to them veracious
bits drawn from his own immediate surroundings.
He chose to paint the actualities of city life and
character, refusing to sentimentalize them as Dumas
fiU was doing in his plays, or, like Chavannes, to
withdraw from them into woods and fields peopled
by his transforming imagination. Look first at
"Olympia," wonderful, tarnished, real creature of
the cynical Paris streets that she is, and then turn
to the nymphs of "The Sacred Wood," and you have
the difference between the two men,—the difference,
moreover, between the pragmatist and the idealist
in art to-day and every day. One kind of vision is
as true and as fruitful as the other, certainly in the
immediate instance each has proved as stimulating
to the sight and imagination of the generation now
working as the other, and both have pointed towards
equally fresh possibilities in their medium. These
little books will perform a valuable service if they
rouse interest in such creators as Chavannes and
Manet and their followers. Whether the black and
white and not always very distinct illustrations,
numerous and well-chosen though they are, can sug-
gest at all adequately originals so remarkable for
color, is more than a question; Claude Monet and
the later impressionists would surely lose most of
their charm in similar reproductions. Yet the vol-
umes pretend only to be introductory to a large field
of study, and for that purpose they furnish necessary
machinery; the introductions and notes, translated
from the French of excellent critics like Andre1
Michel and Louis Hourticq, are refreshingly enthu-
siastic and undidactic, and biographical and biblio-
graphical details are sufficiently indicated.
Whatever may be one's philosophical
IZneTwomen. presuppositions as to the relative
excellence of Buddhism, Confucian-
ism, Taoism, and Christianity, one can scarcely lay
down Miss Margaret E. Burton's little volume,
"Notable Women of Modern China" (Revell),
with any heart left to quarrel with the missions that
have produced these particular specimens of modern
women. The book consists of sketches of the lives
and characters of six Chinese women, all of them
Christians. Three of the women are physicians, one
is the widow of a mandarin of high rank, one was a
teacher, and one a former Taoist nun. The sketches
vary somewhat in interest, but no one of them is
lacking in value as a document to those who desire
to weigh dispassionately the achievement of Chris-
tian missions in China. Readers who are at all
familiar with the Chinese race will not be wholly
surprised by the remarkable charm and attractive-
ness of nature attributed to all the women depicted,
but few will be prepared to discover in a Chinese
woman capacity and ability of such extraordinary
degree as seem to be possessed by two or more of
the subjects of the volume, notably by Miss Mary
Stone, the Kiukiang physician. The Chinese are
frequently called a passive race, capable of moving
only in masses, and wholly deficient in initiative.
Either the characterization fails to take account of
the influence of environment, and of the change in
race habits with the change in environment, or else
the Christian religion begets traits contradictory of
the habits of the race to which the individual belongs.
Only in one of these two ways can we account for
the initiative and individuality which characterize
the subjects of Miss Burton's sketches. The men
who appear incidentally in the book share these
traits with the women. The most remarkable person
of the six studied is Dr. Mary Stone. The daughter
of a Chinese pastor, herself thoroughly prepared by
missionary teachers for an American college educa-
tion, and graduated with honor from the medical
school of the University of Michigan, Dr. Stone has
demonstrated, according to the testimony of many
capable witnesses, extraordinary gifts as a physician,
surgeon, administrator, and teacher. Beginning
with her friend Dr. Ida Kahn, who later instituted a
new work in another city, Dr. Stone has for years
conducted a hospital at Kiukiang, securing the funds,
designing the buildings, training all the assistants,
organizing the staff, and achieving remarkable suc-
cess as physician and surgeon. But her ability as
organizer, her achievement as a teacher of nurses,
her sway over the extensive work that she has de-


1913]
103
THE
DIAL
veloped, are no more impressive than are her per-
sonal character and her social attractiveness. As the
central figure in the book, Miss Stone is surrounded
by almost equally pleasing personalities, one of the
most winsome being her younger sister,—victim a
few years ago to tuberculosis, but leaving behind a
record of unusual ability and achievement and of
great sweetness of nature. Miss Burton's book
should have a wide reading, and one may venture
to hope that it will dispel at least a small part of the
fog of misconception which clouds American thought
in regard to the Chinese.
Shaketpeare Professor George H. Palmer's "In-
<tnd timations of Immortality in the Son-
immortaiitv. net8 of Shakspere" (Houghton) is
the thirteenth of the series of lectures on immor-
tality delivered at Harvard under the provisions of
the Ingersoll Lectureship. It differs from most of
its predecessors in abandoning the theoretic aspects
of the subject in order to scrutinize the testimony
of one whose unparalleled insight into mortality at
least is universally conceded — to examine, in the
lecturer's own words, " an instance in English liter-
ature where the massive truth naively discloses its
varied meanings and practical import." Holding
that we treat immortality too much as an abstract
matter instead of something to be discovered among
the concrete experiences of life, he regards Shake-
speare as a peculiarly valuable witness because he is
so little concerned with theology and so reticent in
regard to his own beliefs. Though Professor Palmer
cautiously shields his findings under the title of
"Intimations," they are by no means insignificant.
Accepting the order of the sonnets as substantially
correct, he discovers the poet dwelling, in their three
groups, upon three successive types of immortality,
which may be designated as the Natural, the Ideal,
and the Spiritual. The first two of these are perhaps
sufficiently obvious; it is not so clear that the third
is present in the third group as a constituent or per-
vading element, though it comes at least once, in
sonnet one hundred forty-six, to very definite expres-
sion. Historical criticism is not likely to abandon
its attempts to solve the mystery of these baffling
poems; but so long as the mystery remains unsolved,
a consistent reading of them in any aspect, such as
is here offered, will be welcome. However, Pro-
fessor Palmer set out upon a very different quest,
and the particular thing which he has brought back
is the fact that Shakespeare "once at least looked
into immortality."
An appeal for Mr- Anthony M. Ludovici has com-
arittocracv bined two great subjects, " Nietzsche
in art. an(j Art" (Luce), and has written a
provocative book on this double theme. But aside
from the leitmotif and a few quotations, Nietzsche
is in no way responsible for this study. "Ludovici
and Art" would have been a more correct but less
fetching title. Mr. Ludovici thinks as follows: Art
is possibly the greatest thing on earth, for artists
interpret the world, give values to things, adjust
nature, and impose order upon chaos. But the art
of to-day is in a pitiable plight. Confusion and lack
of strong ideals prevail not only in politics and re-
ligion but also in art. Artistically we do not know
what we want; we only know, if we have any artis-
tic sense, that what we have is not good. Democracy
is the ubiquitous demon which is responsible for the
hopeless condition of modern art. Everybody feels
called to paint—preferably landscapes and portraits
—and attributes this calling to his artistic tempera-
ment, whereas it is only a betrayal of his weak will.
Therefore, to point out only a few of the decadents
in Mr. Ludovici's estimation, Monet's pointillisme,
Sargent's nervous strokes, Rodin's detailed anatomy,
the Impressionists' atmosphere, Peter Graham's
gauzes, Lavery's pale people, indeed the devotion
of all modern artists to truth in the Christian and
scientific sense,— all these are indications of the
general "funk" that has overtaken the art world.
What we need is superman-art, the art that comes
from one great commander with a host of merry
followers, such art as built the Egyptian Pyramid
and wrought the diorite statue of King Chephren at
Cairo. We need aristocratic art, with symmetry,
sobriety, simplicity, transfiguration, and repetition.
Now, this book is the outcome of much study; it
scintillates about the Old Masters; the author's point
is clearly made; and that there is some ground for
grievance in the world of art, all will admit. But
only a negligible minority will say that the case of art
is as bad as it is here painted. And practically none
will ascribe any imperfect art that is being produced
to-day to the Luthers and Humboldts and Bebels of
this and other days. The situation is not hopeless.
Where so many paint some will surely draw. And
since this book is silent on Nietzsche's attitude to-
ward literature and music, where he was so voluble,
and since it is so voluble on painting and sculpture,
where Nietzsche was practically dumb, the title is
unfair all around: it flatters the writer, cajoles the
reader, and mismates Nietzsche.
AnEnaiuhman: Mr- James Milne' Allowing close on
bachelor honev- the heels of Mr. Arnold Bennett, but
moon in America. not gtepping in his very footprints,
gives the world his impressions of America (that is,
of the United States and Canada) in "John Jonathan
and Company" (Macmillan), which purports to be
"the full, true, and particular record, with observa-
tions, reflections, and confessions, of a bachelor
honeymoon over the Atlantic, through America and
Canada, and home again to England, all duly set
down in a proper manner." The narrator's sweet-
heart is supposed to send him out to see the world
and make sure of his own heart before the irrevo-
cable word shall have been uttered at the altar. This
playful conceit is happily handled, and the familiar
letters written home by the traveller are excellent
reading. There is more of graceful play of fancy,
more of character-study and of quiet and meditative
observation, than in Mr. Bennett's far-trumpeted
volume. What should most interest a European in
■


104
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL
America, is thus stated: "But if he thinks that man
is man's most interesting study, that possible gleams
into the future are as good to get as the lights of long
ago, then assuredly he should try America. It still
runs full-speed ahead, and it still has an open mind
as to the goal, so here is a crying interest for you,
who like to follow human progress even in my poor
epistles." Another passage: "Never is the Amer-
ican more delightful than when he is an author, an
artist, a journalist, a composer, a doctor, a lawyer, a
professor, in a word when he is the professional man.
As such he is not burdened with the hoary moss
called etiquette, which clings to his calling in an old
country." It is, then, the people and not the sky-
scrapers and the Pullman cars and the mammoth
hotels that interest Mr. Milne, and his interest is
most agreeably and entertainingly expressed. On
an early page the critic cannot fail to note in pass-
ing an instance of that wilfulness of the personal
pronoun to which Professor Lounsbury is just now
calling attention. The author writes of the iceberg
that wrecked the Titanic: "It rips her open, she, the
unconquerable, the unsinkable, . . ." The reader's
attention to what Mr. Milne has to say is undis-
tracted by pictures, except that a frontispiece repre-
sents "the spirit of the Atlantic" in a full-rigged
ship drawn by Mr. Charles Pears.
The heroic aae The ^laAoM of Greek and Teutonic
in Greek and heroic poetry offer a tempting theme
Teutonic poetrv. to the archaeologist or litterateur;
but the alluring path is bound to be thorny for the
adventurer who dreams of definite conclusions.
However, Mr. H. Munro Chadwick, Fellow of Clare
College, Cambridge, has just written a large volume,
"The Heroic Age" (Putnam), wherein he strives
to bring these relations to light,— or, as he mod-
estly states, to make a start in that direction. He
takes the Heroic Age of the Teutonic peoples as
covering approximately three hundred years, and
closing about the middle of the sixth century; the
Greek Heroic Age he regards as terminating with
the series of movements traditionally known as the
Return of the Heracleidai, and covering three or
four generations. Mr. Chadwick believes that the
resemblances between the Teutonic group of poems
and the Homeric poems "are due primarily to
resemblances in the ages to which they relate and
to which they ultimately owe their origin. The com-
parative study of heroic poetry therefore involves
the comparative study of 'Heroic Ages,' and the
problems which it presents are essentially problems
of anthropology." In the earlier chapters the author
treats of such subjects as "The Heroic Age of the
Teutonic Peoples," "The Poetry and Minstrelsy of
Early Times," and "The Supernatural Elements in
the [Northern] Heroic Stories." Then he proceeds
to the Greek period, and takes up corresponding
topics. In the last hundred pages he becomes more
definitely comparative under such captions as "The
Common Characteristics of Teutonic and Greek
Heroic Poetry," "Religion in the Heroic Age," or
"The Causes and Antecedent Conditions of the
Heroic Age." Obviously we cannot enter upon a
detailed criticism, and it is with extreme reluctance
that we record an opinion unsupported by evidence;
but we feel that the results attained in the volume
are by no means commensurate either with the
reputation of the distinguished author or the amount
of toil he has cheerfully lavished upon his project.
The material book will be a joy to any reader who
appreciates good typography and presswork.
A timely After the late visit among us of the
collection of popular French author whom we
Loti't sketches. \iD0W jn literature as Pierre Loti,
but who to his friends in daily life is Captain Viaud,
there is a manifest timeliness in the issue of the
little volume of brief miscellanies designated on its
title-page as "Carmen Sylva and Sketches from the
Orient" (Macmillan). These pieces, presented in
an "authorized translation" by Mr. Fred Roth well,
were written twenty or more years ago, and thus
their claim to favor must rest on a more substantial
basis than mere novelty. More than a third of the
book is devoted to the author's reminiscences of the
Roumanian queen, whom he waited upon at her castle
of Sinaia, later in Bucharest, and again in her com-
parative seclusion at Venice after she had incurred
the displeasure of her people by urging the marriage
of her maid of honor, Mile. Helene Vacaresco, to the
prince royal. It is a pathetic picture of a saddened
and physically failing queen he leaves with us.
"Constantinople in 1890," three short pages on
"Serpent Charmers," some notes written in 1885
and entitled "A Few Forgotten Pages of 'Madame
Chrysantheme,'" and a skilful sketch descriptive of
"Japanese Women in 1890," complete the volume,
whose closing lines prove that his passion for the
Orient has not blinded the author to the faults of
far-eastern women — or at least of some of them.
He calls the women of Japan "affected and finical
in mind and body, artificial and prim," their very
souls "old and worn out," perhaps because, as he
surmises, "their race has for so many centuries been
separated from the other varieties of the human
species, living on its own stock and never being re-
novated." These well-translated sketches serve as
fair specimens of Loti's style. A portrait of "Car-
men Sylva" accompanies them.
A book
of jest and
jollity.
Mr. Walter Jerrold, worthy grandson
to Douglas of pleasant memory, fore-
stalls one almost inevitable criticism
upon his "Book of Famous Wits" (McBride) by
inscribing on an early page as his motto the opening
words of Longfellow's well-known poem, "The Vil-
lage Blacksmith"—"Under the spreading chestnut
tree." No considerable work like that of Mr. Jer-
rold's could possibly fail to contain many anecdotes
familiar to the well-informed reader; but as the Right
Honorable Robert Farquharson said in recommend-
ing "Joe Miller's Jest Book "—our informant is Mr.
Jerrold himself—"though there are some chestnuts


1913]
105
THE
DIAL,
among them, with judicious warming they will come
out as good as new, and even if your hearers have
heard them before in the dim and distant past, they
will open long disused cells of association and recol-
lection in the brain, just as those old-world smells of
pot-pourri or of antiquated scents often bring back
such floods of memory." Without weighting his
book with bibliographical notes, the careful compiler
has made it plain that he has sought the earliest and
best available authorities for the utterances attributed
to the " famous wits" of his volume. After an agree-
able discussion of wit and humor in general, with
incidental defense of the pun—the lowest form of
wit, and therefore, as Erskine maintained, the found-
ation of all wit — he introduces in chronological
order, with brief biographical accompaniment, his
celebrated fun-makers, from Queen Elizabeth's time
to the present. A story not without its obvious
bearing on the Shakespeare-Bacon question, though
recorded without reference thereto, is that of the
convicted criminal who appealed to his judge, Sir
Nicholas Bacon, to spare his life on the plea of kin-
ship between them. "How so?" demanded Sir
Nicholas. "Because my name is Hog and yours is
Bacon; and hog and bacon are so near akin that
they cannot be separated." "Ay; but you and I
cannot yet be kindred," objected the judge, "for
hog is not bacon until it be well hanged." Due honor
is paid to Douglas Jerrold, whose best sayings are
repeated, but his portrait is not among the dozen
that fittingly adorn the work. It is an excellent
book; it stands the severe test of consecutive reading.
Sketchetof Frederic Taber Cooper, whose
the younger book entitled "Some American Story
noveiuu. Tellers" is remembered as a refresh-
ing presentation of information not readily accessi-
ble elsewhere, has published a companion volume
called "Some English Story Tellers: A Book of the
Younger Novelists" (Holt). In view of the fact that
this title was "deliberately chosen," one is somewhat
surprised to find that the author has included Mr.
De Morgan, who was born before the death of Frances
Burney, and has excluded Mr. H. G. Wells, born
over a quarter of a century later. Among the novel-
ists discussed are Mr. Conrad, Mr. Hewlett, Mr.
Kipling, Mr. Locke, Mr. Galsworthy, and Mr. Ben-
nett; and to represent the easy-going catholic tem-
per of the author we might add Mrs. Dudeney, Mr
Hichens, and Mr. Trevena. The treatment, in each
case, involves a few words regarding the novelist's
position, something of his life, and an expository
account of his chief writings, with enough critical
appraisement to make the reader glad that there is
no more. This does not mean that Mr. Cooper is
extraordinarily lacking in the critical faculty: he
writes nimbly and sensibly, makes no palpable blun-
ders of consequence, and, considering the difficulty
of weighing the merits of living writers, rarely for-
gets that the critic must have something to say. But
beyond this faint praise one can hardly go. Aside
from its critical aspect, the book is admirable enough:
it is entertaining, it abounds in facts that are signifi-
cant as well as unfamiliar, it contains a forty-page
bibliography, and it is illustrated with a number of
photographs that many devotees of the modern novel
will scrutinize with sentimental satisfaction.
Mr. George The Becond P*""1. "Salve," of Mr.
Moore continue t George Moore's autobiographic tril-
hu "Trilogy." ogy («Hail and Farewell") is as ram-
bling and varied and pleasantly haphazard as was
the first part, "Ave," and as, doubtless, will be the
third part, "Vale," now in preparation. Disap-
proving England's attitude in the Boer War, our
brilliant and impulsive author shakes off the dust
of London from his feet and betakes himself to
Dublin to become a "Gaelic League propagandist."
And there of course he falls in with the celebrated
Irish poets of the day, and with other celebrities
and non-celebrities, with whom he has high and
impassioned discourse on all imaginable topics, and
a few others. In a passing reference to Mr. Ches-
terton's classing of Francis Thompson with Shelley
and Keats, he remarks, in aptly idiomatic phrase:
"He must have been thinking with the surface of
his brain when he compared Francis Thompson with
Shelley; casual thinking always puts wrong words
into our heads." A list of the great French writers
of the nineteenth century which he gives omits
Daudet and Dumas (both father and son), though
it includes Zola and Maupassant and Gautier. Re-
ligious controversy and all sorts of more or less
heated debate are found in abundance in the book,
and no reader of any convictions of his own can fail
to find some one or other of his pet opinions rather
unceremoniously handled-—which will impart zest
to his perusal of the volume. The literature of
autobiography can show nothing to match this
trilogy of Mr. George Moore's. (Appleton.)
"Simple Rules for Overcoming In-
•thT.iZlTe... "omnia" is the sub-title of Dr.
Joseph Collins's brief discourse upon
a vital subject, "Sleep and the Sleepless" (Sturgis
& Walton Co.), which makes it plain that Morpheus
is not to be wooed, but his adversaries overcome. It
is an eminently rational book, and is addressed to
those who are ready and able to direct the regimen
of life by reasonable methods. It argues in com-
monsense fashion, yet with the reinforcement of sci-
entific data, for the removal of causes that disturb the
recuperative functions and make the ills that mind
is heir to. It sets forth briefly bat emphatically the
use of drugs and the larger abuse to which drugs
invite, as well as the conditions of their wise appli-
cation. It offers no secrets, because there are none
to offer; it neither alarms nor seeks refuge in an
ignoring bliss that postpones the day of reckoning.
It advises expertly even to the character of literary
companions to be chosen for their soothing effect in
putting one to sleep. The whole forms so accept-
able a guide to the problems of regimen that its
perusal may be recommended to those whose sleep is


106
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
troubled or untroubled,— for even the latter have
problems of regimen not unrelated to the more seri-
ous tribulations of their sleepless kinsmen. Whether
we bless the inventor of sleep or deplore its necessity,
we do well to accept the limitations of our inherit-
ance and seek wisdom in adapting desire to capacity.
Collected ver,e When Rosamund Marriott Watson
of a gifted died, something more than a year
Englithwoman. ag0) tJje fact wafj g;ven oniy tJje
barest mention even in the literary journals of her
own country. Yet by many discriminating poetry-
lovers on both sides of the Atlantic the loss was felt
in a keenly intimate sense. A "humbler poet" she
assuredly was, with limitations which she would have
been the first to admit; but nevertheless, few among
her fellow-singers of the past quarter-century have
been more adept in reaching and stirring the reflective
heart. She handled a wide variety of metrical forms
with facility and delicate grace. Her themes are many
and various also; but in most of her verse, whatever
the subject, "the sense of tears in mortal things" is
uppermost. This insistent note of sadness, this wist-
ful preoccupation with the idea of death and trans-
ition, has indeed greatly limited her appeal in a
generation that is determined to be jolly at all odds.
But she has found, and will continue to find, her fit
audience, however few, by whom the five small vol-
umes of her published verse will always be cherished.
The contents of these five volumes have now been
brought together in a collected edition (John Lane
Co.), with the addition of a selection of new poems
which it had been the author's intention to publish
in a separate volume under the title, "The Lamp and
the Lute." Some of the exquisite garden lyrics from
"The Heart of a Garden" are also included in this
section. Mr. H. B. Marriott Watson, the poet's hus-
band, edits this collected edition. The volume is
well printed and bound, and contains a photogravure
portrait.
a o„.n„ All that filial devotion and the love
A Southern .
soldier and and respect of friends could do to
churchman. honor the memory of a man eminent in
his calling of soldier, educator, and churchman, has
been placed at the service of the biographer of "The
Soldier-Bishop, Ellison Capers" (Neale). Mr. Wal-
ter B. Capers, the late bishop's youngest son and
president of Columbia Institute, at Columbia, Ten-
nessee, has acted as scribe in the compiling of avail-
able data concerning his father's life; but the other
six surviving sons and daughters, and many friends
and admirers of the "soldier-bishop" have gladly
assisted with letters and other contributions, and the
journal and letters of the deceased have also been
largely drawn upon. Ellison Capers was born at
Charleston, S. C, Oct. 14,1837; finished his school
education at Arsenal Academy, Columbia, where he
afterward taught until the outbreak of war called
him to the service of his state; distinguished himself
notably at the battle of Jackson, Miss., was wounded
at Chickamauga, promoted brigadier-general soon
afterward, and was with Hood and Johnston in the
arduous campaigns of the Army of the Tennessee.
In the ministry, which he entered not long after
laying aside the sword, he became Bishop of South
Carolina; and in 1904 he was elected Chancellor
of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn.
He died in 1908. Tributes to his memory and selec-
tions from his public utterances fill the last part of
the volume. Portraits and other illustrations enrich
the work.
The Brothers of the Book is the name
^'Sle. of an organization of literary ama-
teurs which publishes quaint and
curious little books from time to time for the delight
of its members and a few favored outsiders. One
of its recent issues is a pamphlet whose title runs as
follows: "Campi Golfarii Romae Antiquae: De Ludo
Antiquo Regalique Excerptum ex Actis Diurnis C.
Cilni Maecenatis in Versum Modernum Convertit
et Annotavit P. Sibleius Ferus" (Chicagine: In
Linea Sartoris). Which being interpreted means that
certain verses about the game of golf, written by Mr.
Bert Leston Taylor for the column of whimsicalities
which he edits in a Chicago newspaper, have been
put into Latin by Mr. Payson Sibley Wild, and pro-
vided with an imposing array of learned apparatus.
The Latin text purports to have been discovered by
Dr. von Aberwitz of the University of Hofbrtlu,
and to reveal the fact that the ancient game was in
favor with the Roman emperors, and was wellnigh
the undoing of Augustus Csesar, driving him to
strong language and to drink.
"Nob modo Caudas Gallorum Martini,
Modo lagenas arcessiraus, vim."
The note which describes the Martini runs as fol-
lows: "Permixtio delicatissima mellis, malorum cit-
reorum, amarorum,'aquae ignese' et olivarum pipere
refertarum," attributed to Plinius Tertius, which
seems to be an accurate and workable description.
It is all excellent fooling, and the conceit is worked
out with wit and verve.
BRIEFER MENTION.
Rich's " Apolonius and Silla," edited by Mr. Morton
Luce, and the "Mensechmi" of Plautus, with Latin
text and Elizabethan translation, edited by Dr. W. H.D.
Rouse, are two additions to "The Shakespeare Classics,"
published by Messrs. Duffield & Co.
Professor Egbert Ray Nichols has compiled a second
volume of " Intercollegiate Debates," covering the year
1910-11. It will, like its predecessor, find an enthu-
siastic welcome amoug college and high school students.
Messrs. Hinds, Noble, & Eldredge are the publishers.
In her volume entitled " Noted Speeches of Daniel
Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun," Miss Lilian
Marie Briggs has edited for school use six famous
orations which had a marked influence upon American
history. The book is published by Messrs. Moffat,
Yard & Co.
To his series of new translations from Plutarch, Pro-
fessor Bernadotte Perrin now adds the lives of Nicias
and Alcibiades, and provides them with a very elaborate


1913]
107
THE DIAL
apparatus of annotation. With this volume the author
completes his design, begun in "Themistocles and
Aristides " and advanced in "Cimon and Pericles," of
presenting in popular form material for the critical
study of "the greatest century in the history in Athens."
The Messrs. Scribner are the publishers.
Four volumes of the handsome library edition of Will-
i am Sharp now being published by Messrs. Duffield & Co.
are at hand. Two of them contain Mrs. Sharp's memoir
of her husband; the other two are " Vistas " and "Lit-
erary Geography and Travel Sketches." This series is
in addition to the " Fiona Macleod " books, which are
published in a separate collection.
The "Scientific American Reference Book" for
1913, published by Messrs. Mann & Co., is a compen-
dium of useful information about such timely subjects
as Antarctic discovery, the Panama Canal, wireless
telegraphy, and hundreds of others. Its six hundred
pages are crammed with facts, many of which are not
accessible in the ordinary works of reference. There
are also many illustrations. This book seems to supply
a real want.
The "Music Lovers' Cyclopedia" (Doubleday), as
now issued, is a revised edition, in a single volume, of
the work formerly published in two. The editor is Mr.
Rupert Hughes, and he has spared no pains to make
the work one which shall meet all the demands the lay
lover of music may make upon it. There are diction-
aries of composers and musical terms, plots of operas,
essays on special subjects, and all sorts of other matter
conveniently arranged for ready reference. It is pub-
lished at a modest price, and contains nearly a thousand
pages.
In Dr. E. W. Scripture's little book entitled " Stutter-
ing and Lisping" (Macmillan) is set forth the nature of
one of the most common and distressing interferences
with the normal life. The technical equipment of the
author is unusual, inasmuch as he combines an early
psychological training with many years of special re-
search in phonetics, and is now a practitioner in the
treatment of nervous disease. There is so little avail-
able on this subject representative of modern views that
the book will at once find its public. In a measure it
attempts too much, since it aims at once to be a guide
for the general practitioner, a record of the methods
of investigation, and a manual of practical exercises in
the cure of these impediments. Apart from the unavoid-
able confusion in maintaining a coordination in so many
directions, the volume meets its requirements.
The aim of Dr. Peloubet's new " International Bible
Dictionary" (Winston) is high, in that it endeavors to
bring to the great body of teachers and readers the
results of the latest modern biblical scholarship. The
editor also deserves praise for omitting from its pages
such speculative theories and hypotheses as overburden
some of the larger dictionaries. The proper names of
the Bible, which are always troublesome to students, are
both marked for pronunciation and denned according to
their derivation. Tables of money, weights, and meas-
ures are prepared on the basis of the latest investigations
of specialists. The chronological scheme adopted (in
an Appendix) is that of the late Professor Beecher of
Auburn Theological Seminary. The fourteen new col-
ored maps of Bible lands are a splendid addition to any
student's equipment. It is particularly gratifying to
find one editor of a popular dictionary of the Bible who
realizes the inherent value of ocular instruction. Dr.
Peloubet illumines and decorates his pages by five hun-
dred illustrations, nearly all of which appear here for
the first time. The moderate cost of the book will put
it within reach of many readers who could not afford the
other more expensive single-volume dictionaries.
When Mr. Lewis Melville was collecting material for
his recent biography of William Beckford, he obtained
permission of the Duke of Hamilton, a collateral de-
scendant from Beckford, to examine the Beckford papers
at Hamilton Palace; and there, in two large chests never
before explored by a man of letters, he discovered, amid
other important documents, some large bundles of manu-
script, written in French, which proved to be the unpub-
lished " Episodes " of the famous oriental tale for which
Beckford is chiefly remembered. These papers had
hitherto been supposed to be lost. In a portly volume,
entitled "The Episodes of Vathek" (Lippincott), they
are now given to the world, both in the original French
of Beckford, and in a flowing and readable translation
by Sir Frank T. Marzials. The English version is placed'
first, in large print; the French original next, in smaller
type; and an introduction of some length, consisting
chiefly of extracts from the correspondence between
Beckford and his friend Henley, is supplied by Mr.
Melville. A photogravure portrait of the author serve*
as frontispiece.
The "Text-book of Design" by Messrs. Charles
Fabens Kelley and William Luther Mowll, is intended
primarily for college students and others of equivalent
training. It presents, in form at once attractive and
studied, the concepts of design in fresh contact with
nature and imagination as opposed to stylistic retrospec-
tion, and of design organically expressive rather than
merely "decorative." Although the text confessedly
restates the theory of pure design now generally ac-
cepted, the theory of expressive design is developed
with a novelty and insight which makes the book an
original contribution. The inevitable abstractness of
the theoretical presentation is well relieved by constant
references to practice, and the rich and judicious illus-
tration from objects of the highest beauty supplies the
atmosphere and stimulation which have been noticeably
lacking in some previous books on design. For the
development of taste and imagination, the superiority
of the analytic method here used over an organization
on the basis of "historic ornament" can scarcely be
overestimated. (Houghton.)
The fifth section of the fifth part of " Modern Amer-
ican Library Economy" (Elm Tree Press) considerably
exceeds in size any preceding issue of the series, run-
ning to the length of 134 pages and covering the import-
ant subject of instruction to children on the selection'
and use of books. "Course of Study for Normal School
Pupils on Literature for Children" is the title of the
work, its authors being Mrs. Julia S. Harron, Miss
Corinne Bacon, and the general editor of the series, Mr.
John Cotton Dana. Directions and suggestions, with
booklists and prescribed readings, on all departments of
literature within the juvenile scope (and perhaps some-
what beyond it) are set down in methodic order — pos-
sibly indeed with so much attention to method as to
cause some danger lest the student end by exalting the
letter above the spirit. A parting counsel might have
been useful, urging the prospective teacher of the book's
principles to assimilate all the excellent matter within
its covers and then to let free initiative have rather un-
restricted play. The wise person will do this in any
event. Like its predecessors, the little manual is ad-
mirably thorough and systematic.


108
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
Notes.
"English Cathedral Journeys," by Miss Kate F. Kim-
ball, will be added soon to Messrs. Crowell's "Travel
Series."
"Modern Problems," by Sir Oliver Lodge, is an im-
portant volume immediately forthcoming from George
H. Doran Co.
Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, the English dramatist, has
a volume nearly ready for the press entitled "The
Foundations of a National Drama."
A series of pen-sketches by the German writer,
Maximilian Harden, depicting various " Monarchs and
Men " in contemporary life, is announced by the John
C. Winston Co.
A new book by Ellen Key, dealing with Kahel Varn-
hagen as "a prophecy of the woman of the future,"
will be published this month by Messrs. Putnam in a
translation made by Mr. A. G. Chater.
"The Fear of Living," by M. Henry Bordeaux, which
was "crowned " by the French Academy and has run
through several editions in the original, is announced
for publication by Messrs. Dutton in a translation by
Ruth Helen Davis.
Three novels announced for early publication by the
John C. Winston Co. are the following: "Written in
the Sand," by Mr. G. R. Duval; "The Reluctant Lover,"
by Mr. Stephen McKenna; and "The Mystery of 31,
New Inn," by Mr. R. Austin Freeman.
An interesting event in connection with the inaugura-
tion of President Wilson will be the publication by
Houghton Mifflin Co. of a limited Riverside Press edi-
tion in one volume of three of his best-known essays,—
"Mere Literature," " The Author Himself," and " On
an Author's Choice of Company."
Four novels appearing on Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell
Company's spring list are the following: "A Superman
in Being," by Mr. Litchfield Woods; "The Debt," a
story of South African life, by Mr. William Westrupp;
and "Princess Athura," a romance dealing with events
in ancient Persia, by Mr. Samuel W. Odell.
"The Parasite" by Mrs. Helen R. Martin, which
J. B. Lippincott Co. will publish at once, is said to be
different in both setting and characters from this author's
well-known Mennonite stories. Simultaneously with this,
Messrs. Lippincott will publish a novel by Mr. Crittenden
Marriott, entitled " Sally Castleton, Southerner."
The eighth edition of the library-cataloguer's vade
mecum, the "Decimal Classification" inseparably asso-
ciated with Mr. Melvil Dewey's name and fame, is
promised by the publishers for "early spring." Some of
the chief collaborators in the work of revision have been
unavoidably delayed in furnishing their "copy " to the
printer. Hence the retardation.
A volume of timely interest is Mr. Ernest Alfred
Vizetelly's "Republican France, 1870-1912: Her Presi-
dents, Statesmen, Policy, Vicissitudes and Social Life,"
which Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. will have ready
shortly. Mr. Vizetelly's long residence in France and
his relations with many distinguished Frenchmen have
enabled him to write largely at first hand.
"Neale's Monthly " makes its entry into the maga-
zine field with a first (January) issue containing much
interesting matter, presented in well printed and illus-
trated form. Of chief importance among the contents
is the first of a series of five papers embodying the
Italian reminiscences of Mrs. Kinney, the mother of
Edmund Clarence Stedman, and published under the
editorship of Miss Laura Stedman and Dr. George M.
Gould. Another valuable feature is Dr. Archibald
Henderson's article on Colonel Richard Henderson—
the first instalment of a series dealing with "Forerun-
ners of the Republic."
Several volumes of decided interest to be published at
once by Houghton Mifflin Co. are the following: "Irish
Plays and Playwrights," by Mr. Cornelius Weygandt;
"Field Days in California," by the late Bradford Torrey;
"A Wayfarer in China," by Miss Elizabeth Kendall;
"Old Homes of New Americans," dealing with one phase
of the immigration problem, by Dr. Francis E. Clark;
and "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency," by Dr.
Hugo MUnsterberg.
Professor Josiah Royce, of Harvard, sailed recently
for England where at Oxford University he will deliver
a series of lectures on "The Real World and the Chris-
tian Ideas." These lectures will later be gathered
together and those which Dr. Royce delivered before
the Lowell Institute on "The Christian Doctrine of
Life" added to them, and the whole published in two
volumes under the general title "The Problem of Chris-
tianity." The work will probably appear in April.
The rapidly-diminishing group of older American
publishers has suffered another severe loss in the death,
on January 9, of James W. Mclntyre, of Little, Brown,
& Co. Mr. Mclntyre had been identified with the book-
selling and publishing business in America for nearly
half a century, all but one year of this period being de-
voted to the service of the Boston firm in which he has
been a partner since 1897. In addition to business
ability of a high order, he was a capable literary scholar,
and it is largely to his editorial skill and judgment that
the various complete editions of standard authors issued
by Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. owe their wide success.
The Library of Congress acquired in the year covered
by its latest Report 120,664 printed books and pam-
phlets, and has now 2,012,393 printed books and pam-
phlets. The number of "bound volumes," by which the
great libraries of the world are commonly ranked in the
order of their size, is not given; but undoubtedly our
national library is secure in its claim to stand third on
the list, the Biblioth&que Nationale and the British Mu-
seum Library being its only superiors in point of bigness.
As an illustration of the astonishing cumulative rate at
which a library almost invariably grows, we note that
since the opening of the century the Library of Congress
has more than doubled in the size of its collection, a
somewhat alarming rate of progress toward congestion
in the stack-room.
The arrangement between the University of Chicago
and the University of Cambridge, by which the latter is
given the exclusive agency in the British Empire for
the former's publications, is now being supplemented by
a reciprocal agreement, the Chicago institution taking
over the American agency for a number of the Cam-
bridge publications. An arrangement has already been
concluded for the Cambridge journals, and the follow-
ing periodicals in the future will be issued in America
under joint imprint: "Biometrika," "Parasitology,"
"Journal of Genetics," "The Journal of Hygiene,"
"The Modern Language Review," "The British Jour-
nal of Psychology," and "The Journal of Agricultural
Science." Several new books from the Cambridge list
are also to be taken over at once and published in this
country under joint auspices. The list includes " The
Life and Letters of Lord Hardwicke," by M. Philip
Chesney Yorke; "The Duab of Turkestan," by W.


1913]
109
THE DIAL
Rickmer Rickmers; " The History of Romanesque and
Byzantine Architecture," by Thomas Graham Jackson;
and " The Genus Iris," by William Rickatson Dykes.
This movement toward a closer cooperation between
the two universities is a matter that should be of in-
terest to all who are concerned with the advancement
of scientific and scholarly research and the preservation
of its results. The difficulties involved in the publica-
tion of such material are too obvious to need comment,
and it is to be hoped that an arrangement that promises
so much aid in this direction may be further extended.
The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press pro-
pose to publish a comprehensive History of India, from
the earliest times to the present day, on the model of
the "Cambridge Modern History." The work, as pro-
jected, will be completed in six volumes of about six
hundred pages, two volumes being devoted to each of
the main periods—Ancient India, Muhammadan India,
and British India,— under the editorship, respectively,
of Professor £. J. Rapson, Lieut.-Col. T. Wolseley Haig,
I.S.C., and Sir Theodore Morison, K.C.I.E. The vari-
ous chapters in these sections will be entrusted to
scholars who have made a special study of the period
or subject; and the Syndics hope, in this way, to produce
a history of the nations of India past and present which
shall take its place as the standard work.
Mrs. Julia Caroline (Ripley) Dorr, poet and novelist,
died in her eighty-eighth year at her home in Rutland,
Vermont, Jan. 18. She was born at Charleston, S. C,
the daughter of parents formerly living in San Domingo,
and there was French blood in her veins. Fond of writ-
ing from childhood, Mrs. Dorr first appeared in print
with a poem sent by her husband, the late Seneca R.
Dorr, to the old " Union Magazine," a year or two after
their marriage in 1847. In her list of works are found
"Farmingdale," " Lanmere," " Sybil Huntington," « Ex-
piation," " Friar Anselmo," "Afternoon Songs," " After-
glow," "Beyond the Sunset," and many others. Mrs.
Dorr held the degree of Litt.D. from Middlebury Col-
lege and was well acquainted with the great nineteenth-
century authors of New England in their time.
Topics ix Leading Periodicals.
February, 1913.
Airman, Experiences of an. Augustus Post . . American
Alaska as a Territory of the United States.
A. Holman Century
Alcohol, Habitual Use of. H. C. Wood . . . Lippincott
America, Discovering, by Motor. R. D. Paine . Scribner
Arctic, My Quest in the —III. Vilhjalmnr Stef-
ansson Harper
Asia, How the Railroad is Modernizing. L. R.
Freeman Review of Reviews
Author, The Ailing. Bailey Millard Bookman
Automobile, The, and Its Mission. H. L. Towle. Scribner
Barrator, The Artful. G. Harding Harper
Bergson's View of Organic Evolution. H. W.
Shimer Popular Science
Berlin. Price Collier Scribner
Bernhardt, Sarah. Robert Gran .American
Broadhunt, Addison: Master Merchant. E. M.
Woolley World's Work
Brooks, Phillips, and German Preaching. F. G.
Peabody North American
Business, Bad, Bacteria of. .I.R.Williams. World's Work
Business, New Democracy of. C.M.Keyes. World's Work
Canadian Expansion. Edward Porritt . . North American
Cartoons, American, of To-day. F. Weitenkampf. Century
China, The Geologic History of, and Its Influence on
the Chinese People. FJiot Blackwelder. Popular Science
China's Revolution and Its Effect. Ching-Chun
Wang North American
Churches, Empty. Cosmo Hamilton Forum
Cities, Two, That Turned Farmers. F. P. Stock-
bridge World's Work
Civic Myopia, A Cure for. Robert W. Bruere . . Harper
Collector, The Poor, and His Problems.' F. A. King. Bookman
College or University? Stewart Paton . . Popular Science
Death, The Seoond. Josjah Royoe Atlantic
De Senectute. Henry D. Sedgwick Atlantic
Education, Alice and. F. B. R. Helleras .... Atlantic
Efficiency of Labor, Problem of the. H. T. Lewis. Pop. Sci.
Emancipation Proclamation, How Boston Received
the. Fanny Q. Villard Review of Reviews
Etchers, Some Modern English. Cleveland Palmer. Bookman
Europe's Many-Sided Democracy. Jesse Macy. Rev. of Revs.
Farmer, The, and Finance. M. T. Herrick . . . Atlantic
Federal Appropriation Bills, Scandal of the.
T. E. Burton World's Work
Fraternities in Women's Colleges: A Symposium. Century
Freedom, The New—II. Wood row Wilson. World's Work
Geodesy, French. Henri Poincard . . . Popular Science
Gissing, New Lights on. George Middleton . . Bookman
Gold Supply, Investor and the —II. E.S.Meade. Lippincott
Health, National, and Medical Freedom .... Century
Health and Horse-Power. Woods Hutchinson . American
Horse, " Educated," The Abilities of an. M. V.
O'Shea Popular Science
Howells, William Dean. W. B. Trites Forum
Hudson Bay Route, The. P. T. MoGrath . Rev. of Revs.
Industrial Research. R. K. Duncan Harper
Iowa State Colleges, The. W. R. Boyd. Review of Reviews
Isthmus, Sanitation of the. J. B. Bishop . . . Scribner
Japan's Commercial Crisis. J. D. Whelpley . . Century
Labor, Battle Line of—IV. S. P. Orth . World's Work
Lincoln, First Attempt on the Life of. Allan
Pinkerton American
Lincoln as a Boy Knew Him. J. L. Kaine . . . Century
Lincoln's Assassination, New Story of. Jesse
W. Weik Century
Machine-Trainers, The. G. S. Lee Atlantic
Marrell's Poetry, Quality of. Francis Bickley. No. Amer.
Marx, Karl, Higher Criticism of. L. L. Bernard . Forum
Membranes, The Rdle of, in Cell-processes. R. S.
Lillie Popular Science
Mississippi, Upper, Preparing the, for Modern
Commerce. W. C. Tiffany . . . Review of Reviews
Moussorgsky's " Boris Godounoff." Kurt
Schindler North American
Negro Problem, The, as a Southerner Sees It. E. E.
Miller Forum
Newspaper Publicity Law, The. J. Bourne, Jr. Rev. of Revs.
New York, Impressions of. Pierre Loti .... Century
Politics. The Taboo in. Walter Lippmann . . . Forum
Prado, Some Titians of the. C. H. Caffin . . . Harper
Primitive Knowledge, Our. G. Bourne .... Forum
Pringle, United States vs. C. G. Pringle . . . Atlantic
Psychological Medicine, Advancement of. F. L.
Wells Popular Science
Psychology and the Navy. Hugo Munsterberg. No. A mer.
Pyrenees Route, The. C. L. Frees ton .... Scribner
Railway Credit, Question of. Franklin Esther. No. Amer.
Salt Concretions, Immense. F. G. D. Harris. Pop. Science
Scotticisms and Americanisms. T. R. Lounsbury. Harper
Social Order, The, in an American Town. R. S.
Bourne Atlantic
Socialism — What It Is. A.M. Low . . North American
Steam-Coach Days. T. M. R. von Keler . . . Scribner
Tariff Revision, Rational. A. K. Fiske . North American
Trust Regulation — II. Albert Fink . . North American
Udaipnr the Unspoiled. F. B. R. Hellems . . . Harper
Wilderness, Out of the. John Mnir Atlantic
Woman, Man-made, of Japan. Marian Cox . . Forum
Woman, The Unmarried, of England. .I.B.Atkins. Century
Whitlock, Brand, Autobiography of — II. . . . American


110
[Feb. 1,
THE
DIAL
List of New Books.
[The following list, containing US titles, include* books
received fty The Dial since its last issue.]
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
Marie-Antoinette: Her Early Youth (1770-1774). By
Lady Younghusband. Illustrated, 8vo, 589 pages.
Macmlllan Co. $5. net.
The Story of the Borgias. By John Fyvle. Illustrat-
ed In photogravure, 8vo, 346 pages. G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. $4.50 net.
My Autobiography. By Madame Judith; translated
by Mrs. Arthur Bell. With photogravure portrait,
8vo, 322 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50 net.
Recollections of the Civil War. By Mason Whiting
Tyler; edited by William S. Tyler. Illustrated,
8vo, 379 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
Further Reminiscences. By Henry Mayers Hynd-
man. 8vo, 544 pages. Macmlllan Co. $5. net.
The Personality of Napoleon. By J. Holland Rose,
Litt. D. With maps; 8vo, 382 pages. "Lowell Lec-
tures for 1912." G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
Geoffrey Chaueer. By Emlle Legouls; translated
from the French by L. Lailavolx, M. A. With
photogravure portrait, 12mo, 220 pages. E. P.
Dutton & Co. $1.60 net.
Memoirs Relating; to Fouche, Minister of Police un-
der Napoleon I. Translated from the French by
E. Jules Meras. With portraits, 12mo, 315 pages.
Sturgls & Walton Co. $1.50 net.
VlrglL By T. R. Glover. Second edition; 12mo, 343
pages. Macmlllan Co. $2. net.
George Washington. By Woodrow Wilson, Ph. D.
New edition; illustrated, 8vo, 333 pages. Harper
& Brothers. $2 net.
David Livingstone. By C. Silvester Home, M. P.
With portrait, 12mo, 248 pages. Macmlllan Co.
50 cts. net.
HISTORY.
The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754. By George Louis
Beer. In 2 volumes, 8vo. Macmlllan Co. $4 net.
Writing* of John Qulncy Adams. Edited by Worth-
lngton Chauncey Ford. Volume I., 1779-1796.
With photogravure portrait, 8vo, 508 pages. Mac-
mlllan Co. $3.50 net.
A History of South America, 1864-1904: With an Addi-
tional Chapter Bringing the History to the Pres-
ent Day. By Charles Edmond Akers. Illustrated,
large 8vo, 716 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $6. net.
Symbol and Satire In the French Revolution. By
Ernest F. Henderson. Illustrated, 8vo, 456 pages.
G. P Putnam's Sons. $4. net.
Tbe Political Debates between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas. With Introduction by George
Haven Putnam, Litt. D. With photogravure por-
trait, 8vo. 284 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
$2.50 net.
The War Drama of the Eagles. By Edward Fraser.
Illustrated, large 8vo, 444 pages. E. P. Dutton
& Co. $4. net.
Cngland and the Orleans Monarchy. By Major John
Hall. With photogravure portrait, 8vo, 452 pages.
E. P. Dutton & Co. $4 net.
The Conquest of New Granada. By Sir Clements
Markham. 8vo, 232 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co.
$2. net.
Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1702-
1705, 1705-1706, 1710-1712. Edited by H. R. Mc-
Ilwatne. Large 4to, 369 pages. Richmond: Vir-
ginia State Library.
English Rule In Gascony, 1199-1259. with Special
Reference to the Towns. By Frank Burr Marsh,
Ph. D. 8vo, 178 pages. Ann Arbor: George Wahr.
$1.26 net.
The Chronology of Modern India for Four Hundred
Years from the Close of the Fifteenth Century,
A. D. 1494-1894. By James Burgess. Large 8vo.
483 pages. Edinburgh: John Grant.
Seward and the Declaration of Paris: A Forgotten
Diplomatic Episode, April-August, 1861. By
Charles Francis Adams. 8vo, 61 pages. Boston:
Privately printed by the author. Paper.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
Vital Liesi Studies of Some Varieties of Recent
Obscurantism. By Vernon Lee. In 2 volumes,
12mo. John Lane Co. $3. net.
Keble's Lectures on Poetry, 1832-1841. Translated
by Edward Kershaw Francis. In 2 volumes, 12mo.
Oxford University Press. $4. net.
The Cambridge History of English Literature. Ed-
ited by A. W. Ward, Litt. D., and A. R.. Waller,
M. A. Volume IX., From Steele and Addison to
Pope and Swift, Large 8vo, 667 pages. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
The English Scene in the Eighteenth Century. By
E. S. Roscoe. Illustrated, 8vo, 293 pages. G. P.
Putnam's Sons. $2.75 net.
Folk-Tales of Bengal. By the Rev. Lai Beharl Day.
Illustrated in color by Warwick Goble, large 8vo,
274 pages. Macmlllan Co. $5.25 net.
Folk-Tales of Breffny. By B. Hunt. 12mo, 196 pages.
Macmlllan Co. $1.25 net.
Literary Influences in Colonial Newspapers. 1704-
1750. By Elizabeth Christine Cook. 12mo, 279
pages. Columbia University Press. $1.50 net.
Essays and Studies by Members of the English As-
sociation. Collected by W. P. Ker. Volume III.
12mo, 151 pages. Oxford University Press.
Fear, and Other Essays in Fiction and in Fact. 12mo.
229 pages. Longman, Green & Co. $1.25 net.
One Welshman i A Glance at a Great Career. By
Whitelaw Reid. 12mo, 59 pages. Macmlllan Co.
35 cts. net.
NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD LITERATURE.
Poems of Tennyson, 1830-1870. Oxford illustrated
edition. With Introduction by T. Herbert War-
ren, M. A. Illustrated In color, etc. 12mo, 882
pages. Oxford University Press. $1.80 net.
Tennysoni Poems Published In 1842. 16mo, 295
pages. "Oxford Library of Prose and Poetry."
Oxford University Press. 70 cts. net.
Locb Classical Library. New volumes: Catullus,
translated by F. W. Cornish, M. A.; Appian's Ro-
man History, translated by Horace White, M. A..
Vol. II.; Euripides, translated by Arthur S. Way,
D. Lit., Vols. III. and IV. Each 16mo. Macmlllan
Co. Per volume, $1.50 net.
The Poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, Including Sev-
eral never before Printed. Arranged by Douglas
Sladen. Illustrated, 16mo, 320 pages. G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. $1.75 net.
Old China. By Charles Lamb. Riverside Press Edi-
tion; 16mo, 19 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co.
$1.50 net.
Oxford Poets. New volumes: Poetical Works of
Robert Bridges, excluding the Eight Dramas;
Browning's The Ring and the Book, with Intro-
duction by Edward Dowden; Poems of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, Including Poems and Versions
of Poems published for the first time, edited, with
textual and bibliographical notes, by Ernest
Hartley Coleridge. Each with portrait, 12mo.
Oxford University Press.
Aurellan Townshend's Poems and Masks. Edited by
E. K. Chambers. 12mo, 124 pages. "Tudor and
Stuart Library." Oxford University Press.
Poems by William Alllnghnm. Selected and arranged
by Helen Allingham. With photogravure portrait,
16mo, 196 pages. "Golden Treasury Series."
Macmlllan Co. $1. net.
VERSE.
The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. Chosen by
Arthur Quiller-Couch. 12mo, 1023 pages. Oxford
University Press. $1.90 net.


1913]
ill
THE DTAT,
The Bird of Timet Songs of Life, Death, and the
Spring:. By Sarojlnl Naidu; with Introduction by
Edmund Gosse. With photogravure portrait, 8vo,
103 pages. John Lane Co. $1. net.
A Legend of Old Persia, and Other Poems. By A. B.
S. Tennyson. 12mo, 115 pages. John Lane Co.
|1. net
Leaves from the City Beautiful, By Amelia M. and
Jacob F. Starkweather. 12mo, 203 pages. Sher-
man, French & Co. 11.25 net.
Christmas Praises, and Other Poems. By George E.
Ackerman. 12mo, 219 pages. Sherman, French &
Co. $1.25 net.
The Youth Replica, and Other Verses. By Louis
How. With frontispiece, 12mo. Sherman, French
& Co. $1. net.
In Collma, and Other Poems. By Francis Spelr.
12mo, 40 pages. Privately printed.
Bogle Notes of Courage and Love. By Althea A.
Ogden. Kmo, 60 pages. Chicago: Unity Publish-
ing Co.
The Indian Princess Me-Nung-Gah, and Other Poems.
By Addison Woodard Stubbs. Illustrated, 12mo,
162 pages. Richard G. Badger. $1.25 net.
Altar-Side Messages. By Evelyn H. Walker. 16mo,
47 pages. Chicago: Unity Publishing Co.
FICTION.
The Red Hand of Ulster. By G. A. Birmingham. 12mc,
277 pages. George H. Doran Co. $1.20 net.
Andrew the Glad. By Maria Thompson Daviess.
Illustrated, 12mo, 357 pages. Bobbs-Merrlll Co.
$1.30 net.
The Lapse of Enoch Wentworth. By Isabel Gordon
Curtis. With frontispiece in color, 12mo, 359
pages. F. G. Browne & Co. $1.25 net.
Bunker Bean. By Harry Leon Wilson. Illustrated,
12mo, 307 pages. Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.25 net.
The Shadow. By Arthur Stringer. 12mo, 302 pages.
Century Co. $1.25 net.
A Slice of Life. By Robert Halifax. 12mo, 302 pages.
E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.36 net.
Ranching for Sylvia. By Harold Blndloss. 12mo, 391
pages. Frederick A. Stokes Co. $1.30 net.
The Dragoman. By George K. Stiles. With frontis-
piece, 12mo, 312 pages. Harper & Brothers.
$1.30 net.
The Browns. By J. E. Buckrose. 12mo, 310 pages.
George H. Doran Co. $1.25 net.
The Port of Dreams. By Miriam Alexander. 12mo,
410 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.35 net.
Until the Day Break. By W. L. George. 12mo, 356
pages. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.30 net.
Penny Monypenny. By Mary and Jane Findlater.
12mo, 408 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.35 net.
Crossrlggs. By Mary and Jane Findlater. 12mo, 361
pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.35 net.
The Frontiers of the Heart. By Victor Marguerltte;
translated from the French by Frederic Lees.
12mo, 345 pages. Frederick A. Stokes Co.
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Seven Scots Stories. By Jane H. Findlater. Illus-
trated In color, 12mo, 339 pages. E. P. Dutton &
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The Former Countess i A Romance of the French
Revolution. By Annie Fields Vila. Illustrated,
12 mo, 227 pages. Sherman, French & Co.
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My Escapes. By a Bachelor. 12mo, 320 pages. Mc-
Brlde, Nast & Co. $1.20 net.
The Three Knaves. By Saul G. Greenleaf. 12mo,
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A Blot on the Escutcheon. By May Wynne. 12mo,
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The Motto of Mrs. McLanei The Story of an Amer-
ican Farm. By Shirley Carson. 12mo, 220 pages.
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Cynthia and The Man Who Was Good. By Leonard
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A Lift on the Road. By Virginia W. Johnson. 12mo,
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TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
The South Polei An Account of the Norwegian Ant-
arctic Expedition In the "Fram," 1910-1912. By
Roald Amundsen: translated from the Norwegian
by A. G. Chater. In two volumes, Illustrated,
large 8vo. New York: Lee Keedlck. $10. net.
Homes and Haunts of John Ruskln. By E. T. Cook.
Illustrated In color, etc., by E. M. B. Warren.
Large 8vo, 219 pages. Macmlllan Co. $6 net.
Dawn In Darkest Africa. By John H. Harris; with
Introduction by the Earl of Cromer. Illustrated,
large 8vo, 308 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $3.60 net.
A Gentle Jehu In Japan. By Ethel L McLean. Illus-
trated In color, 8vo, 148 pages. Dodd, Mead & Co.
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Highways and Byways In Somerset. By Edward
Hutton. Illustrated by Nelly Erlchsen, 12mo, 419
pages. "Highways and Byways Series." Macmll-
lan Co. $2. net.
The Old Gardens of Italy: How to Visit Them. By
Mrs Aubrey Le Blond. Illustrated, 12mo, 173
pages. John Lane Co. $1.25 net.
The Story of Panama t The New Route to India. By
Frank A. Gause and Charles Carl Carr. Illus-
trated, 12mo. 290 pages. Silver, Burdett & Co.
$1.50.
The Awakening of the Desert. By Julius C. Blrge.
Illustrated, 8vo, 429 pages. Richard G. Badger.
$2. net.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
Industrial Combinations and Trusts. Edited by Wil-
liam S. Stevens, Ph.D. 12mo, 593 pages. Macmll-
lan Co. $2. net.
The Evolution of Statesi An Introduction to English
Politics. By J. M. Robertson. 8vo, 487 pages.
G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
The Sale of Liquor In the South t The History of the
Development of a Normal Social Restraint in
Southern Commonwealths. By Leonard Stott
Blakey, Ph.D. Large 4to, 56 pages. Longmans,
Green & Co. $1. net.
Tolstoy's "What Shall We Do ThenT" The Truxtun
Beale Prize Essays. Vol. I., 8vo, 259 pages. Berke-
ley: University of California Press. Paper.
Women and Economic Evolution, or, The Effects of
Industrial Changes upon the Status of Women.
By Theresa Schmld McMahon. 8vo, 129 pages.
"Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin." Paper.
25 cts.
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY.
The Positive Evolution of Religion t Its Moral and
Social Reaction. By Frederic Harrison, D. C. L.
8vo, 267 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2. net.
Bible Ways In Bible Landat An Impression of Pales-
tine. By Maude M. Holbach. Illustrated 12mo,
219 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.76 net.
The Truth about the Bible (The Scriptural Church).
By Sidney C. Tapp. With portrait, 12mo, 289
pages. Kansas City, Mo.: Burton Publishing Co.
$3.
The Evil Eye Thanatology, and Other Essays. By
Roswell Park, LLD. 12mo, 380 pages. Richard G.
Badger. $1.60 net.
The Bible Message for Modern Manhood. By Craig
S. Thorns. 16mo, 299 pages. Griffith & Rowland
Press. 75 cts. net.
The Apostlea' Creed and the New Testament. By
Johannes Kunze; authorized translation from the
German by George William GUmore. 12mo, 176
pages. Funk & Wagnalls Co. 75 cts. net.
Elements of Spirituality) or, The Spiritual Man. By
George Hooper Ferris, D. D. 12mo, 77 pages.
Griffith & Rowland Press. 50 cts. net.
Proceedings of Friends' General Conference. 41 o 160
pages New York: Chautauqua.
Religion and Fairyland. By E. M. Jewson. 16mo,
44 pages. London: Happy Publishing Co.


112
[Feb. 1,
THE DIAL
A Man's Religion. By Fred B. Smith. 12mo, 267 pages.
New York: Association Press.
PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY.
The Science of Human Behaviors Biological and Psy-
chological Foundations. By Maurice Parmelee,
Ph.D. 8vo, 443 pages. Macmlllan Co. 52. net.
An Unorthodox Conception of Being) A Synthetic
Philosophy of Ontology. By William Ellsworth
Hermance. 8vo, 441 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
$2.60.
Humanism: Philosophical Essays. By F. C. S. Schiller,
Second edition, enlarged; 8vo, 381 pages. Mac-
mlllan Co. $3.25 net.
The Principles of Sciencei A College Text-Book. By
William Forbes Cooley, Ph.D. 12mo, 245 pages.
Henry Holt & Co. $1.25.
ART.
The Childhood of \ rt; or, The Ascent of Man. By
H. G. Spearing, M. A. Illustrated In color, etc.,
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The Technique of Painting. By Charles Moreau-
Vauthier; with Preface by Etienne Dlnet. Illus-
trated in color, etc., 8vo, 261 pages. G. P. Put-
nam's Sons. $3.50 net.
EDUCATION.
Experimental Psychology and Pedagogy for Teach-
ers, Normal Colleges, and Universities. By R.
Schulze. Translated by Rudolf Plntner. Illus-
trated, 12mo, 364 pages. Macmlllan Co. $3.75 net.
Kabale und Llebei Ein bUrgerllches Trauersplel. By
Frledrich Schiller; edited, with Introduction,
Notes, and Appendix, by William Addison Her-
vey. Illustrated, 12mo, 279 pages. Henry Holt &
Co. $1.25.
Sprach und Lesebuch. By W. H. Gohdes and H. A.
Buschek. 12mo, 370 pages. Henry Holt & Co.
$1.16.
Outlines of European History. By James Harvey
Robinson and Charles A. Beard. Part III., From
the Opening of the Eighteenth Century to the
Present Day. Illustrated, 12mo, 656 pages. Ginn
& Co. $1.60 net.
Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Edited by John
Ersklne. Illustrated, 16mo, 178 pages. "English
Readings." Henry Holt & Co.
Des Meeres und der Llebe Welles I Trauersplel in
ftinf Aufzilgen. By Franz Grlllparzer: edited,
with notes and a study of the art of Grlllparzer,
by Martin SchUtze, Ph.D. 12mo, 156 pages. Henry
Holt & Co. 70 cts.
Kreus und Oner durch Deutsche Lande. By Robert
Mezger and Wllhelm Mueller. Illustrated In color,
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Antolne of Oregoni A Story of the Oregon Trail.
By James Otis. Illustrated, 12mo, 149 pages.
American Book Co. 36 cts.
The Swallow Hook: The Story of the Swallow Told In
Legends, Fables, Folk Songs, Proverbs. Omens,
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ranged by Ada Walker Camehl. Illustrated, 12mo,
158 pages. American Book Co. 35 cts.
Language Lessons for Little People. By John Mor-
row, M. S. Illustrated, 12mo, 80 pages. American
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A Table of German Nouns. Arranged by M. L Perrin,
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BOOKS OF REFERENCE.
Who's Who, 1913i An Annual Biographical Diction-
ary. 12mo, 2,226 pages. Macmlllan Co. $3. net.
Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-
1909. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Vol-
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Publications. Compiled under Direction of the
Superintendent of Documents. 8vo. 1707 pages.
Washington; Government Printing Office.
Music Lovers' Cyclopedia. Edited by Rupert Hughes,
M. A. 8vo, 948 pages. Doubleday, Page & Co.
$1.50 net.
Publications of the Library of Congress. Issued since
1897. 12mo, 52 pages. Washington: Government
Printing Office. Paper.
What to Read on Business. 12mo, 169 pages. New
York: Business Book Bureau.
Correct Pronunciation! Two Thousand Common
Words that are Frequently Mispronounced, and
Eight Hundred Proper Names, with Practical Ex-
ercises. By Julius W. Abernathy. 16mo, 173
pages. Charles E. Merrill Co. 75 cts. net.
The British Journal Photographic Almanac and
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THE DIAL
& Snnt'iftontfjls 3aumal of Ht'trrarg Crittctam, ©tgcusaion, ano Enformatfon,
THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the lit and 16th of
each month. Terms of Subsckiition, 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. iimBNM Rates furnished on application. All com-
munications should be addressed to
THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
Entered as Second-Claw Matter October 8, 1892, at the Port Office
at Chicago, Illinois, under Act ol March 3,1879.
JVc. 640. FEBRUARY 16, 1913. Vol. L1Y.
Contents.
PAOB
A DBEAM TO BE REALIZED 121
MODERNITY IN LITERATURE AND THE NEXT
MOVEMENT. Charles Leonard Moore .... 123
CASUAL COMMENT 124
Pleasing the play-goer.— Professor Eucken on
Goethe.—Novels read by novelists.— Use and ab-
buse of private papers. — The educational use of
current news and reviews.— The trend of the Brit-
ish book-trade.—One library's needs.— A young
English poet's visit to America. — Cooperation be-
tween school board and library board.—Mr. Harold
Monro and his poetry shop.— The Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
COMMUNICATION 127
The Referendum in Art. Edward E. Hale.
THE KINGDOM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN AMER-
ICAN LIFE. Vida D. Scudder 128
MODERN HUMANISM. Herbert E. Cory .... 130
THE BEFOGGED ELIZABETHAN STAGE. C. F.
Tucker Brooke 134
CHINA AFTER THE REVOLUTION. O. D. Wan-
namalcer 137
A LIBRARY OF GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS.
Josiah Senick Smith 139
RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LITERA-
TURE OF EDUCATION. M. V. O'Shea . . 142
A Valiant Woman.— Phelps's Teaching in School
and College.— Mr. and Mrs. Gesell's The Normal
Child and Primary Education.—Partridge's Genetic
Philosophy of Education.— Klapper's Principles of
Educational Practice.— Adams's The Evolution of
Educational Theory. — Thorn dike's Education.—
Maxwell's A Quarter Century of Public School
Development.— Gregory's Better Schools.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 145
Chapters from the romance of invention.— Fanny
Burney as a royal maid of honor.— Hunting with a
camera.— Ante-bellum days in New Orleans.— The
fallacy of short political tenures. — More of Mrs.
Eraser's reminiscences.— Some towering personal-
ities.— Campaigning with Jackson. — Songs with
music for children and others. — The memoirs of
a famous French actress.— Memories of Victorian
celebrities.— Last rambles of an ornithologist.
BRIEFER MENTION 149
NOTES 160
LIST OF NEW BOOKS 151
A DREAM TO BE REALIZED.
The action taken a fortnight ago by the direc-
tors of the Art Institute of Chicago marks an
epoch in the history of civic art, and the future
will look back to it as one of the significant
occurrences of the century. This action appro-
priated the income of the Ferguson fund for an
indefinite number of years to come, applying it
to the materialization of the grandiose sculptural
conception which Mr. Lorado Taft has developed
during many years of brooding upon the possi-
bilities of the city beautiful. Since this project
is of far more than local import, aiming at the
creation of an artistic monument which shall be
one of the most beautiful in the world, it deserves
the widest publicity, and we take pleasure in out-
lining the salient features of the undertaking.
In the first place, the Ferguson fund is an
endowment of approximately one million dollars,
left in trust by the will of the donor, with the
direction that the income be applied to the pur-
pose of enhancing the attractiveness of Chicago
to the lover of art—and heaven knows that
Chicago sorely needs this sort of aesthetic stimu-
lus or encouragement. Those who have lived
here for twenty years or more cherish the mem-
ory of the White City which rose as an exhala-
tion from the soil in 1893, and drew all men's
eyes to its beauty. But that beauty was evanes-
cent, and only its recollection is left us. The
creative work now to be undertaken will be of
the imperishable sort, relatively speaking, and
will stand for the delight and wonder of future
generations. It is obvious that the income from
a million dollars, applied year after year to the
realization of a noble artistic dream, must accom-
plish something noteworthy, and we may praise
the wisdom of the trustees in thus deciding to
concentrate their efforts upon a single great
undertaking, instead of providing a picture or a
statue here, and a park or a fountain there, in
pursuance of the obligation laid upon them by
the testator. They have clearly chosen the way
to give the most impressive effect to the endow-
ment under their charge.
What is known in Chicago as the Midway
Flaisance is a double boulevard, a mile in length,
with a sunken lawn between the two drives, con-
necting Washington and Jackson Parks. Orig.
inally a link in the city's system of inner parks


122
[Feb. 16,
THE
DIAL
it was diverted in 1893, when Jackson Park on
the lake shore became the site of the White City,
to the uses of the sort of annex which every
Exposition feels bound to provide for its more
frivolously-minded visitors, and became a mile
of side-shows, and " villages," and other "attrac-
tions" of the Coney Island type. "Doing the
Midway" was at that time a popular diversion
with old and young, and its entertaining devices
were sharply contrasted with the educational
exhibits and architectural glories of the White
City proper. Afterwards, it was dismantled of
its tawdry adornments, and restored to its right-
ful uses. Meanwhile, the twenty years that
have since elapsed have witnessed the growth,
close upon its northern side, of the University of
Chicago, which has acquired a large part of the
frontage, and which has constructed, in a beau-
tiful style of Gothic architecture, one of the
most impressive groups of academic buildings in
America. The Midway runs east and west, at
a distance of about seven miles from the busi-
ness heart of the city, and is, in its present un-
developed condition, one of the most attractive
sections of the Chicago parks. Of what it
will become, when the project now in hand is
completed, the following will convey some idea.
Mr. Taft's plan for the lasting beautification
of this mile of park driveway comprises the
following essential features: 1. The sunken
lawn between the two boulevards is to be
flooded, an improvement of which the beauty is
obvious, and of which the practical advantages
for sport and recreation are by no means incon-
siderable. 2. Three ornamental bridges are
to carry the principal north and south avenues
over the lagoon thus artificially created. These
bridges are to be dedicated, respectively, to
Science, Art, and Faith, and what can be done
with them needs no explanation to those who
know the famous bridges of Paris and other
European capitals. 3. Flanking the line of
driveway on either side, a series of statues of
the great idealists of the world — perhaps a
hundred of them — is planned, to make an
Avenue of Fame, or a cosmopolitan Valhalla,
and suggest to the most casual passer-by the
thought of Thucydides: " For the whole earth is
the grave and monument of heroes; it is not the
mere graving upon marble in their native land
which sets forth their deeds, but even in lands
where they were strangers there lives an un-
written record in every heart, felt though never
embodied." 4. At the eastern end of this mile
of monumental beauty, there is to be a great
fountain representing the creation of man as
symbolized in the Deukalion myth. Here, in
his embodiment of
"The imwrought shapes, the unmoulded attitudes,
The tongues of earth, the stony craving eyes,"
here, in this casting backward of
"The big seed
Deukalion and Pyrrha sowed in hope
To reap in terror; the scarce-featured sons
Of stone, and daughters of the sullen glebe,"
Mr. Taft should have an opportunity worthy of
the genius of Rodin. It was in Chicago, a few
years ago, that a great poet clothed this myth
with the glory of immortal verse,—why may it
not be given to a Chicago sculptor to achieve
in his own medium an equal beauty of expres-
sion? 5. At the western end, matching the
Fountain of Deukalion, is to be another colossal
group—a Fountain of Time. Here, Time, a
rugged crag-like figure, will review the proces-
sion of humanity, surging past him like the
waves of the ocean, "hurrying and crowding
toward a goal they cannot see." The sculptor
has thus conceived this group:
"A warrior on horseback, flanked by banners and
dancing figures, forms the centre of the composition,
which fades off at the ends into creeping infancy or the
bent and withered figures of age. The procession will
seem to rise from a great jet of water on one side and
sink from sight at the other, Time meanwhile standing
firm and immovable. There is a suggestion of joyous
onward movement in this procession and of the splendor
and pageantry which life has achieved siuce that first
great day of creation which the other fountain cele-
brates."
And the spirit of it all is perfectly expressed by
this motto from Austin Dobson:
"Time goes, you say? Ah, no,
Alas, Time stays; we go."
It will be many years before this vast dream
can be realized, and possibly it may never be
realized in full, but if it is, the eyes of the world
will be drawn to the scene of so much beauty,
and men will make toilsome journeys for the joy
of beholding it. At present, the authorities
concerned are not committed to the plan in its
entirety, and only the Fountain of Time is im-
mediately projected. But we can hardly believe
that when that feature of the plan shall have
become fact it will be left as a fragment of the
larger scheme. What is more likely is that it
will so impose itself upon the sense of its be-
holders as to create an imperative demand for
the completion of the whole work. That such
may be the outcome is the hope of all those whose
thought has penetrated the significance of Mr.
Taft's creative conception, and who have confi-
dence in his possession of the genius necessary
to work it out.


1913]
123
THE DIAL
MODERNITY IN LITERATURE AND
THE NEXT MO VEMENT.
The last great world-encircling "cry" in litera-
ture is stilled. The tumult and the shoutings of the
captains of "realism " have died away. Of course
there never was any such thing as realism. The
good books produced by that movement do not differ
in essentials from the good books evolved by any
other recipe or formula invented by men. But some
formula seems always to be needed as a rallying cry
for authors and artists. And readers are thrown
into buzzing excitement, as bees are summoned to
swarm by the beating of a brazen kettle.
The world-wide roar of the realistic movement
has broken up into a hundred, a thousand, noises
and motions. We are in the midst of whirlpools
and eddies and waters that sway back and forth and
seem to have no order or discipline or determined
end. It is a day of individualism, naturalism, neo-
romanticism, symbolism, revolutionary nihilism, sex
celebration and sex enmity, social frivolity and
nature seriousness,—all these doctrines and dogmas
and a myriad more are cried up. The prophets of
unrighteousness have their innings and the defenders
of law are dumb. The most rapidly disseminated
philosophy of recent times, that of Nietzsche, is an
invocation to chaos. "Is civilization a failure and
is the Caucasian played out?"
In default of any better term, these whirlings and
blind motions of literature and art in the present
may be called modernity. Modishness is its note.
It aspires to be " brand new," up to date, "right off
the bat." More decisively even than realism it tries
to break with the past. It has an utter lack of rev-
erence for the great work or established reputations
of the past. It says to Homer and Dante and Shake-
speare: "Go to! We are as good as you." Its atti-
tude might be typified by the story of an old English
dauber, an imitator of Titian, who, staring in ecstasy
at one of his own canvases, exclaimed: "What
would old Tit think of this?" The most curious
feature of our passing madness is that we believe
we have recreated a whole world of art and art-forms
out of our own heads.
Yet the fact remains that nothing in our recent
output is new. In spite of the contortions and
struggles of our novelists and playwrights and poets
to be strong, to be daring, to be extreme, there is
nothing that they utter which will compare in these
qualities with much of the literature of the past.
Take the exploitation of sexual passion and vice by
which our contemporaries try to shock us. "Mrs.
Warren's Profession" is milk and water beside the
strong meat of "Measure for Measure " or " Peri-
cles." "Three Weeks" has no standing at all as
an aphrodisiac compared with Afra Behn or Ca-
sanova. The soiled heroes and heroines of Mr.
Wells's later novels are mere doves compared with
the people in Fielding and Smollett and the Restor-
ation comedy. Or take the studies of extreme low
life which have been vaunted as a novelty of late.
The thing has been done far more vividly and ex-
plicitly by Defoe, not to go out of a single age or
country. It is hard to beat "Moll Flanders" or
"Colonel Jack." As for revolutionary literature,
literature which proposes to itself to upset old exist-
ing laws and conventions, what is the matter with
Schiller's " Robbers," or with a great part of Burns,
Byron, and Shelley?
Turning to the initiation of new art methods,
symbolism is of course as old as the hills. Europe
was saturated with it in the middle ages, and it
created in the "Divine Comedy," the "Faerie
Queene," and the "Roman de la Rose " works more
monumental certainly than anything of recent date.
Even Novalis's "Blue Flower" of a century ago is
less platitudinous than Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird."
Our new romanticism, where it is suffered to bloom
at all, is rather a frail offshoot of an older stock;
and the return to nature was preached and practiced
better in a former age.
On the whole, modernity does not seem to be either
greatly original or overwhelmingly powerful. Yet it
has been of advantage to the world in breaking up
the serried ranks of realism, scattering the varied
talents and giving a loose to individuality. It might
be compared to the "dynamite plowing" now com-
ing into vogue, which brings up a new surface
to our farms. But something more than mere dis-
turbances of dirt is needed to produce crops. Sun-
light, air, and rain are the permanent and universal
factors in agriculture. Is it fanciful to suggest that
there are spiritual analogues to these same factors in
farming,— that ideal elements enter into life and
art from above; that beauty, grace, grandeur, and
sublimity are some of these elements; that they have
been allowed little chance to work upon, to aerate
and elevate modern literature; and finally that there
is a hope, almost a promise, that this ideal contin-
gent is about to swoop down upon our art and carry
it to new heights?
The present writer has never been able to accept
the theory that beauty is the be-all and the end-all
of art. One of the earliest and best expositions of
this theory is to be found in Schiller's "^Esthetic
Letters." Briefly stated, Schiller's idea is that art
springs from man's profound dissatisfaction with
ordinary life. Because of this dissatisfaction he
reverts to the play instinct, the make-believe of child-
hood, and fashions for himself a world where every-
thing is harmonious, where beauty reigns supreme.
In the first place, to criticize this, it is remarkable
how little the beautiful or the harmonious comes
into the play instinct or make-believe of childhood.
Children are little mirrors,—they satirically mock
the doings of their elders; and things of fear and
horror have a fascination for them. You cannot
please them better than to frighten them as a bear
or wolf. Punch and Judy, with their hideousness
and brutality, exercise a perennial charm over them
which Greek statues and Shakespearean comedies
would fail to rival. When they begin to read, the
literature they affect is the odd, the quaint, the ex.


124
[Feb. 16,
THE
DIAL
travagant, and the bizarre,—as witness "Mother
Goose," " Alice in Wonderland," and Grimm's Fairy
Tales. No, the root of beauty is certainly not in
the childish mind.
In the second place, no sooner has Schiller set
forth his position that beauty is the first and final
cause of art than he is compelled to divide it into
two kinds,—a calm and graceful beauty, and a vivid
and energetic one. A little later on he has to drag
in the Sublime; and in his discussions with Goethe
he comes to the conclusion that the characteristic
and the significant are factors in art co-equal with
beauty itself. He ends, therefore, with a complex
with which he might as well have begun. All art
appeals to the feelings, the emotions, and the im-
agination. We feel, are moved by, and imagine
many other things beside beauty. The majority of
men are more profoundly affected by things of fear
and horror than they ever are by those of beauty.
Nevertheless, ideas of beauty, and the cognate
ideas of grandeur and sublimity, are good for us to
consider and to live with. Else there were no growth,
no ascent in life,—only a dull plodding on in a level
round or a downward slope to the abyss. But mod-
ern literature has done its best to banish these ideas.
It has fashioned idols for itself as ugly as the fetiches
of South Sea islanders. It has made a law that one
subject is as good as another, and that only execution
counts. It has gone further, and turned its back on
all that mankind had previously judged to be attrac-
tive and desirable, and has dived and delved into
purlieus and places of no regard. It has pushed
aside the palaces and gardens and brought forth the
alleys and the tenements. Swamps, deserts, barren
farmsteads, factory-ridden suburbs, are its delighted
haunts. And the human creations with which it
peoples these abodes are suited to their surroundings.
Now execution, if it is the execution of a genius, can
do a great deal, but it is just as well to have material
to begin with. There are hierarchies and ranks and
gradations of interest in both nature and humanity.
A rich and varied life to deal with is half the battle
in art. If a great writer cannot get anything better
than Walden Pond to celebrate, he may yet make
something of it; but there are more possibilities in
Lake Como. But the trend of modern literature
towards not only the second best, but towards the
worst in life, is all but universal. A few poets and
mystics have stood out for beauty, nobility, and
charm, but the greater part of Europe and America
has been submerged by the ugly, the abnormal, the
unclean, and the merely dull. Dickens was the last
absolutely great creative artist of England. But
for beauty he substituted picturesqueness, for charm
the unflagging vivacity of animal spirits. His defi-
ciency in the higher qualities makes him lag second
in the race with Scott for the primacy of the English
novel, though probably dowered with greater crea-
tive genius.
In the modern world there have been two great
epochs when the Spirit of Beauty waved its wand
before the eyes of man and made him see visions
and wonders. The first of these was the Renais-
sance, beginning with Dante and Petrarch and cul-
minating in Shakespeare, with its bead-roll of mighty
painters, architects, and artists of all kinds. In this
epoch what man woke to realize was his own beauty
and splendor and magnificence. He peered deep
enough into the glooms and shadows of his life, but
he was chiefly interested in its glories. The second
awakening began with Rousseau and was continued
by Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and
a great line of landscape painters. It revealed the
outward world of nature, and for a while humanity
was intoxicated with the glories of its temporal
home.
Literature to-day has about exhausted the common
and the chaotic. Pretty nearly all the dull and dis-
agreeable places of the world have been discovered
and exploited; pretty nearly all the diseases and
disgraces and brutalities and banalities of human
nature have been tabulated and typified. It is time
that the Spirit of Beauty should again put forth her
power and impel art to a new advance. Ideals of
harmony and happiness should be reinstated in the
human mind as possibilities, at least, of possession.
Design, order, distinction, should set their seals again
on literary work. Will the Spirit of Democracy
oppose the Spirit of Beauty? I do not think so.
It was the mob of a democratic city which carried
Cimabue's picture in triumph through the streets.
It was the workers, craftsmen, masons, laborers, who
gave the work of their hands and their means to the
building of the cathedrals of Europe, and who felt
repaid by the glory of the growing fanes. Democ-
racy may have a passion for art; and even if this
were not so, we are not all going to be democratized
into pigs. Charles Leonard Moore.
CASUAL COMMENT.
Pleasing the play-goer is commonly the first
object of the theatre-manager; and the average play-
goer's taste in drama is not accounted very refined.
Yet there are not wanting signs that good, wholesome
plays, plays even that are ranked as classic, are what
the people really desire, if they are given a fair
chance to indicate their preference. One recent
noteworthy sign of this encouraging sort is found in
the increasing success of the municipally owned and
conducted theatre at Northampton, Mass., where the
works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, and other
masters, are received with genuine enjoyment by the
inhabitants of that New England manufacturing and
trading town, which at the same time, it will not be
forgotten, is something of an educational centre,
with its Smith College, its Forbes Library, and other
institutions of literature and learning. It is but four
months ago that this first and only municipal play-
house in America entered upon its present policy of
appealing to the people for its support in maintain-
ing a good stock company with a repertory of only


1913]
125
THE
DIAL
the best that dramatic literature has to offer; and
already the Northampton public has been educated
up to the high purpose of this praiseworthy venture,
and now the pecuniary receipts are exceeding the
expenses of the undertaking, even with a very low
scale of prices for seats. The play-goers themselves
are consulted as to what plays shall be presented,
and they are even invited to attend rehearsals and
to go behind the scenes and make any useful sug-
gestions. It is related, indeed, that when a fear was
expressed lest too much expense was being lavished
on scenery, the scene-painter transferred his canvas
and colors to the open street and there demonstrated
how quickly and cheaply a ball-room interior could
be converted into a mountain landscape. The first
families, we are told, vie with one another in offering
the use of such properties and costumes as their an-
cestral homes and well-filled wardrobes may contain.
Really the whole thing is almost too good to be true,
but our personal acquaintance with Northampton
inclines us to believe it is true. Though not all
towna can boast a population of so high average
intelligence as is there to be found, yet it may be
not too wild a dream to picture the municipal theatre
as some day no rarer a sight, in cities of some size,
than the public library, the art gallery, the museum,
and the zoological garden.
• • •
Professor Eucken on Goethe, as briefly re-
ported by Mr. Frank B. Sanborn for the Springfield
"Republican," will interest those who were unable
to attend the eminent German scholar's Lowell Insti-
tute lectures, just concluded. Mr. Sanborn writes:
"Dr. Rudolph Eucken closed this eveninghis course of
seven discourses on philosophic idealism and realism,
in which two were especially noteworthy—on Kant
and Goethe,—the latter considered as a philosopher,
—in which character he rather declined to appear.
Goethe was fundamentally a poet, and only a philos-
opher by his second intention, so to speak; and nat-
urally his philosophy was often poetically expressed.
There was a broad field, however, outside of both
poetry and philosophy technically considered, in
which Goethe was both a 'Spazierganger,' or tourist,
and a 'Lustwandler,' or park-promenader; in this
field many sciences and arts were included. In some
of these he was a student, even a discoverer; in
others merely on parade. Under all these, as under
his verse and his dramatic and novel composition,
lay his ground conception of the universe, of Nature,
and of life; and to these Professor Eucken gave his
chief attention. Consequently the great variety and
versatility of the poet were but glanced at; his love
of pleasure and of pleasure-giving, through art, were
touched upon as parts of the apparatus for self-culture,
to which he recalled the vaguely wandering enthu-
siasm of Germany, while he delighted his country-
men by songs and epigrams. Several of these the
lecturer quoted in German, though the body of the
lectures was in English, with which, as a language
for reading, he is very familiar. He is not much
accustomed to English elocution, however, and could
not easily be followed, from his inflections and em-
phasis, which were German rather than American.
His voice is good, his presence attractive, with ruddy
face, white hair and beard, and a quick, spirited
manner of attacking his sentences."
Novels read by novelists in their moments
of leisure ought to bear some relation, if one knew
what it was, to the novels written by them. Does
the rule of the attraction of opposites hold here, or
the law that "like will to like," or both, or neither?
The London "Book Monthly" recently printed a
collection of solicited communications on the subject
of women novelists' favorite reading. Some of these
letters, whose writers are themselves novelists of the
fair sex, remind one of the self-sufficient young au-
thor's declaration, " I do n't read books, I write 'em."
But in general the correspondents show themselves to
be great readers. Miss Elinor Glyn writes, "in great
haste," that she hardly ever reads a novel from one
year's end to another, and gives no indication that
she is attracted to other forms of literature. Miss
Beatrice Harraden reads "chiefly biography now-
adays"; another professes herself "an incurable
novel-reader," never tiring of Charlotte Bronte and
Jane Austen, and able to read "Kim " over and over
again with enjoyment; still another puts Fielding
first among her fiction favorites, with Richardson a
"far-away second," and Wilkie Collins's "Moon-
stone" in the front rank as a "thriller." "But far
above all novels," she concludes, "for pure interest
and living excitement I put mental science in any
shape or form, from Professor James's ' Varieties of
Religious Experience' down to the proceedings of
the Psychical Research Society. Particularly fasci-
nating to me are all works dealing with the most
uncanny subject in the world, multiple personality.
For a sedative there is nothing better than a memoir;
and for a tonic, Professor Bergson, or such a modern
poet as Mr. James Mackereth. And when English
sentiment is too luscious I turn to Anatole France
and his 'Gospel of Irony,' but for a sense of space
and peace to the Greek plays." Thus declares Miss
M. P. Willcocks.
• • •
Use and abuse of private papers deposited
in public libraries are considerations governing the
freedom of access allowed to such papers. In con-
nection with the recent acquisition of important col-
lections of this sort by the Library of Congress (we
note especially the Louise Chandler Moulton papers,
comprising letters from many famous authors, living
and dead), a few timely words find place in the cur-
rent annual report of the librarian. Good faith and
seriousness of purpose must be evident in the appli-
cant for permission to consult manuscripts. "Papers
of recent date are naturally kept from general inspec-
tion more rigidly than collections of very old manu-
scripts. Letters of or concerning people still living
are guarded with the greatest care, lest they be mis-
used. . . . This policy is required, not only in the


126
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
interest of sound historical science, as opposed to sen-
sationalism, but also in the interest of the Library's
efforts to obtain collections of historical papers.
Owners of collections of family papers naturally feel
a reluctance to part with them, if they believe that
when deposited with the Library, they must become
accessible to every enquirer. The reluctance disap-
pears, however, when it is known that judgment is
exercised in permitting entrance to the collections."
It is to be noted that the custodian of these manu-
script treasures at Washington is troubled with few
applications from those whose discretion cannot be
relied upon, and few complaints are made of undue
severity in the restrictions — none at all by scholars
familiar with the rules governing the use of manu-
scripts in other institutions.
> • •
The educational use of current news and
reviews, as such news and reviews are to be found
in some of the best of our periodicals, is gaining
recognition in public schools of the higher grades,
in schools of journalism, and elsewhere. One well-
known weekly publication of this character takes
justifiable pride in the fact that it has been selected
as a means of instruction in current history and liter-
ature by a number of teachers and school superin-
tendents in various cities, and it issues an interesting
account of the methods adopted in using this some-
what novel form of textbook, with testimonials from
a number of teachers. The superintendent of the
New York City schools said lately in a circular
letter to teachers: "It will be well for the teacher
to make use of recent or contemporary literature.
Many pupils have a not unnatural suspicion of
'classics.' They have a natural interest in what
other people are reading and talking about. They
should be induced to read the better magazines."
A high-school teacher, after naming other good re-
sults following upon the use of current periodical
literature in the classroom, adds: "The dictionary
and encyclopaedia are becoming live books because
they help to throw light upon live questions. The
real importance and meaning of culture is being
appreciated because of the discovery of the bearing
which the world's accumulation of knowledge has
upon the everyday events of our own time." Incident-
ally, action and reaction being equal and opposite,
this educational use of periodical literature ought
to lift the periodical press to a somewhat higher
level and keep it there.
The trend of the British book-trade is still
upward, in respect to quantity, whatever its quality
may be. Statistics for the past year show an increase
of more than a thousand titles over the year before
in the number of books published, or a sum total of
nearly thirteen thousand for 1912. That the novel
has not yet entered upon the decline lately predicted
for it by certain would-be prophets, seems to be indi-
cated by the presence on the list of nearly twenty-
three hundred fiction-titles, an increase of about three
hundred over the preceding year. Next to the novel
the favorite with the British reader is the religious
book, and he has had a choice of 934 such works
among the year's new books, so that if he felt him-
self undergoing moral deterioration from too much
novel-reading he had at hand a ready antidote to the
pleasant poison; and, conversely, the sermon-reader,
nodding at length over the "sixthlies " and "seventh-
lies" of his favorite divine, had always within easy
reach an abundance of lighter and livelier literature.
The sciences, the arts, and the industries were all
well represented in the twelve months' book-product.
How long it will be before the tide turns and the pres-
ent too-rapid rate of increase in book-manufacture
gives place to a more wholesome retrenchment, re-
mains to be seen. One good book issued in an edi-
tion of ten thousand copies is, as a rule, of greater
benefit to all concerned than ten books of lesser worth
published in editions of a thousand copies each. But
this curtailment of output may be a thing now past
hoping for. . . .
One library's needs, that library being the
Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, are stated
plainly and in some detail by Dr. Bernard C.
Steiner, the librarian, in his annual report to the
trustees lately assembled in yearly conclave. As in
the case of some other public institutions, it might
be shorter and simpler to state what the Baltimore
library does not need than to enumerate its defi-
ciencies of equipment. A new central building, or a
very considerable addition to the present structure,
will occur to everyone who has visited the library
as its most urgent want "The last year," says Dr.
Steiner, "has brought nearer the time when it will
be impossible to have any more books in the Central
Library, which is greatly over-crowded. We do not
see any possibility of placing a sufficient additional
number of shelves anywhere in the building to
accommodate any considerable number of books."
New branch buildings are also wanted, and more
money for books, and an increased appropriation
for maintenance, and an extension of the open-shelf
system, which will of course be another item of
expense, and, in fact, quantities of things that every
modern library needs and that every municipal
appropriations-committee grudgingly grants. Will
the progressive public library ever cease to remind
'us of the horseleech's insatiate daughters? Let us
hope not ...
A young English poet's visit to America is
an occasion of interest to all concerned, especially
when the poet is of the standing of the gifted Mr.
Alfred Noyes, whose welcome to Boston is just now
being planned by the Authors' Club and other soci-
eties and individuals of that seat of culture and learn-
ing. The Wellesley College students and faculty
are to have the pleasure of hearing him read from
his own poems on the twenty-seventh of this month,
and other readings elsewhere are in prospect Mr.
Noyes's early attainment of recognition for his work
is noteworthy. The magazines and reviews were
hospitable to him from the first, and his initial vol-


1918]
127
THE DIAL
ume of verse, "The Loom of Years," appeared when
he was but twenty-two years old, soon to be followed
by his "Robin Hood," "Flowers of Old Japan," and
other works. The writing of the life of William
Morris for the "English Men of Letters" series was
assigned to him. ...
Cooperation between school board and
library board is becoming more and more the
order of the day. An interesting account of what
is effected in that particular at Grand Rapids is
published by the public library of that city. In
addition to the school collections of books for the
use of the school children, there are now in operation
six regular branch libraries in as many school build-
ings, established by joint agreement of the two boards
concerned, the one supplying the necessary quarters
with heat, light, and janitor service, the other fur-
nishing books, periodicals, card-catalogue, attendants,
free lectures, and weekly story hour. Some of these
branch libraries have as many as three thousand
books on their shelves, with current periodicals to
the number of twenty-five or thirty, and the com-
bined circulation of all the school branches was last
year nearly a third of a million.
...
Mr. Harold Monro and his poetry shop are
•objects of interest in the London book world just
now, and it is to be hoped by poetry-lovers that the
interest will continue. Mr. Monro offers something
novel in the bookselling business in the form of a
bookshop devoted wholly to poetry — a poetry shop,
as he calls it—off Theobald's Road, Bloomsbury;
and one of his brother poets, Mr. Henry Newbolt,
has wished the daring enterprise prosperity in a
speech. In this interesting shop are to be found
shelves devoted each to a particular poet of some
prominence, while the lesser bards, the poets of a
single slender volume, are, we assume, assembled in
pleasant company. But no friend to the poets can
wish these volumes a peaceful repose; rather, may
they speedily give place to others, with an accom-
panying transfer of the currency of the realm to
Mr. Monro's cash-drawer.
...
The Harvard University Press has been
established by vote of the President and Fellows
of Harvard University, and will devote itself to the
publication of works of a high scholarly character,
especially the products of the pens of Harvard men.
For some time the University printing office has
issued the annual catalogue and certain department
pamphlets, with a number of learned periodicals.
Now these publishing activities are to be reorgan-
ized and enlarged, so that the Harvard University
Press shall take rank with similar publishing depart-
ments at other seats of learning. Incidentally the
interesting fact is recalled that it was at Harvard
College that the first printing-press in America was
set up, in 1639, in President Dunster's house, and
that from this primitive press came, among other
books of more or less fame, the Bay Psalm Book and
the Apostle Eliot's Indian translation of the Bible.
COMMUNICATION.
THE REFERENDUM IN ART.
(To the Editor of The Dial.)
I should like to say a word on one point in Professor
Cockerell's letter in your last number. I must confess
that I have not much claim to be heard, for I do not
think the matter as important as he does. The picture
made very little impression upon me when I first saw
it, but it impressed him so that he was quite upset for
at least three hours. I cannot claim his earnestness.
Still, as he is going to make a mistake, I want to act
the part of Cassandra.
It will be for others to defend the picture if they see
fit. Professor Cockerell thinks it immoral because bad,
and bad because immoral (" essentially bad, and there-
fore immoral"; "good taste based on fundamental
morality "). This may be so, but the view expressed in
Professor Cockerell's letter is not convincing on first
thoughts. He thinks the features of the lady awry and
the colors lurid and unnatural. But the features of
almost everybody are a little awry, I am told, and the
colors in many not immoral homes are a little lurid and
unnatural. "The White Rose " may be exaggerated,
but the old story in the Fourth Reader teaches us that
exaggeration, even coarseness in execution, may be one
of the necessities of art.
The really important thing, however, is the summary
of postcards. The result of this inquirendo will be as
follows: There will be a number of persons with views
like Professor Cockerell's who will write to him at once.
There will be a slightly smaller number who are opposed
to him who will write, on the whole, a little later. These
two classes will be controversialists, and their opinions
will not be of value, except for students of that branch
of un-Systematic Zoology known as Human Nature.
There will also be a number of genuine impressions
from people interested in the question itself. There
will not be enough of these to be more than a contri-
bution to esthetic material, but the proportion will be
somewhat in favor of those who do not like the picture.
If one could get a really representative opinion, the
inquiry would be of value. If Professor Cockerell
desires a representative opinion,— that is, if he thinks
the question of importance, if he will be a scientist out
of his chair as well as in it, if he is doing more than
starting a magazine discussion,—- he should, I believe,
go about it in another way. He ought to cut the
picture out of the " Century " and stick it on a piece of
paste board, with a pencil attached to it by a string,
and then go about Boulder, and make a nuisance of
himself by asking everybody to say how the picture
affected them when first seen. Or he might show them
the picture, and himself note their behavior. When he
had five hundred or a thousand impressions he would
have something unique in aesthetic, and of great value —
to anyone who knew how to use it.
May I add that I approve highly of the general prin-
ciple of the Referendum in Art, as well as in Politics.
The true aesthetic value of anything must be measured
by the permanent impression made upon the greatest
number. (This, I believe, is the view of Marshall:
"Pain, Pleasure, and /Esthetics"; and Sautayana:
"The Sense of Beauty"; and also, with pragmatic
attachment, of Walter Pater, at the end of his essay on
Style.) Edward E. Hale.
Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., Feb. 10, 1913.


128
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
Cfre itte Docks.
The Kingdom of Righteousness in
American Life.*
Dr. Rauschenbu8ch's "Christianity and the
Social Crisis," published some five years ago,
met a need among thinking people so adequately
that one was inclined to agree with the author
that he had " said all that God had given him to
say on our social problems." Yet his new book,
"Christianizing the Social Order," proves a
work of hardly less importance.
The first book was an historic survey; it re-
viewed the roots in Judaism of a socialized
democracy, the blossoming of the ideal in the
Teachings of Jesus, the hampered development
in Christian history; and it led to a discussion of
the modern duty to realize Christianity on the
social side. Almost at that point the present
book takes up the theme,—expanding and sup-
plementing the treatment of the ideas of Jesus,
but carrying the fundamental theme of the
Kingdom of Righteousness out into the very
midst of our complexities and bewilderments.
In some ways it is a better book than the other.
The writing is more brilliant. The animus
against a sacramental and sacerdotal form of
Christianity which seemed to some readers to
mar the impartiality of "Christianity and the
Social Crisis" is less in evidence. There is
persuasive sanity, force in concrete application,
and uncompromising courage. Of the earlier
work it has been said that it is a book without
any hate in it. "So far as I know my own soul
that is true of this book also," says the author.
The claim is just. Yet many a page is aglow with
the "wrath of the Lamb." Dr. Rauschenbusch
has an exceptional command of sardonic speech.
Perhaps it is a power given by fearless honesty.
At all events, the trenchant phrases dissipate
self-deception and dislodge conscience from
many an easy refuge. The driving directness
renders thought of literary qualities insignifi-
cant; yet the author is master of an individual
style, admirable in cogency and actuality, rich
in metaphor "pris sur le vif." In spite of an
occasional lapse from dignity, the colloquialisms
used are usually effective. Perhaps the book
deals too much with transitory and technical
matters to be literature in the highest sense;
but many of the best qualities that create liter-
ature are found in it.
The recent awakening of nation and Church
•Christianizing the Social Order. By Walter
Rauschenbusch. New York: The Macmillan Co.
is first presented in a way that will bring home
to many in and out of the churches how far
organized religion has deliberately travelled in
a radical direction; how far it stands committed
both to responsibility for social leadership and to
a definite economic programme of an advanced
type. "The social interest in the Church has
now run beyond the stage of the solitary
pioneer; it has been admitted within the organ-
izations." An inspiriting review, communion
by communion, suggests both how general is the
awakening and how great the waiting task. A
note of suspense is struck with characteristic
candor in the following:
"I confess that my faith falters in the very act of
professing it. The possibilities are so vast, so splendid,
so far-reaching, so contradictory of all historic prece-
dent, that my hope may be doomed to failure. The
American Churches may write one more chapter in the
long biography of the disappointed Christ, which our
sons will read with shame and our enemies with scorn.
But for the present the East is aflame with the day of
Jehovah, and a thousand voices are calling. If failure
comes, may it find our sword broken at the hilt."
In Part II., "The Revolutionary Destiny of
Christianity," we return to the firm foundation
of the social teachings of Jesus. The facile
platitudes to which these teachings are reduced
by the sentimentalist meet with summary dis-
posal: "Love," left in helpless liquidity,— "It
is indeed love that we want, but it is socialized
love"; "Stewardship," calling for no change in
economic distribution, but simply for faithful
disbursement of funds; "The Golden Rule," a
span measure "hardly long enough to survey
and lay out the building site of the New Jeru-
salem"; the impossible call to literal imitation
of the life of Jesus. The inadequacy of all
these "truly religious ideas" leaves the demand
for a religions basis to our task still unanswered.
Such basis Dr. Rauschenbusch finds in the con-
ception of the Kingdom of God. With fresh
force, albeit traversing ground familiar in his
first book, he points out the essentially social
and practical nature of this ideal as it lay in the
Mind of Jesus. Is it possible that he belittles
unduly the Apocalyptic element in the Master's
thought? Must we dismiss this element, so
prominent in the Gospels, as a misreading of
His mind or an unfortunate survival? Or may
we see here, under local limitations, a strangely
wise perception that social development depends
not only on quiet growth but on visible catas-
trophe, and that as Kropotkin claims, revolu-
tionary crises are a necessary part of evolution?
Viewed in this light, the most perplexing factor
in the faith of the early Church gains permanent


1913]
129
THE
DIAL
meaning and value. At all events, the idea of
the Reign of Righteousness on earth shines out
concrete and majestic from these pages. The
eclipse of this idea, and the necessity that it be
restored to the personal religion of the future,
is then briefly sketched.
How sharp the contrast between that social
vision and the reality! In Part III.,"Our Semi-
Christian Social Order," honesty as well as
optimism have full sweep. It dwells first on the
social domains which have slowly and painfully
come under the sway of Christ's Law: the
family, the Church itself, education, and—save
the mark!—politics. "I confess to some mis-
givings in moving that this brother be received
among the regenerate, but I plead on his behalf
that he is a newly-saved sinner." A good case
is made out, by an interesting argument; yet
the reader feels that the author has been hard
put to it if he must adduce "this brother" as a
witness. He is obliged to confess that "in prac-
tice we are a nation of backsliders"; yet "these
things are in the nature of a derailmentof justice,
the road bed and the trackage are still there even
when the train is ditched."
Fortified, we turn to the "unregenerate
sections" of our common life. This book is con-
structive, yet more than 160 pages go to pure
indictment; and even when we turn from " The
Invasion of God's Country" to "The Direction
of Progress," indignation calls us back, In
the attempt to write most positively, the pen
lingers, tipped with acid or fire, over all that
hampers our Christian will. The discussion
covers sadly familiar ground,—but in a manner
so fresh and pungent that the most jaded mind
finds its reaction from our modern sins sharp-
ened and focussed. The point of view is Chris-
tian, not economic: "Does our business system
create sound and noble manhood? Does it make
it fairly easy to do right and hard to do wrong?
Does it call men upward or tempt them down-
ward?" Answers are obvious; the treatment is
ironic, unsparing, fully cognizant of individual
helplessness, yet none the less never blinking
the moral responsibility of each of us to help
the collective action which shall release us from
our collective chains. "Such power on the one
hand and such weakness on the other constitute
a solicitation to sin to which human nature ought
never to be subjected." "A reign of competi-
tion is a reign of fear. ... A reign of fear is
never a reign of God." Such are some among
the terse summaries of the outcome of capitalism.
One is tempted to cull quotations, to dwell on
the caustic presentation of facts. Facts about
adulteration: "A new process makes an emul-
sion of skim milk for ice-cream that looks like
the richest kind of cream. That ought to be a
great saving to the country. But this is a hymn
of many verses. We must chant the rest on the
Day of Judgment." Facts about the muzzling
of the press. And facts about education: "The
great givers are acting like a soft pedal on the
piano. There is probably not a teacher with a
real message to our age who has not felt com-
pelled by consideration for himself and his insti-
tution to soften and dull down the very things
that most demand utterance." These be plain
words, my brethren: they afford pleasant read-
ing,— heart-breaking thinking. All is free
from hysteria or over-statement. When Dr.
Rauschenbusch has finished marshalling his
evidence, "The Case of Christianity against
Capitalism" is complete.
It has been complete this many a year; and
one turns eagerly to the later constructive dis-
cussion, as to how a Christian economic order
should be constituted. Perhaps slight disap-
pointment awaits one. There is a drop, as the
author is aware, from the high levels of religious
thought to schemes for protecting the laborer,
socializing land, guaranteeing employment.
These ideas, the usual programme of economic
advance, are unluckily losing their freshaess
almost before they get out into life. But as the
sure fight gathers round them they will regain it.
Meantime, the descent from religious passion to
a precise programme of reform is one phase of
that voluntary self-humiliation of the divine
which is the world's salvation. At least, the dis-
cussion does not satisfy itself with easy truisms.
The elasticity and modesty of mind are refresh-
ing. "There is only one thing which I am pre-
pared to assert with absolute confidence about
coming events: that they will not happen in the
way I expect them to happen." Yet the pro-
posals are cheerily concrete,—a true help to the
necessary task of "translating the fundamental
utterances of the Mind of Christ" into "terms
large enough to make them fully applicable
to modern social life." Like all of us, Dr.
Rauschenbusch stands for the abolition of spe-
cial privilege; like all good socialists, he vindi-
cates the sacred rights of property, pointing out
that "a condition in which millions of people
have no share at all in the productive capital
of the nation . . . debases humanity, under-
mines the Republic, and desiccates religion."
There is a picturesque apologue on page 338;
a delectable rewriting of the principles of that
choice organization, the "Liberty and Property


130
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
Defense League," on page 851. There is plea
for the indefinite enlargement of the collective
form of property. "Economic Democracy " and
"The Economic Basis of Fraternity" are two
good formulae under which the discussion pro-
ceeds. The last formula leads beyond detail
into the demand for " the evolution of a coopera-
tive economic organization as wide as society,"
which is obviously "the largest constructive
moral task ever undertaken." Yet the next
chapter shows the task to be no novelty, point-
ing out in cogent fashion the transmission of
this highest instinct for social organization down
the ages, from the days of tribal communism
through monasticism, to the expression of fra-
ternal ideals in the collegiate communities
of our own day. Having then reached "The
Powers of the Coming Age" we review modern
tendencies in the same direction. The coopera-
tive movement, organized labor, and single tax
agitation prepare us for a fairly full consideration
of socialism. The author's brotherly yet severe
treatment of the false emphasis and the innate
dangers of political and party socialism, renders
all the more effective his grave and distinct align-
ment of himself with the socialist movement in
its broader but no less definite sense.
We have been studying " The Direction of
Progress"; we turn in conclusion to "The
Methods of Advance." The finely democratic
treatment recognizes the full value of that
working-class movement on which philanthropy
and reform too often look askance. Clever
application of the Scriptures is a specialty of
Dr. Rauschenbusch. He tells us that education
has performed for the torpid classes of society the
miracle Elisha performed on the Shnnammite's
son, when he warmed the dead body till the child
sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. "The
working class has sneezed seventy times seven.
It looks like convulsions, but it means the awak-
ening of life." And again in more sober vein:
"If the banner of the Kingdom of God is to enter
through the gates of the future, it will have to
be carried by the tramping hosts of labor."
Yet the book ends on the note of stirring
appeal to the privileged and the religious in the
name of the faith they profess. At the outset
this note had been struck: "It rests largely
with the Churches whether the emancipation
of the working classes will come by a gradual
and peaceful evolution of society or whether we
are to have the folly and woe of the civil war
over again." Now the note is repeated. The
Marxian may be right in his cynicism. Perhaps
no class will ever as a whole vote away its own
privileges. Nevertheless "men and women of
the wealthy class who have been converted to
the people as well as to God can perform a
service of the highest value by weakening the
resistance which their classes will inevitably
offer to the equalization of property." "In-
dividuals will respond: more of them, I believe,
than in any similar situation in history before."
"Even a few renegades from the rich are inval-
uable. It takes a sharp blow from the outside
to crack an eggshell: the soft bill of a chick
can break it from within."
And the conclusion of the whole matter is
that the Church "must send out men and
women to finish up the work which Christ
began. Is the Church supplying society with
the necessary equipment of such personalities?
Let us grant that it can never reach all: but
is it making Christian revolutionists of those
whom it does teach and control?"
Such a Christian revolutionist at all events
is Dr. Rauschenbusch himself. "Those men
who have kept their mental balance against the
dogmatism of the cruder types of socialism, who
have guarded the purity of their life against the
looseness of modern morals, who have cherished
the devoutness of intimate religion in the
drought of scepticism, but who have also ab-
sorbed the socialist analysis of our collective
sins and the socialist hope of a fraternal democ-
racy, stand as a class marked by God as his
own." The writer of such a book as this is one
of those heralds on whom he calls:
"Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us
On to the City of God."
VlDA D. SCDDDER.
Modern Humanism.*
It was only a short time ago that John
Addington Symonds, in his "Essays, Specula-
tive and Suggestive," summed up with sanity
and sweep the solemn function of the critic.
"In order to profit by the vast extension of artistic
knowledge in this generation and to avoid the narrow-
ness of sects and cliques, the main thing for us is to
form a clear conception of the mental atmosphere in
which sound criticism has to live and move and have its
being. 'The form of this world passes; and I would
fain occupy myself with that only which constitutes
abiding relations.' So said Goethe; and these words
have much the same effect as that admonition of his,
'to live with steady purpose in the Whole, the Good,
the Beautiful.' The true critic must divest his mind
from what is transient and ephemeral, must fasten upon
abiding relations, hleibende Verhaltnisse."
"The Masters of Modern French Criticism. By
Irving Babbitt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.


1913]
131
THE DIAL
If the critic is to accept such an exalted creed
he can no longer live, as so many are doing, in
dalliance with his own lawless moods. To be
sure, Symonds's younger contemporary, Oscar
Wilde, would have taken another path, and with
clash of cymbal and riotous song would have
led us along the path of "the great confusion"
which Sainte-Beuve foresaw. But despite the
fact that Wilde promised with his luxurious
impressionism somehow to regenerate the world,
despite the fact that the influence of "The Critic
as Artist" tinges some of the soberest utterances
of many later critics (such a penetrating essay, for
instance, as Mr. Lewis Gates's "Impressionism
and Appreciation"), Anglo-Saxondom has re-
coiled from the gospel which would lead us to the
flickering irony of Renan's later years or compel
us with Anatole France to "despise men ten-
derly." With all his specious exaltation, Wilde
could not in good faith have subscribed to the
lofty yet tempered dictum of William Sharp:
"When I speak of Criticism I have in mind not
merely the more or less deft use of commentary or
indication but one of the several ways of literature and
in itself a rare and fine art: the marriage of science
that knows and of spirit that discerns. The basis of
Criticism is imagination, its spiritual quality is simpli-
city, its intellectual distinction is balance."
Here, without surrendering the new honors
that the impressionist has claimed for criticism,
is a sober ideal instead of smart paradox.
Where, however, shall we seek for this balance?
Just how may we occupy ourselves with the
abiding relations of things? The historian of
criticism will find several brilliant answers
among latter-day American critics. He will find
something of the wisdom of poetry in the essay
of Mr. Gates,—though he will note that "ap-
preciation," however tempered by richness of
historical equipment and sensitive knowledge of
one's own age, loses sureness in its abnegation
of the critic's memorial right to judge, and loses
sweep and inspiration in consenting to be for its
own age alone. The historian will be stimulated
by Professor Trent's essay on " The Authority of
Criticism," in which, with his characteristic keen
sense of both sides of a question, the author maps
out domains in which the criticism of tradition
and the criticism of impressions may do their
best work. But the historian may well wish that
the two criticisms could have been more closely
fused. The historian will enjoy the drastic
iconoclasm of Professor Spingarn's "The New
Criticism." But after the shouting and the
tumult dies and he finds himself with only the
talisman, "What has the poet tried to express
and how has he expressed it?" which Professor
Spingarn takes from the Germans and Carlyle
as the sole vital and unifying concern of criticism,
the historian will be fain to ask himself how such
a slender relic will save him from "the great
confusion." A few of Professor Spingarn's
applications will make this danger clear. His
assault on the criticism by genres is wantonly
destructive of a method that has brought us
views penetrating as often as pedantic* In his
repudiation of all moral judgment in literature
he falls into the modern heresy of talking about
things, including art, for their own sake, as if
life were as staccato as an index. In his con-
temptuous dismissal of all efforts at a theory of
style he but sends us back to a rereading of a
long line of great essays that make us, despite
their inconsistencies, nod our heads and smile
at the image-breaker and wonder whether such
profound speculations are indeed never to be
increased in the land. No, this talisman is too
slight and too explosive. With less reservation
we read Mr. Paul Elmer More's oracular utter-
ances in the seventh series of the "Shelburne
Essays." We find much to ponder in his tracing
of a spiritual family, after the manner of a Sainte-
Beuve, which includes Cicero and Erasmus,
Boileau and Arnold, and which quietly sets the
influence of these men above the fulminations
of a Saint Paul, a Luther, a Carlyle. We ap-
prehend the fine subtlety with which he seizes
upon that theory of concentrated race-experience
which set Walter Pater to dreaming morbidly if
enchantingly over La Gioconda and with which
Oscar Wilde would have freed his cult of sultry
egoists from moral and social responsibility;
and we follow the noble enthusiasm with which
the American critic rescues this conception of
an inheritance of "the unconquerable hopes and
defeated fears of an immeasurable past, the trag-
edies and the comedies of love, the ardent aspi-
rations of faith, the baffled questionings of evil,
the huge laughter at facts, the deep-welling pas-
sion of peace " for a discipline making up its loss
of original intensity with a significance and de-
sign, a new unity in which ephemeral life is win-
nowed and " fitted into that great ring of eternity
which Henry Vaughan saw as in a dream." And
having reached an apex in this hymnlike human-
istic solution, we are prepared to consider Profes-
sor Babbitt's "The Masters of Modern French
Criticism," not as a climax after Mr. More's
golden words, but as an elaborate and memorable
case for humanism and the dignity of criticism.
* See Professor Nielson's introduction to Professor Gum-
mere's "The Popular Ballad" for some keen suggestions for
fresh use of the examination of genres.


132
[Feb. 16,
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It is refreshing by contrast with the narrow
view of criticism which stifles us for all Profes-
sor Saintsbury's learning, taste, and exuberance
in his massive History, to open a book which,
from a most comprehensive survey of the bril-
liant men who have done more than any other
nation or age for criticism, ramifies in a set of
doctrines which shape for us, at least in outline,
a theory of conduct, a theory of education, a
philosophy, along with a theory of criticism.
Many of our readers are already familiar with
Professor Babbitt's formula. In his "Liter-
ature and the American College " and in "The
New Laokobn " he assumed a role more dicta-
torial than any English critic since Matthew
Arnold, with the possible exception of Mr.
More, and legislated with rich scholarship and
an insight that has made his assurance at once
impressive and natural. He would have us
mediate between the romantic emotionalism
that still flows strong from Rousseau, and the
scientific naturalism that has swept over and
dazzled all modern beliefs and aspirations, with
a humanistic discipline that at present finds litcle
voice, but which has claimed, since the days of
Plato at least, an imposing minority of seers
who have championed it more or less completely.
To many of us so long attuned to the nineteenth-
century philosophy of change this formula has
an air of simplicity with sweep that has made its
promise seem all too magical, all too facile, for
a disease so deep-seated and fascinating as is our
modern skeptical neurasthenia; while Professor
Babbitt himself has been tempted by its sov-
ereign virtues into certain procrustean or at
least over-hasty applications,—as in his dubious
comments on programme music in "The New
Laokoon." But all friends and all foes worthy
of the name will be delighted with the restraint
and the sureness with which he uses his bright
weapon in his latest volume.
Let us approach him once more through an
examination of kindred spirits-. Symonds notes
three types of critic: the judge, the showman
(i. e. the impressionist), and the scientific analyst.
"The true critic," he holds, " must combine all
three types in himself, and hold the balance by
his sense of their reciprocal relations." In a
notable passage he applies this critical spirit to
humanistic education.
"Heraclitus has a weighty saying, which those who
aim at sound criticism should bear in mind. 'It behoves
us,' he remarks, ' to follow the common reason of the
world; yet though there is a common reason in the
world, the majority live as though they possessed a
wisdom peculiar each unto himself alone.'
"The object of education is to provide us in youth
with a sense of this common reason — a just if general
view of what mankind as a whole is—a notion of what
has been thought and wrought by our race in its totality
of what humanity at its best and strongest has achieved
by interrupted yet continuous efforts of how we come
to be what we are and to think and feel as we do.
Humanism, the study of history and literature and art
and law, suffices better than any other training . . .
because its matter is of greater moral and mental im-
portance to humanity. Such education prepares the
specialist to judge with width and sympathy and due
regard for relations, to overcome personal caprice and
predilection and to survey the particular plot he selects
for exploration as part of the great whole."
Mr. More seems to have much in common
with this, yet he touches upon the danger of
using the past" too much as a dead storehouse
of precepts for schoolmastering the present,"
and would be careful to ally judgment " to the
indwelling and ever-acting memory of things"
which consciously creates "the field of the
present out of the past." The critical spirit
becomes thus akin to "the guiding principle,
itself unchanged, at work within the evolu-
tionary changes of nature." "Might we not
even say," continues Mr. More, " that at a cer-
tain point criticism becomes almost identical
with education, and that by this standard we
may judge the value of any study as an instru-
ment of education and may estimate the merit
of any special presentation of that study?"
Thus Mr. More makes Symonds's standards
more flexible without losing his large control.
With such men as these Professor Babbitt is,
if I read him aright, in close accord. I am not
attempting an Alexandrian study of his sources;
rather, I am attempting first to introduce him
more powerfully with his shield locked with
those of a noble phalanx, and then to show with
a bare summary of his " Conclusion " how con-
spicuously his own crest waves in the bright
array. All our examination of other writers will
but more sharply define his distinguished con-
tribution to that synthetic thought that many
youths (of various degrees of age) are dreaming
of as the distinctive work with which the twen-
tieth century will supplement the nineteenth
century of analysis and expansion so courageous
and so distressing.
Here, then, follows Professor Babbitt's con-
clusion in his own words, as far as I can manage
it in a difficult precis of such condensed and
close reasoning:
"From the tyranny of the old neo-classical rules came
the revolt of the romanticists in favor of wider knowl-
edge and wider sympathy. But the romanticists forget
that these are only the feminine virtues of a critic. It
is interesting to observe how Sainte-Beuve, as a 'doctor
of relativity,' was partly responsible for this resultant


1913]
133
THE
DIAL
anarchy from which, indeed, in his full maturity, he
himself recoiled and enlisted himself with the great
judicial conservatives. But iu this doctrine of relativity
both impressionist and scientific critic have united, the
one prating eternally of books 'suggestive,' the other
of books 'significant'; the one denying any impersonal
standard, the other entrenched in his theory of the un-
knowable. Neither method can lead to any sure dis-
tinction between third rate work and a play of Sophocles.
Many books once infinitely suggestive and still of the
highest historical significance are now seen to be of very
inferior value. From Rousseau to the impressionist has
echoed ' Man is the measure of all things.' But is one
to interpret this in the spirit of the Greek sophists, like
M. France who finds us but ' the sport and playthings
of mobile circumstances,' or in the spirit of Socrates,
like Emerson who so asserts the maxim as to attain to
a new sense of the unity of human nature, a unity
founded not on tradition but on insight? To Emerson
the best books in the world seem to be the work of
'one all-seeing, all-hearing gentleman.' The individual
man is the measure of all things only in so far as he has
realized in himself this essential human nature. If we
learn to separate this from Emerson's conflicting ten-
dency to encourage unduly the man who-is undisciplined,
unselective, and untraditional we have the corrective to
temper that immense relativism which almost paralyzed
Sainte-Beuve himself. While the perfect taste thus
formed may be a gift divine, inborn, or impossible, it is
at least an ideal for humanistic self-discipline that
should encourage any sincere and intelligent aspirant
to raise himself above that acceptance of anarchy which
the impressionist considers inevitable. It is well for us
to awaken our senses with the impressionist, but only
that we may the better judge. The problem is to avoid
the extreme of the pseudo-classical critic who set up a
standard entirely outside the individual and the extreme
of the impressionist entirely within. We should seek
a standard that is in the individual and yet is felt by
him to transcend his personal self and lay hold of that
part of his nature which he possesses in common with
other men. To complete this standard, this judgment
of the keen-sighted few in the present needs to be rati-
fied by the verdict of posterity. Yet in our day the
Rousseauist or pseudo-democrat would value a book
not by its appeal to the keen-sighted few, but by its
immediate effect on the average man, a humanitarian
fallacy which fits in alike with impressionism and com-
mercialism. Modern criticism, in getting rid of for-
malism and in becoming sympathetic and comprehen-
sive, has performed only half its task. The other half
is to find some new principle of judgment and selection.
We need a critic who rests his discipline and selection
upon the past, but who by a constant process of hard
and clear thinking is constantly adjusting the experience
of the past to the changing needs of the present. Sainte-
Beuve can give us a miraculous vision of the past but
he is one of the victims of naturalistic fatalism. Goethe,
in his humanistic period, is nearer to the ideal than any
other modern. But Goethe has a weakness. Although
he refused to enter into the deterministic maze that
struck proud gloom into both the dogmatic superna-
turalists, like Pascal, and our dogmatic naturalists,
although he would have us turn from those ultimate
problems which may drive us mad to man's works, he
conceives of this work too much in terms of the outer
world, too little in terms of the individual's inner life.
For the man whose attention is exclusively on works is
in danger of losing that humility which comes only from
a sense of man's helplessness before the infinite. More-
over Goethe, even in full maturity, was too full of
admiration for unregulated sympathy. Thus his view
tends to fly apart into the two extremes which baffle
control — the idea of work conceived, primarily in a
utilitarian spirit, and diffusive unselective sympathy.
As Emerson charges him, he fails to worship the high-
est unity. We need a second Boileau, not with the old
formalism but with the main results of the great ex-
pansion of the last century, who would be further able
to make keen discriminations between different degrees
of merit and demerit. But we must select without
sourness or asceticism. We must avoid the danger of the
French reactionary who fails, for instance, in a reaction
against naturalism, to take up all that is legitimate in
naturalism. We must not dream of an impossible re-
turn to the past. Its forms of authority have become
impossible for man}' moderns. We must substitute an
intuition of something which imposes on man's whole
being a controlling purpose. To the influence of Sainte-
Beuve, then, the great doctor of relativity, we must bring
the controlling influence of Emerson in so far as he is
the philosopher of the oversoul. The ideal critic would
need to combine the breadth and versatility and sense
of difference of a Sainte-Beuve with the elevation and
insight and sense of unity of an Emerson."
Professor Babbitt's formula is not without
its dangers for its creator. It lends justification
for that judicial faculty which Professor Babbitt
would seem to be inclined temperamentally to
over-emphasize himself in spite of his admirable
analysis of its excesses in Bruneti&re. It is in-
teresting to see the working out of this influence
on his style. He has an unusual command of
irony. In his earlier volumes this is almost
omnipresent. He seems to lunge with a rapier
at once trenchant and unnecessarily envenomed.
The wound festers. It is possible, we protest,
to be a devil of a fighter without being so per-
sistently belligerent. We recall Arnold's irony
(which he was wont to use even in the face of
charges of foppish strutting and triviality).
But Professor Babbitt has not the gallantry of
Arnold, who, with something of the versatility of
Cyrano de Bergerac, bows and smiles as he runs
you through. Professor Babbitt frowns a good
deal and thrusts viciously. We must hasten to
add that there is much more restraint in "The
Masters of Modern French Criticism" than in
the earlier volumes. But there is still, with an
irony more restrained, a feverish quickstep that
arises from almost an excess of earnestness.
Besides the irritation caused by the cut and
thrust manner there comes an allied annoyance:
our stinging ears await the grateful cadence of
a solemn and exultant period. But Professor
Babbitt's own petulance, his own fine zeal, will
not let him gratify us. This stylistic defect is
likely to be the failing of the critic who remains


134
[Feb. 16,
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DIAL
essentially judicial, not with the ponderosity of
Johnson but with the crisp proverb-manner of
Boileau; and who does not quite gain, much as
he may desire it, the full elevation of the more
irresponsible emotionalist.
It is this excess of the long neglected judicial
temper, too, that makes him distrustful, as
Arnold was before him, of the identification of
critic and artist so frequently urged by the im-
pressionists. It is to be regretted that Professor
Babbitt accepts the outworn antithesis, "criti-
cal" and "creative." Surely the critic may be
creative without admiring, as Victor Hugo would
have it, "like a brute,"—without seeking to
herald his new office with the insincere fanfare
of a Wilde. It is interesting here to compare
Mr. More, who brings critics at least very close
to the creative manner but who would admit that
"they are by intellect hesitators," a concession
surely not wholly true of the greatest of them.
Mr. John McKinnon Robertson ("Science in
Criticism," pp. 144 seq.), points out" the nullity
of the proposition" that "criticism is a lower
form of intellectual effort than those called 'crea-
tive,'" and doubtless Professor Babbitt would
find sufficient solace in such a contention to
urge that my present jangling is to no purpose.
There is no space for extended argument. But
I would contend that there is something far more
important than the gratification of individual
vanity in the new conception of the critic as
creator; and that since criticism shows signs of
marked new developments, since the number of
sane critics who insist upon its creative character
increases daily, I would repeat that an excess of
the judicial temper may tend to deprive criti-
cism of this last honor and range that is now its
inspiring heritage.
But we have quarreled overmuch. It is rather
early to forecast a return to the judicial ex-
treme. Surely Professor Babbitt's mastery of
the sadly neglected judicial faculty has brought
him striking results. In a style richly jewelled
with choice quotations,—a style which absorbs
quotations with the art of Hazlitt, of Byron in
"Don Juan," or of Thackeray,— Professor
Babbitt follows a method that has been called
"collective criticism," a criticism which is too
objective to have intolerable acidity, which re-
quires toil too epical to appeal to one so-called
critic out of a thousand, but which (as Profes-
sor Brewster has well pointed out) is a rich field
as yet but little trodden.* Professor Babbitt's
* " Modern English Literary Criticism." Professor Brew-
ster cites perhaps the best example: Mr. J. M. Robertson's
essay on Poe, "largely an analysis of the collective estimate
of Poe, with comments of his own."
chapters on Sainte-Beuve, in particular, are an-
alytic and synthetic work of a very high order.
Other writers have had at best but partial suc-
cess in constructing the necromantic method
which Sainte-Beuve himself revealed so way-
wardly- But Professor Babbitt has, with great
knowledge, patience, and delicate acumen, found
all the bright evanescent disclosures in the mas-
ter himself and in his most cunning critics, and
has woven them into a coat of mail. He has
captured Proteus and compelled him to assume
permanently his proper form. Such "collective
criticism" as this is certainly an admirable ap-
plication of Professor Babbitt's own large vision
of a method that draws the best from impression-
ist, scientific historian, and humanist, that goes
to Sainte-Beuve, to Goethe, and to Emerson for
a new eclectic philosophy. And we may add
that such "collective criticism" as this is, in
Professor Babbitt's despite, creative. From his
pages those noble warriors of France, Sainte-
Beuve, Taine, Joubert, Scherer, Kenan, Bru-
netieire, stand forth vivid, scarred. This is
dramatic criticism in a new and in a very severe
use of a much abused word.
Herbert E. Cory.
The Befogged Elizabethan Stage.*
From being the most neglected field of Eliza-
bethan research, the subject of the conditions of
stage presentation in Shakespeare's London has
become in a single decade one of the most vio-
lently debated qucestiones vexatm of recent
scholarship. Mr. W. J. Lawrence lays claim,
not without reason, to the distinction of having
inaugurated this fresh trend of critical specula-
tion; and his handsome volume of eleven essays,
originally composed at different times between
1902 and the present year, offers an easy mea-
sure of the progress which has been attained.
During the period spanned by these papers,
several thousands of pages, literally, have been
published by some twenty writers, in England,
Germany, and America, in the effort to eluci-
date Elizabethan stage conditions; and the end
is assuredly not yet. The pelter of dissertations
continues, but the first stage in the investiga-
tion is giving place to a second. Instead of far-
ranging inquiries, seeking to settle the entire
question on independent and rather empirical
lines, one finds to-day a close-locked battle waged
about half a dozen shibboleths thrown up by the
* The Elizabethan Playhouse, and Other Essays.
By W. J. Lawrence, Illustrated. Stratford-upon-Avon:
.Shakespeare Head Press. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippinoott Co.


1913]
135
TELE
DIAL,
conflict of opinion. It is less the Shakespearean
or the Elizabethan stage as a whole which at
present engages the attention of the students
than such by-products of discussion as the " alter-
nation" and the "plastic" theories, the prin-
ciple of " multiple setting," and the " platform"
or "picture," "corridor" or "alcove'' stage.
The change is, of course, in many ways a
mark of healthy progress — an index of the
closer range within which the investigations of
some of the most acute modern scholars have
brought the subject. The absolute results have
been well set forth by one of the pioneers in the
work, Professor G. P. Reynolds, in a paper in
last year's "Modern Philology,"—" What We
Know of the Elizabethan Stage." The advance
is somewhat painfully brought home to the gen-
eral public by the fact that the commentaries in
even the most scholarly editions of the Eliza-
bethan dramatists have in ten years grown quite
superannuated in all that regards details of
staging. It is no dispraise of Mr. Lawrence
and such of his compeers as Archer, Albright,
Wegener, and Reynolds, however, to say that
the dispassionate scholar who gives up his days
and nights for no small space of time to the
careful reading of their treatises is likely to
emerge with a sense of the vast preponderance
of speculation and inference over established
fact. The field whence evidence is to be culled
is so broad, and the meagre individual hints
so dishearteningly contradictory, that it is
not surprising to find vague deduction running
riot or chasing itself about in circles of vicious
logic.
On the principle which now obtains, it would
seem essential that the theorist seeking to con-
struct a mental concept of the Globe or Fortune
stage be able to hold suspended in his mind a
clear idea of the actual requirements of every
scene of at least a hundred plays. But this is
practically impossible. The most assiduous in-
vestigators seem hardly to have done more than
consider a single striking scene or two from each
of thirty or forty plays. Hence, as each student
inevitably remembers and stresses, out of the
ungovernable multitude, the particular scenes
which lean most toward his personal interpreta-
tion, it is very natural that discordant views have
been able to establish and maintain themselves.
Thus the alternation theory, which postulates
very precise care in the avoidance of incongru-
ous effects, and the so-called "plastic" theory,
which believes in the indifference of the Eliza-
bethan public to what would be to-day unen-
durable clashes of scenic atmosphere, have both
been ably expounded on the evidence of the
plays themselves.
The first indispensable step in the investiga-
tion of Elizabethan stage practice has consisted
in the general survey of the entire field. Now
that this difficult labor is accomplished and a
number of general principles set beyond doubt,
it should be possible to bring out the details
more clearly by concentrating attention upon
particular subdivisions of the province. To treat
separately the productions of the different thea-
tres, especially in the earlier period, is hardly
possible on the basis of present knowledge. To
begin with the consideration of Shakespeare's
works, as Brodmeier did, is to court disaster, for
Shakespeare's stage practice was doubtless as
genially erratic and as arbitrary as his use of
language. Shakespeare wrote with a superla-
tive knowledge of the peculiar needs, and even,
doubtless, of the undreamed potentialities, of a
special company and theatre. To attempt to
deduce from his practice alone an idea of the
normal usage would be like inferring the char-
acteristics of everyday Elizabethan conversation
from the soliloquies of Hamlet.
The best means of bringing into clear outline
the ground principles of Elizabethan staging
will probably be to proceed, from the basis of
the broad truths established "by the researches
of the last ten years, to a more minute study
than has yet been attempted of the practice of
the earlier playwrights, especially Greene and
Marlowe. These poets seem to have had no
intimate or exclusive association with any one
play-house. They wrote normally, it is certain,
for the public stage, but not with their eye upon
the peculiar individual requirements of a single
company or theatre. That is, they saw the stage,
presumably, as the man in the street saw it in
their day and as we should first try to see it—
in broad outline with a few salient universal
features subject to infinite modification in spe-
cial cases. When these simple fundamental
characteristics have been elicited by microscopic
study of the not overwhelmingly numerous dra-
mas of the earliest writers for the public stage,
we may hope to discover more easily the develop-
ments and personal innovations which it seems
certain that more advanced and technical artists
like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson must have
made. From these we may then probably trace
the course of evolution through the work of
the succeeding seventeenth-century playwrights.
Assuredly, if there is any parallel between the
progress of the early English stage and that of
the dramatic literature with which it was so very


136
[Feb. 16,
THE
DIAL
intimately associated, we must expect to find
enormous differences of detail between the stage
practice of Marlowe's plays, of Shakespeare's,
and of Ford's. No wonder that the arguments
which give identical value to evidence from
"Alphonsus of Aragon," from "Hamlet," and
from " The Broken Heart" leave us no means of
distinguishing between the normal and essential
and the purely exceptional.
The various essays in Mr. Lawrence's book
differ greatly in their importance to the student
of stage conditions. "The Story of a Peculiar
Stage Curtain" and "Proscenium Doors" are
written in popular rather than scientific vein;
and the same can be said of "The Mounting of
the Carolan Masques," which contains, however,
some valuable new matter. The treatment of
"Early French Players in England" (mainly
during the Stuart era), of Shadwell's putative
"Tempest" opera, and of the authorship of the
"Macbeth " music touches interesting side-issues;
but Mr. Lawrence's claim to serious recognition
as a purveyor of new light will depend mainly
upon his introductory paper on "The Evolution
of the Elizabethan Playhouse," with its supple-
ment at the end of the volume, and upon the
three careful inquiries regarding the situation
of the "lords' room," the use of title and locality
boards, and the place of music and song in the
Elizabethan theatre.
These essays, like the others, are written with
verve and bear the mark of diligent preparation.
That they lead to rather few definite conclusions
is perhaps due more to the broad field they seek
to cover than to any lack of critical acumen in
the author. Very often one finds Mr. Lawrence
slipping over the real difficulties of the problem
before him with such lighthearted remarks as
"There seems to be no valid reason for doubt-
ing" (p. 28) and " Some slight evidence exists to
show" (ibid). Near the beginning of his first
paper (p. 5), Mr. Lawrence remarks that "Au-
thentic details of the prime characteristics of
the Shoreditch theatres (i.e., the 'Theater' and
'Curtain') are almost wholly lacking." Yet in
the same connection he states, on evidence which
I am wholly unable to trace, that the " Theater"
and " Curtain" were used for bull and bear bait-
ings as well as dramatic performances. From
this he infers that the theatres in question must
have had removable stages; and later (p. 23) he
suggests that " one invariable concomitant of the
permanent (as opposed to the removable) stage
was the oblique entering doors." Here a very
interesting theory is built up almost without a
prop. The difference in dramatic effectiveness
between a stage on which actors may enter
through doors set opposite each other toward
the front of the platform and a stage where all
entrances must be made through openings in
the rear wall is of the utmost consequence. If
Mr. Lawrence is right, then Shakespeare's com-
pany must not only have made a very great ad-
vance in the efficiency of their acting when they
removed from the "Theater" to the "Globe,"
but they must also have relapsed periodically
into cruder methods whenever they returned,
during the years before 1600, from the " Rose"
or "Globe" to the "Curtain." If true, this is
highly interesting, but proof is lacking both for
the conclusion and for the premises. Did the
"Theater " and " Curtain " have movable stages?
Did movability of stage necessarily involve dif-
ference in the shape of the tiring-house facade
and consequently in the position of the stage
entrances?
Another striking statement, for which one
would like to have Mr. Lawrence quote satis-
factory evidence, is his remark concerning the
"remoteness and obscurity"' of the inner stage,
"which almost invariably demanded the bring-
ing in of lights at the commencement of all
inner scenes " (pp. 6,7). The four cases cited in
the footnote, where lights are called for by the
nature of the scene, certainly prove no such prac-
tice. Moreover, would not the contrast between
illuminated back scenes and unlighted front
scenes, if any authority for the practice could
be found, rather serve to emphasize the separate
identity of front-stage and rear-stage, which
Mr. Lawrence, as a hard and fast opponent of
"alternation," rigidly denies?
Mr. Lawrence's discussion of title and local-
ity boards is, on the whole, excellent; but his
solemn treatment of the alternative play titles at
the beginning of " Wily Beguiled " and " The
Knight of the Burning Pestle" (pp. 51, 52)
3eems much ado about nothing. Surely, nobody
in the audience can have seriously expected to
see " Spectrum " or "The London Merchant."
The false titles were brought in with the privity
of the audience, in the one instance as a humor-
ous gibe at the much-acted " Spectrum," in the
other for the purpose of motivating the outburst
of the Grocer and his wife.
In the paper just alluded to, and in the final
section of the book, the author treats very well
the essential principles of multiple setting, but
grows vague in his deductions as to the extent
to which multiple setting obtained on the public
stage. "One has only to make minute examin-
ation of the constructive system of Lyly," he


1913] THE
DIAL 137
says (p. 59), "to become convinced that the
multiple setting held sway at court for more
than a score of years after the erection of the
Theater and the Curtain (i.e., till after 1596)."
Later on, Mr. Lawrence contends very plausibly
that Lyly's early court plays (produced circa
1580-86) were acted according to the multiple
setting principle (p. 237^".). But does he really
mean that this principle held sway " more than
a score of years after the erection of the first
theatres"; that is, till after Shakespeare's com-
pany had begun to carry their plays regularly
from the " Theater " and the "Globe " to the
court? If Mr. Lawrence means this, proof
would be most desirable.
Similar vagueness appears in the discussion
of the first Blackfriars stage, where it should be
remembered in fairness that Mr. Lawrence is
writing in haste and without the benefit of Pro-
fessor Wallace's very informative recent book
on "The Evolution of the English Drama up
to Shakespeare." Starting with the bold as-
sumption that "all the court plays of the period,
excepting pastorals, were provided with scenery
of the multiple order" (p. 235), Mr. Lawrence
infers that plays must necessarily have been
similarly rehearsed at the Blackfriars. Yet, as
the multiple scenery was court property, return-
able after the royal performance, he suggests
that all subsequent representations at Black-
friars would follow the practice of the public
stage. Surely, it is unlikely that a particular
play would be acted in the same theatre by the
same company before the same type of audience
in one manner previous to a specific date and in
an utterly different manner after.
It is not with the idea of convicting Mr.
Lawrence of ignorance or carelessness that these
few instances out of a large number have been
brought up. The rest of the learned world
shares Mr. Lawrence's uncertainties, and all
writers on the subject have not been as frank
as he in avowing the weak places in their reason-
ing. The fact is that what we know at present
of the early court, private, and public stages
immediately prior to Shakespeare is quite in-
sufficient to support the amount of pure conjec-
ture involved in any of the prevailing theories.
To concentrate upon the real fundamentals of
Elizabethan staging, as manifested in the earli-
est and simplest theatres, the attention now
roaming rather aimlessly over the entire pre-
Restoration epoch might set investigation firmly
on its feet.
A few careless expressions and misprints mar
the neatness of Mr. Lawrence's volume. Atten-
tion is likely to be drawn particularly to the
amusing misuse of italic type by which the
Boswell-Malone Variorum Shakespeare is reg-
ularly alluded to as Malone's Shakespeare by
JBoswell. Of " Shakespeare by Bacon" we have
all heard more than enough, but " Shakespeare
by Bos well" strikes one as a delicious innova-
tion. C. F. Tucker Brooke.
China After the Revolution.*
Not even the new era dawning for the Balkan
States is of so great moment to the human race
as is the emergence of China from mediaeval
backwardness into modern aspirations, and her
institution of a republican government. Friends
of liberty and progress everywhere will share,
indeed, in the triumphs of liberty and pro-
gress in southeastern Europe, and will spare but
little sympathy to the losing Turk, yet the rise
of the Balkan States adds no distinctly new ele-
ment to world civilization. Japan, on the other
hand, brought into later nineteenth-century
world culture an individual contribution, not
only Japanese, but Asiatic; and the great
empire now following the lead of Japan will,
presumably, offer to the family of nations per-
plexities and gifts, not simply characteristic and
unique, but also Asiatic. Since it is to be hoped
that the world culture of the later twentieth
century will be enriched by the equal blend-
ing of elements from the two hemispheres, the
revolution in China is therefore of the utmost
significance.
China's first steps along her present untried
path are being watched by all the world, but
not by all with like interest. Not even yet is
the possibility of the partition of the old empire
banished from the thought of certain European
chancelleries, and it is scarcely cynical to believe
that some of the Great Powers secretly rejoice
at every sign of weakness, and regret every omen
of success in her present endeavor. Whatever
be the attitude of other nations, however, our
own can scarcely be less than friendly. We
have nothing to gain by China's failure, and
much to hope from her success. Moreover, she
is paying us the flattering tribute of at least
partial imitation, and much of her present mo-
•Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China. By
James Cantlie, M.A., and C. Sheridan Jones. Illustrated.
New York: Fleming H. Revell Co.
Recent Events and Present Policies in China.
By J. O. P. Bland, niustrated. Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott Co.
The Chinese Revolution. By Arthur Judson Brown.
New York: Student Volunteer Movement.


138
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
mentum in the reform movement is the result
of American education imparted to her youth
both here and in China. Indeed, in spite of
the uncertainties that yet strew her path, many
Americans marvel that our government still
delays to recognize the Republic.
These uncertainties are varied and serious.
China consists not only of the eighteen prov-
inces, but also of four great dependencies, loosely
knit at best to the Middle Kingdom — a total
area one-third larger than all Europe. To in-
stitute a novel form of government for the hun-
dreds of millions of her people and yet hold
these vast dependencies to their allegiance is a
task of the greatest magnitude. Even without
foreign foes, it would be almost impossible ex-
cept by means of a great army, and that China
does not possess. Nor is she without foes.
Japan covets South Manchuria; Russia is
greedy for North Manchuria, Mongolia, and
Turkestan; England will not stand by and see
Thibet fall into Russian hands.
Moreover, China is internally weak. She
lacks railroads, revenue, and an army. Her
administration has not yet proved its capacity
for handling the vast sums needed for internal
development, and she cannot, therefore, borrow
money for the development of her wonderfully
rich resources without submitting to foreign
supervision. Such supervision may lead to riots
and even the secession of provinces. At this
critical juncture, when the old sanctions of
Confucianism and the monarchy are destroyed,
no new sanctions have been created upon which
she may implicitly rely to hold her populace
loyal, through severe tests, to the new govern-
ment. Her internal problems accentuate the
seriousness of the dangers which threaten from
without.
Friends of China who watch eagerly for every
sign of hope will find much to encourage them
and much to discourage in three recent books.
The favorable view of China's prospects is pre-
sented in Messrs. Cantlie and Jones's "Sun Yat
Sen and the Awakening of China," and in Dr.
Brown's "The Chinese Revolution"; the un-
favorable in Mr. Bland's "Recent Events and
Present Policies in China."
The first of these books comprises a rather
heterogeneous list of topics. A sketch of the
character and career of Dr. Sun, together with
certain other chapters, was written by Dr. Can-
lie, former teacher of Dr. Sun at the Hongkong
Medical School and his intimate friend for the
past twenty years; the rest of the book was
written by Mr. Sheridan Jones. The latter
writer gives an altogether encouraging account
of the great moral crusade in China, the fight
against opium. The statistics advanced to prove
that China has combatted the gigantic opium
evil with vigor and at great sacrifice to the gov-
ernment in revenue, and that British India has
actually drawn a larger revenue, because of the
rise in prices, from her greatly reduced export
of opium, are indeed impressive. Likewise
impressive is the forecast of China's future as
a military power. The writer believes in the
strength and efficiency of the new army of China,
and maintains that the Republic will differ from
the monarchy in nothing more strikingly than
in the changed attitude toward the soldier, a
change destined to mean eventually an enormous
standing army. Will China in the near future
require Japan and Russia to evacuate Man-
churia? Mr. Jones believes she may.
The value of Mr. Jones's prophecies depends
largejy upon the quality of China's present lead-
ership, and as to this both Mr. Jones and Dr.
Cantlie are agreed. The former speaks with
assurance of the reformed bench of China, as
consisting of an "unexceptionable personnel,"
and Dr. Cantlie holds Sun Yat Sen up to the
world as a man of unique gifts and powers.
According to Dr. Cantlie's first-hand sketch,
Sun possesses remarkable magnetism, both with
individuals and with audiences. His temper is
pacific, his disposition remarkably unselfish, his
interests very diverse, and his devotion to China
absolute. Interesting incidents from his pic-
turesque career serve to vivify the sketch and
leave a very favorable impression of Sun as a
man of ability and courage and a peculiarly sin-
cere patriot. His power over men, the result of
an open and generous nature, appears quite extra-
ordinary. As to his statesmanship, Dr. Cantlie
furnishes little evidence, since in this Sun is as
yet untried. One is compelled to remark, more-
over, that Dr. Cantlie largely defeats his own
end by a certain lack of restraint and an undue
laudation of his hero. Dr. Sun as the saviour
of the Republic would be more reassuring if he
were depicted as not quite so angelic.
This lack of restraint contrasts unfavorably
with the exceptional scholarship and thorough-
ness of Mr. Bland's discussion of China's prob-
lems, a discussion giving an altogether adverse
view of her prospects. Joint author with Mr.
Backhouse of "China under the Empress Dow-
ager," Mr. Bland is eminently qualified to dis-
cuss the political, economic, and social conditions
in the Empire, and his entire treatmentis gratify-
ing in its thoroughness and acumen. The his-


1913.]
THE DIAL
tory of the new movement in China, the Young
China party, Cantonese leadership, the policies
of each of the Great Powers, international poli-
tical finances,—these topics are treated with
unusual ability and thoroughness of grasp.
The selfish policies of European nations toward
China, the shrewdness of Japan's far-seeing
designs, the reckless extravagance of Russian
ambition are exposed unsparingly—and, one
feels, with undue pessimism. Mr. Bland has
great respect for the people of China, but little
respect for their leaders. His analysis of the
unrest goes back to the fundamental cause,—
the pressure of population on the means of sub-
sistence, the philoprogenitiveness of the Chinese
race; and yet, though convincing as an explana-
tion of one phase of the uprising, this analysis
leaves out of account secondary causes too im-
portant to be omitted. He feels this to be a
blind movement of the hungry masses, and in
his eyes those who have taken the lead in this
movement are only a new type of the ancient
Chinese revolutionist, and they are already dis-
playing the worst traits of the greedy mandarin.
The people are in the hands of ambitious and
place-seeking leaders, devoid of sobriety, and
wholly wanting in moral and religious depth
and restraint. He foresees a brief life for the
Republic, though he thinks the restored mon-
archy or the despotism sure to follow will be
modified for the better through the aspirations
voiced in the temporary Republic.
One questions whether Mr. Bland has not
been too long in close and unfortunate contact
with the old Chinese officialdom to view with
open mind the present seemingly novel phe-
nomena in Chinese politics. No one who has
any acquaintance with the younger generation
of Chinese will fail to recall men whose ability
and patriotism inspire great confidence. It is
wholly possible that the effervescence of youth-
ful enthusiasms, which to Mr. Bland indicate a
heady, volatile, and unstable leadership, will
leave behind the substantial Chinese virtues of
common sense and reverence for law, to guide
the nation through its crisis. Though possess-
ing unusual value as a scholarly study, the
discussion is too deeply tinged with pessimism
to be convincing.
Such an impression of Mr. Bland's unfavor-
able prepossession is strengthened by the peru-
sal of Dr. Brown's " The Chinese Revolution."
After describing briefly the outbreak and back-
ground of the revolution, Dr. Brown discusses
concisely the various influences that have pre-
pared the way for this outbreak, — steam and
commerce, diplomatic and warlike relations, the
gradual intellectual awakening resulting from
these stimuli and from Christianity and foreign
education. He concludes his study with a sketch
of the two foremost leaders of China, Sun and
Yuan, and a forecast of the future of the
Republic. Dr. Brown's tone, though sane and
not lacking reserve, is strongly optimistic. He
believes that moral and spiritual elements have
entered largely into the making of the present
situation in China, and urges the necessity of
strengthening as rapidly as possible these con-
servative influences at this time of swift tran-
sition from the old to the new.
O. D. Wannamaker.
A Library of Greek and Latin
Classics.*
Xenophon in his Memorabilia of Socrates
reports the sage as saying that friendship is
sustained and promoted by reading the master-
pieces of old: "We turn over the recorded
thoughts which the wise men of antiquity have
left to us; and if we find any noble sentiment, we
cull it out and rejoice to think that our friend-
ship is strengthened thereby." Towards the
close of the fifth century B. c, when Socrates
may be supposed to have made this remark, the
available stores of Greek literature were already
sufficiently imposing. Homer and Hesiod,
Archilochus and the lyric poets, the great trio of
tragic dramatists, Aristophanes, the historians
Herodotus and Thucydides, with others of minor
note, were all in hand, and affecting the thought
and life of Hellas. It was quality rather than
quantity that told: little need for winnowing
those treasures; and there was added the su-
preme advantage of not having to translate, as
nothing worth translating existed outside of
Greece.
For Americans and Britons of this speeding
century, the treasures of Greek and Roman lit-
erature, like some other fine old things, have
largely become shelved and labelled. We con-
tent ourselves with remembering the label and
retaining a dim idea of the shelf — a somewhat
different thing from talking "with one of
* Thb Lokb Classical Libbasy. Edited by T. E. Page
and W. H. D. Rouse. First volumes: Philostratus's Life of
Apollonius of Tyana, translated by F. C. Conybeare, in two
volumes; Euripides, translated by Arthur S. Way, in four
volumes; Terence, translated by J. Sargeaunt, in two
volumes; Propertius, translated by H. E. Butler; Catullus,
Tibullus, and the Pervigilium Veneris, translated by F. W.
Cornish, J. P. Postgate, and J. W. Mac kail. New York:
The Macmillan Co.


140
[Feb. 16r
THE
DIAL,
Plutarch's men." Emerson in one place con-
tends for the use of translations; in another, he
says: "When a thought of Plato becomes a
thought to me, time is no more." To be con-
sistent, he must have taken his Plato via Jowett;
but as the same Emerson elsewhere pleads for
inconsistency as the real jewel, we may fall back
on the assurance that he got as much training
in the Greek language as the early nineteenth
century afforded.
However this may be, it must be with some
sense of interest, pleasure, and gratitude that
thoughtful men up and down the land have
heard of the purpose of Mr. James Loeb, the
well-known banker, to stay the slow progress of
oblivion that seemed waiting on the classic
literatures by subsidizing the publication of
translations of the great and less great Greek
and Soman writers, from Homer down to the
fall of Constantinople. To the undertaking of
his praiseworthy enterprise Mr. Loeb was
impelled by his own enthusiasm for classical
subjects and the encouragement of M. Salomon
Reinach; and for its supervision he has called
in the aid of an advisory board, including such
names as Edward M. Capps of Princeton, Will-
iam G. Hale of Chicago, John Williams White
of Harvard, Maurice Croiset of Paris, Otto
Crusius of Munich, Hermann Diels of Berlin,
J. G. Frazer of Cambridge, A. D. Godley of
Oxford, and Sir J. E. Sandys. The immediate
editors of the series are Dr. T. E. Page, for-
merly of the Charterhouse school in London,
and Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, Litt.D., of Cambridge.
For the actual work of translation, the editors
have enlisted the services of recognized schol-
ars in England, the Continent, and America.
Jowett and Jebb are gone,—so, alas, are Sey-
mour and Wright and Goodwin; but from
Phillimore, Way, Postgate, and Mackail in
England, W. C. Wright of Bryn Mawr, A. M.
Harmon of Princeton, and Horace White of
New York, something more than respectable
translations may be expected. It would seem,
indeed, as if the work had been triply guarded,
— by translators, editors, and advisory board.
The series is to consist of about two hundred
volumes,—somewhat more than a five-foot shelf,
though not exhaustive of the available riches.
In the selection of authors no chronological order
will be followed, but the choice will be made so
as to include considerable variety each year.
Major and minor authors are brought out am-
icably together, and it is left to our latter-day
acumen to determine their respective merits:
Sophocles is elbowed by Philostratus, Terence
and the Apostolic Fathers have agreed together.
Questions of Hellenism and Latinity are not
discussed; yet, as the Greek or Latin text is
placed on the opposite page from the translation,
the scholar's eye will not fail of its critical
office.
The chief appeal is made, of course, not to
scholars, but to the college graduate who wishes
to keep up his reading, and who has forgotten
much of the little Latin and more of the less
Greek he once was taught; and also to the intel-
ligent layman, well-intentioned but innocent of
either language. This appeal is helped out by
the clear printing and neat form of the small
octavos. The Latin volumes are bound in red
cloth and the Greek in dark green. For the
Bize, the price seems a little high.
Philostratus of Lemnos (circa 175—200 a.d.)
gained the favor of the learned empress Julia
Domna, consort of Septimius Severus, and was
persuaded by her to write the life of the sage
and wonder-worker Apollonius of Tyana. As
Apollonius had been dead about a century,
there had been time for a fine haze of legend and
tradition to gather round his name. During a
long life—largely peripatetic—spent in visit-
ing Persia, Babylon, India, Egypt, and the Hel-
lenic world generally, he wandered and preached
and wrought miracles, spoke boldly before kings
and emperors, narrowly escaped death from Nero
and later from Domitian, and finally died peace-
fully under Nerva. Philostratus is thought to
have exploited the career of Apollonius as a
kind of counter-blast to that of Jesus; but there
seems little reason to believe this. The narrative,
in eight books and broken into small chapters,
is most entertaining; and suggests an Herodotus
of the third Christian century, though of course
lacking the historic substance. The translation,,
by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, is generally spirited
and good; although there are occasional infelici-
ties and a few "Briticisms."
For Euripides, the editors have wisely chosen
to reproduce the fine verse-translation of Dr.
Arthur S. Way, which has been admired by
scholars and used by literary clubs for the past
eighteen years. Dr. Way has thoroughly revised
his former translation of the nineteen plays (he
takes the "Rhesus" as genuine) with the "two
especial aims of closer fidelity to the original
and greater lucidity in expression." The Greek
text of this edition is eclectic, being based on
the soundest conclusions of previous editors and
critics. The fresh virginal page is retained, with
almost no footnotes on readings. In the excel-
lent short introduction on Euripides, Dr. Way


1918] THE
DIAL 141
gives us the following bit of comparative char-
acterization:
".lEschylus sets forth the operation of great princi-
ples, especially of the certainty of divine retribution and
of the persistence of sin as an ineradicable plague-spot.
He believes and trembles. Sophocles depicts great
characters; he ignores the malevolence of destiny and
the persistent power of evil; to him 1 man is man and
master of his fate.' He believes with unquestioning
faith. Euripides propounds great moral problems; he
analyzes human nature, its instincts, its passions, its
motives; he voices the cry of the human soul against
the tyranny of the supernatural, the selfishness and
cruelty of man, the crushing weight of environment. He
questions: 'he will not make his judgment blind.'"
Among the Latin authors thus far selected
for translation, one volume is devoted to the
elegies of Propertius, whose four books have
been done into English prose by Mr. H. E.
Butler, of the University of London. The
work has been carefully executed, his close
adhesion to the Latin text being chosen by the
translator even where, in his own words, "a
free paraphrase would have been in many ways
preferable."
A single volume, also, garners the riches of
Catullus, whose 116 poems and fragments are
translated by Mr. F. W. Cornish, the Vice-
provost of Eton; of Tibullus, whose three books
of elegiacs have found a scholarly interpreter
in Professor J. P. Postgate; and of the little
poem which has come down to us under the
name of the Pervigilium Veneris. The two
Latin poets are well known to all scholars and
lovers of the genus lyricum; and it is safe to
say that these two translations will widely and
permanently extend the circle of their admirers.
The Pervigilium, however, is a less familiar
name even to the classically disposed reader.
Its twenty-two quatrains, with their haunting
refrain, exist in two MSS., one of the seventh,
the other of the ninth century; but its original
date, authorship, and provenance are alike un-
known. Professor J. W. Mackail, the transla-
tor, has given to the title the felicitous English
equivalent "The Eve of St. Venus"; and has
done for the unknown poet of the fourth century
a service worthy of being compared with that
of FitzGerald for Omar. Though nominally
composed as an official piece for the trinoclium
or popular festival of Venus, Professor Mackail
finds fantasy its prevailing motive, "a summons
which evokes imaginative associations, and sets
the rhythm of poetry in movement round nature
and history, love and life." He regards the
poem as the beginning of the romantic move-
ment. "All the motives of the old classical
poetry survive, yet all have undergone a new
birth. . . . Poetry has gone back to childhood;
and has recovered, as though for one fleeting mo-
ment and by the spell of a capricious enchanter,
the key of spring, the freshness of morning, the
innocence of youth." The opening line is used
both as introduction and as refrain for the has-
tening trochaic stanzas that follow; one of which,
with Professor Mackail's prose-poetic version,
may serve as an alluring specimen of the whole:
"Cras amet qui nunquam amavit quique amavit cras amet:
ver novum, ver jam canorum, ver renatus orbis est;
vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites,
et nemus comam resolvit de maritis imbribus.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit quique amavit
cras amet."
"Tomorrow shall be love for the loveless, and for the
lover tomorrow shall be love. Spring is young, spring
now is singing, spring is the world reborn. In spring
the loves make accord, in spring the birds mate, and the
woodland looses her tresses under nuptial showers.
Tomorrow shall be love for the loveless, and for
the lover tomorrow shall be love."
Four of the six extant plays of Terence, pro-
duced in the middle of the second century B.C.,
were frank adaptations of the comedies of the
Greek poet Menander, chief representative of
the third period of Attic comedy—the "comedy
of manners," which has remained to the present
time the "jus et norma loquendi" of this form
of drama. The translator, Mr. J. Sargeaunt,
hi his introduction, defends Terence from the
charge of sameness in plot and characters by
the natural observation that nothing else could
be expected from plays dealing with "a single
epoch in a city (Athens) where life went easily
and great events had ceased to occur." This
recalls Mommsen's words in speaking of the
New Attic comedy:
"The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost
without exception the plot turns on helping a young
man, at the expense either of his father or some leno
to obtain possession of a sweetheart of undoubted
charms and of very doubtful morals. Love or amorous
intrigue was the very life-breath of the Menandrian
poetry. . . . Persons and situations recur down to the
very details like patterns on a carpet; we never get rid
of the asides of unseen listeners, of knocking at the
house-doors, and of slaves scouring the streets on some
erraud or other."
The charge against Terence that he is not
Plautus is also — perhaps unnecessarily — re-
futed by Mr. Sargeaunt by pointing to the
obvious fact that the Terentian comedy is in-
tentionally sentimental, and that boisterous
Plautine humor would be misplaced. He for-
tifies this position by an apt reference to modern
literature: "There is a likeness between Miss
Bates and Mrs. Nickleby. We laugh louder at


142
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL.
j ,
Mrs. Nickleby, but Miss Bates is more true to
life." Tbe stage directions, wbich of course are
wanting in the Latin original, are supplied from
the copy made for the Westminster boys' plays
in London, and add much to the interest and
usefulness of the translation. The version does
not lack sprightliness; by-words and colloquial-
isms are supplied from copious modern British
stores: e.g., " By Jove" for ercle, " Lor me"
for ecastor, "Simple Simon " for miser, "Lord,
Lord " for ei mihi, and so on.
Jobiah Kenick Smith.
Recent Contributions to the Liter-
ature of Education.*
It is worthy of remark that many persons with
fine literary feeling and skill seem to approach the
discussion of educational problems in a pessimistic
mood. Usually they appear to be entirely out of
sympathy with contemporary educational theory
and practice. They praise the ideals of bygone
ages; they deplore the degeneracy of the present;
they prophesy disaster for the future. And still
some of these writers present sane views of the
educational process. All this is true of the volume
entitled "A Valiant Woman." As one reads it,
one is apt to feel despondent at times when the
author points out what is regarded as the pathetic
condition into which modern education has fallen.
But at other times one feels hopeful and enthusi-
astic, when the author depicts high ideals, and indi-
cates what could be accomplished if we were rational
and sincere in our treatment of the problems of
studies, methods, and discipline. The anonymous
author is apparently very well versed in educational
classics, but seems to be entirely unfamiliar with
present-day scientific writing on educational themes.
He (or she) speaks in utter contempt of all "peda-
gogy," and then goes on to quote a large part of the
classic writings upon which modern "pedagogy " is
founded. He condemns the study of the child mind
* A Valiant Woman. A Contribution to the Educa-
tional Problem. By M. F. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell Co.
Teaching in School and College. By William Lyon
Phelps. New York: The Maomillan Co.
The Normal Child and Primary Education. By
Arnold L. Gesell and Beatrice Chandler Gesell. Boston:
Oinn & Co.
Genetic Philosophy of Education. By G. E. Part-
ridge. New York: Sturgis & Walton Co.
Principles of Educational Practice. By Paul
Klapper. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
The Evolution of Educational Theory. By John
Adams. New York: The Macmillan Co.
Education. A First Book. By Edward L. Thorndike.
New York: The Macmillan Co.
A Quarter Century of Public School Develop-
ment. By W. H. Maxwell. New York: American Book Co.
Better Schools. By B. C. Gregory. Edited by James
L. Hughes. New York: The Maomillan Co.
and of educational methods, but devotes most of the
book to depicting child nature and methods of teach-
ing in a keen, sane, and delightful manner. The
"valiant woman" was a teacher, who early came
into the life of the author. In the first chapter are
depicted her characteristics and her methods in man-
aging an ungraded school in a Middle Western com-
munity. The author first shows that everything that
had been done before her time was wrong, — the
teaching was crude, formal, mechanical, verbal. But
this woman introduced fresh methods. She made
her work concrete and vital, so that it was attractive
to the pupils. She was plain of dress and of features,
but noble in intellect and magnanimous in spirit.
The chief virtue of the book is that it presents sound
educational principles in an unusually virile and at-
tractive style. If the author had not permitted his
sensibilities to be irritated by imperfections (many
of them imaginary) in the world around him, and
if he had been more largely constructive without
decrying the tendencies of the times, his work would
be signally distinguished among modern educational
books. But even with its imperfections, it is a con-
tribution of merit,—not because it offers anything
new, but because it presents in a captivating way
many of the views and principles which all present-
day leaders are striving to get adopted in our
educational system.
Professor William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, is thor-
oughly optimistic about the whole business of edu-
cation. He is himself very fond of teaching. He
says he would rather teach than do anything else
he can think of. He derives inspiration from give-
and-take experiences with his students in the class-
room. Unquestionably he knows how to awaken
interest in the subject he teaches—English literature
— and he is never bored by the duties of the class-
room. According to him, there is no dull routine in
teaching when one is en rapport with subject and
students. Indeed, to him there is "no profession
more exciting, more stirring, more thrilling than
teaching." Professor Phelps's book is considerably
more intimate than the majority of works upon this
subject. It is concrete, specific, and practical
throughout. Many faults in teaching are indicated,
but never in a mood of despair. Professor Phelps
thinks that teaching to-day, in colleges especially, is
very much better than it was formerly, with which
opinion the reviewer heartily agrees. Persons
who have not had technical training in educational
sciences can read Professor Phelps's book with pleas-
ure. Not having studied educational theory, the
author is not tempted to use specific terms, which,
while more precise than the terms of every-day
speech, are nevertheless not attractive to some read-
ers. There is good cause for rejoicing when a man
who is master of clear and graceful English, who is
genuinely honest and sincere, and who is a "born
teacher," writes on the problems of the classroom;
for he can appeal to the novice and to the man of
the world as a student of the sciences underlying
education usually cannot, because the latter con-


1913]
148
THE DIAL,
stantly feels the necessity of using terms which have
come to have specific meanings for those who are
specialists in the fields in which he works.
Mr. and Mrs. Gesell have written an interesting
volume on the training of young children. The
authors are scientists in the best sense of the term.
They have studied biology, evolution, and modern
physiological and experimental psychology. They
have also dealt directly with children, and have made
numerous experiments in order to throw light upon
some of the complex and peculiar traits of the char-
acter and abilities of children. Unlike much of the
study of children of recent times, the authors have
confined their attention to the normal child. This
does not mean that they think it possible exactly to
define a "normal" child. They do not attempt to
mark off precisely the normal from other kinds of
children, and it is well that they do not worry over
this problem. They say that of the (approximately)
17,000,000 children in the public schools of this
country, only a small percentage are in special classes
for the backward and the defective, and that the rest
may be considered as "normal." While this lacks
precision, it is nevertheless the proper point of view
to take in discussing the traits, abilities, and needs
of the normal child. The book summarizes in an
attractive way a considerable amount of modern
science relating to child nature and child develop-
ment. It is not an easy task, as anyone knows who
has ever tried it, to present biological, evolutionary,
and psychological sciences in dynamic and at the
same time attractive English; but the authors have
succeeded in this in a large measure. Teachers of
young children, even those who have not had much
training in the biological sciences, might read this
book with genuine pleasure and certainly with profit.
There are some persons who claim that they can-
not easily read President G. Stanley Hall's books,
because of the bigness of his words and the complex
character of his sentences. For this reason, doubt-
less, Mr. G. E. Partridge has thought it advisable
to present his writings in a denatured form for the
"average reader." President Hall has himself
endorsed this enterprise, and has said that Mr.
Partridge has done his work well. The latter has
certainly simplified the English of the original, and
has undoubtedly managed in a skilful way to give
his chief's views on a great number of psychological
and educational problems of present-day interest.
President Hall has been a leader among educators
for twenty years at least. He has discussed practi-
cally every question of general educational interest
during this period. He has played a very important
part in initiating reforms in teaching based upon
biological and psychological principles. His views
have been presented in several books and in a great
number of magazine articles and addresses; and it
has been Mr. Partridge's work to digest all these, to
get at the substance of each, and to present this sub-
stance in as simple terms as he could. The book is
designed for the layman, and for the novice in teach-
ing who would not venture to read Hall in the orig-
inal. The only fault the present reviewer can find
with the book is that it seems a little monotonous;
but probably this defect could not be avoided,— the
author was compelled to confine himself to sum-
maries and condensations.
Many writers seem to find it impossible to treat
the subject of education logically and comprehen-
sively without being rather formal and schematic.
But Professor Paul Klapper has achieved a large
measure of success in avoiding this danger. He has
discussed the meaning and function of education,
and the physiological, sociological, intellectual, emo-
tional, and volitional aspects of education as a pro-
cess of perfecting adjustment to one's environment.
He has produced a substantial volume, and a useful
one. Its purpose is not to present new data for a
science of education, but rather to organize existing
data derived from the various sciences, and to show
how they relate to problems of educational values
and methods. This is now a favorite task of educa-
tional writers; they approach their subject from the
standpoint of biological, evolutionary, sociological,
and psychological science. Professor Klapper re-
veals a familiarity with as much of these sciences
as seems to bear upon the problems of making a cur-
riculum, presenting studies effectively, and organiz-
ing and disciplining a school properly. In an older
day, educational writers assumed that the aim of
education was to impart culture to the individual, or
to discipline his mental faculties, or to develop his
character, or to prepare him for earning his daily
bread, or otherwise. But more recently students of
education have been taking the view that the chief
concern of a human being is to adjust himself har-
moniously to his social and physical environment,
and the whole business of education is to assist him
in accomplishing this in the most complete and effec-
tive way possible. Professor Klapper takes this view
of the educational process. But adjustment means
to him not so much that the individual should adapt
himself to the world as he finds it at any time or
place, as that he should transform it to minister to
his needs. While the book deals with rather heavy
subjects, and its logical completeness may cause the
novice to suspect that it is not adapted to his needs,
nevertheless the principles are presented in a simple
and direct way, with only slight use of technical
terms. The author has a happy manner of illustrat-
ing his discussions with concrete examples, which
will help the general reader and the novitiate to com-
prehend what is being discussed, and also to enjoy
it. At the same time, the book is designed primarily
for the student, the one who has leisure to study the
whole subject of education, and who can do consider-
able parallel reading on the side. It is essentially a
text-book. References are given at the end of each
chapter to the most approved literature relating to
the topics considered, and there is a good index at
the close.
Professor John Adams has set himself a difficult
task in tracing the evolution of educational theory.
The purpose of Professor Klapper's book, mentioned


144 TELE: DIAL [Feb. 16,
above, is to present current theory and the scientific
principles upon which it is based; but Professor
Adams takes us back into the ancient world, and
even into pre-historic times, and shows us what the
people of that remote era thought about education.
His book is philosophical, not practical. He ranks
education as one branch of philosophy, and he treats
it as such. He has read widely in philosophical lit-
erature, and he has quoted from it freely. While it is
not his aim to introduce the reader to modern views
in any detail, nevertheless he shows that he is in
sympathy with many fundamental tendencies in con-
temporary education. The various theories of educa-
tion are grouped into the naturalistic, the idealistic,
and the mechanistic types. While this grouping is
open to criticism, it is nevertheless of service in classi-
fying the great variety of theories that have been
proposed by educational writers. Professor Adams
endorses the naturalistic revolt against the conven-
tionality and formalism which once dominated the
educational world, and which still linger in some
places. At the same time, he does not go to such
lengths as does Rousseau in exalting Nature, mak-
ing her the sole arbiter of educational curricula and
methods. His book does not aim to be critical so
much as descriptive, so that a great deal of material
is presented without much comment. Professor
Adams can, when he wishes to do so, make use of a
spirited and brilliant style, as he has shown in some
of his previous books. In the work before us, how-
ever, he has chosen to employ a somewhat heavy
style, in which technical terms are used frequently,
and in which no liberties are taken with direct pre-
sentation of data. It is a book for the serious-minded
student of educational philosophy. The general
reader and the novice will probably not bring enough
to the reading of the book to find it absorbing. It
will make a useful text, to be worked through rather
leisurely and in a thoroughgoing manner.
There are certain fundamental principles of
educational aims, values, and methods which are
accepted to-day by all serious students of education
in America. For the most part these principles have
been worked out from the standpoints of modern psy-
chology, biology, and sociology. Professor Edward
L. Thorndike has played an important role in the
development of these elementary principles*. His
approach to education has been from the standpoint
of what one might call a psychological naturalist.
His latest book is written from this point of view.
His purpose is to discuss in the simplest way possible
many of the problems in which educational people
are interested to-day. He writes as one who is mas-
ter of his subject, and who does not need to exhibit
his learning in the use of technical terms or in a
grand and formal style. The book reminds one of
William James's "Talks to Teachers"; Professor
Thorndike talks on education in much the same in-
formal but helpful manner, so that even the novice
may comprehend and enjoy what he writes. The
volume is characterized not alone by simplicity, but
also by a lack of positive' dogmatic statements. There
are two sides to every question in modern education.
As a rule, Professor Thorndike presents in brief the
arguments on both sides, and then suggests what is
probably the right attitude for the teacher to take.
The teacher who appropriates the contents of this
book will understand modern tendencies in educa-
tional theory and practice, but he will not be too
dogmatic in his beliefs.
Recently Mr. William H. Maxwell of New York
celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his work
as a superintendent. In commemoration of this
event, a committee collected and edited a large num-
ber of his reports and addresses, and these are now
published in book form. They indicate the prom-
inent part Mr. Maxwell has played in the improve-
ments which have been introduced into the public
school system of America during the last quarter of
a century. They deal with a great variety of inter-
esting and important topics. The hand of the practi-
cal superintendent is apparent .in them all. He has
been charged with tremendous responsibilities in ad-
ministering great systems of schools, first in Brooklyn
and afterward in Greater New York. But while
primarily an administrator, he has also been a stu-
dent of educational principles and educational pro-
gress. "A Quarter Century of Public School Devel-
opment" is practically a rtsumk of what has been
accomplished in the schools of America during the
past twenty-five years. Mr. Maxwell has been on
the firing line all the time. He is a progressive
who has been compelled to lead a great community to
see the necessity for educational reform, and to make
such reform feasible in an exceedingly complicated
system of schools. This book will be illuminating
to the layman who has not kept in touch with edu-
cational development during the past quarter of a
century, and it will also be of interest to teachers
who are not familiar with the reforms wrought in
school work during the past twenty-five years.
Like the preceding book, Mr. B. C. Gregory's
"Better Schools " is written from the point of view
of the superintendent who is charged with adminis-
tering a system of schools, and who is concerned
solely with securing definite results from the teach-
ing. The seventeen chapters in this book originally
appeared in whole or in part as letters written for
a newspaper in the city in which Mr. Gregory was
chief educational officer. The purpose of these
letters is to interpret the aims and methods of the
public schools for the people of the community, and
so the volume is unusually direct, concrete, and prac-
tical. Mr. Gregory attempts to justify the up-to-
date curriculum of the elementary schools, and the
means and methods of presenting studies to children
of different ages. The principles underlying his
curriculum and his methods are not essentially differ-
ent from those presented in the books by Professor
Thorndike, Professor Partridge, Professor Klapper,
Professor Adams, and Professor and Mrs. Gesell.
Mr. Gregory presents his views for the most part
in clear, intelligible, and attractive English.
M. V. O'Shka.


1913]
145
THE
DIAL
Briefs on New Books.
Chapter,trom A warm appreciation of the noble
the romance work done by our great inventors,
of invention. an<j an unusually clear understanding
of the technical details of that work, are shown by
Mr. George lies in his excellent book on "Leading
American Inventors" (Holt), which appears in the
series of "Biographies of Leading Americans,"
edited by Professor W. P. Trent. The thirteen
illustrious names in the book's table of contents are
the following: John and Robert L. Stevens, Fulton,
Whitney, Thomas Blanchard, Morse, Goodyear,
Ericsson, McCormick, Christopher L. Sholes, Elias
Howe, Benjamin C. Tilghman, and Ottmar Mergen-
thaler. It will be seen that no living inventor is
included in the list. The amount of new informa-
tion collected by the author gives his book special
value and interest; and the manner in which each
life-drama is presented arrests and holds the reader's
attention. Most moving of all the biographies is
that of Goodyear, of India-rubber renown. Long
years of persistent experiment and diminishing
health and resources preceded the final discovery of
vulcanization, without which rubber gum is about as
useless for manufacturing purposes as so much tar.
Goodyear at the lowest ebb of his fortunes is thus
pictured for us: "Here, indeed, stood a hero, un-
sustained by the excitement and pomp of a battle-
field, continuing a fight as faithfully as ever did an
enlisted champion. Day after day, cold and hungry
in a dingy room, he kept up his tests of new com-
pounds, sustained as firmly as if he distinctly beheld
what the next few months would unfold to his view."
As an instance of original research on the author's
part, we may cite his unearthing of what appears to
be the earliest record of the action of sand discharged
in a jet of steam. It was Tilghman's chance wit-
nessing of this accidental sand-blast that led him to
perfect the process now so important in many in-
dustries. Illustrations and diagrams elucidate the
technical parts of the book, and portraits and other
pictorial accompaniments add to its interest.
Fanny Bumey 11 j8 le8s than a year ago that we
o» a royal reviewed Professor Tinker's inter-
maid of honor. e8ting compilation of those passages
in the diary and letters of Fanny Burney which
relate to the association and intimate friendship of
that vivacious and fascinating young lady and the
always formidable, but in this instance the capti-
vated and docile, Doctor Johnson. The next episode
in this sprightly creature's rather notable career is
now attractively set forth in a new work by Miss
Constance Hill, entitled "Fanny Burney at the
Court of Queen Charlotte" (John Lane Co.). This
book constitutes a link between two other volumes
by the same author: "The House in St. Martin
Street" and "Juniper Hall." All of these books
draw their material mainly from the famous diary
and letters of Madame D'Arblay — a work so volu-
minous that the modern reader, even if not repelled
by the old-fashioned formality of the title itself, is
hardly likely to seek an introduction to "little
Burney," charming though she is, through such a
bulky medium. Miss Hill gives a complete and
fairly definite narrative of Fanny's experience at
court. Her picture of the royal household is a
pleasing one. The gracious qualities of good Queen
Charlotte are intimately described, the little prin-
cesses appear most winsome, and George III. is
presented in a very amiable light. The horrid
Mrs. Schwellenberg, first lady of the wardrobe,—
"Cerbera," as Fanny nicknamed her,—appears in
colors appropriate to her reputation. If it had not
been for her vixenish temper, Miss Burney's expe-
riences as maid of honor might have been happy
enough in spite of the strenuous programme and
the tedious hours of her official position. It is
impossible to read any of Fanny Burney's letters
without being impressed by her dramatic skill in
narrative: she vivifies every scene. Fanny herself,
of course, is the interesting figure always, and she
easily holds the centre of the stage. She is engag-
ingly naive, though we wonder sometimes if her
uncontrollable diffidence is not more or less a pose;
and we are justified, no doubt, in attributing the
"sensibility " which she displays—and laughs at so
heartily in others—to the sentimentalism of that
period. Miss Hill gives some prominence to the
incident of Warren Hastings's impeachment, and
presents us with a dramatic picture of that famous
trial in one of the most vivid chapters in the book.
The illustrations are numerous and effective. In-
cidentally we note an odd mistake in the mention
of "John Adam [sic], one of the founders of the
Republic [the United States], and its first Envoy to
the British Court."
That wilderness sport may be gen-
HunUnowUh ume without being bloodthirsty, is
the ccttnevd. *
evidenced in Mr. A. R. Dugmore's
"Wild Life and the Camera" (Lippincott), which
recounts the successes (not without difficulties sur-
mounted) which have rewarded the author's per-
sistent efforts to record on photographic plates the
forms and actions of beast and bird of our forests
and streams. The book is a collection of essays
portraying in so entertaining a manner the charms
of this humane form of hunting that it is to be hoped
it may be effective in turning many devotees of the
rifle and shot-gun from these weapons of destruction
to the camera. From his long and varied experience
the author tells us of his success in taming and
photographing bluebirds, chicadees, warblers, vireos,
woodcock, mallards, geese, and the whistling swan,
and of his efforts to photograph the porcupine and
opossum. Other chapters recount his fishing ad-
ventures with the sea-trout in New Brunswick, the
salmon in Newfoundland, the yellowtail off Catalina
Island, and the golden trout in the High Sierras.
All lovers of the gentle art of angling will rejoice
in Mr. Dugmore's too brief account of the superb
attractions of the Kern River region, and the glori-


146
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
ous sport to be had there with the golden trout, which
in point of beauty easily holds the palm against all
competitors among the fresh water fish of America.
Some minor statements in the text of this chapter
challenge the attention of those familiar with the
Sierras: for example, that no horse of the plains
could do the work of the " mountain ponies," when
as a matter of fact these latter are drafted every
summer from the valley. Again, the author states
that the golden trout is found in but one stream, and
that it seldom weighs over half a pound; whereas
it has for years been distributed among a number of
streams and lakes in the Mt. Whitney region, and
records of not less than four pounds are known. The
use of the term "median" for "lateral" line will
trouble ichythyologists, and "lupin" for "lupine"
will distress all lovers of these beautiful treasures of
blue. "San Louis Bay" for "San Luis Rey " and
Salmo iridens for Salmo irid&us are doubtless typo-
graphical oversights; but "St Joachim" for " San
Joaquin " violates geographical, historical, and local
canons of taste, and has neither custom nor euphony
to defend it. The author's fine series of photographs
of the migrating caribou of Newfoundland, secured
on his sixth trip for the purpose, are unique and
unusually interesting. His directions for bird photog-
raphy, and for camping in summer and winter,
will appeal to a wide range of enthusiasts; and his
revelations of snow-tracks should revive pleasant
memories in the hearts of all lovers of winter woods.
The illustrations, consisting of fifty full-page plates,
are unusually fine.
Ante-bellum Since the appearance of George W.
daw in Cable's "Old Creole Days," in 1879,
New Orieam. there has been a persistent interest
in New Orleans, and a continued demand for stories,
reminiscences, and serious history dealing with the
life that was lived there. In many ways this interest
has been met, though a second Cable has not arisen
to re-work the old vein or discover a new one; and
the life of the most European of American cities, at
least as it was in its most romantic epoch, still appears
to the world just as Cable represented it. Mrs. Eliza
Ripley, in her book entitled " Social Life in Old New
Orleans" (Appleton), limits herself to a description
of New Orleans society in the narrower sense, and
thus her work cannot compare with that of her dis-
tinguished predecessor, though it is both interesting
and important, even to the serious student of history.
There is a certain flavor and directness about the
style that is most entertaining, reminding one of the
writings of Mrs. Roger Pryor. Mrs. Ripley was a
part of the life she deals with, and she loves the
people, the ideals, and the antiquities of ante-bellum
New Orleans quite as much as the charming Vir-
ginian writer loved her "ancient Dominion." Both
of these women are pleaders of causes, but those
causes were so interesting and the manners of the
long-since vanquished " lords and ladies " of the old
South so attractive that one never wearies of reading
and re-reading their story. Still Mrs. Ripley does
not descend to mere eulogy and panegyric, though
her love for the queer streets and strange ways of
the "French quarter," for the unique markets, and
the ever-present negro slave, often tempt her near
to the border line. She delights to linger at old-
fashioned places to reproduce for the reader con-
versations with long-forgotten people, people "of
quality " whose praises she never tires of singing.
Most of the old families of New Orleans, at the time
when negro slaves were many and negro manners
were obsequious, appear in these chapters — the
Beauregards, Kennedys, Slidells, and many others.
And the great balls, the elaborate wedding festivals,
the whole procession of a luxurious (for that time)
and thoroughly self-conscious life, are brought be-
fore the reader. Children and their ways, boarding
schools, mural decorations for the great houses,
steamboats and hotels, plantation life, and the sad
tale of war and exile,—-all have their place. There
are many wood-cuts, engravings, and daguerreotypes
to vivify the unconventional narrative. Though the
value of the book as "source material" for the his-
torian is somewhat weakened by the absence of
actual and authenticated facts of social and political
importance, there is much that will enable the dis-
criminating student to obtain a fairly correct view
of old New Orleans life in the days "before the
deluge "— as many Southerners still term the war
between the states.
The fallacy ^n a *'tt'e entitled "The Dem-
ofehort ocratic Mistake" (Scribner), Mr.
political tenure,. Arthur George Sedgwick, Godkin
Lecturer at Harvard in 1909, attacks-the old Demo-
cratic fallacy of Jefferson and his followers, that
the best means of securing responsibility in govern-
ment is through frequent elections and short terms.
On the contrary, says Mr. Sedgwick, such a system
in practice produces the machine and leads to
irresponsibility and inefficiency. You cannot get a
responsible man for a post involving the exercise of
authority, he says, by telling him that he will be
displaced by a new appointee at the end of two
years. This is not the method of successful private
business, and it will not work in public business.
The professions of the politicians that the need of
the hour is more democratization he pronounces
as pure demagogy. If frequency of elections and
short terms were a safeguard against misgovern-
ment, the people of New York would be better pro-
tected than any other people in the world, for they
have annual legislative sessions, frequent elections,
and there is probably no other place in the world
where the people vote for so many candidates in the
course of a year. But, in fact, the government of the
state is, says Mr. Sedgwick, parcelled out by a close
corporation, or rather two close corporations, neither
of which is, in any real sense, responsible. The true
theory, according to Mr. Sedgwick, is that real respon-
sibility, the responsibility that secures efficiency,
can be obtained only through security of tenure, as is
the case in private business, where this practice is


1918.]
147
THE DIAL
of universal application. The fact is, short tenures
and frequent elections have led to a breaking down
of responsibility, and the way to restore it is through
their opposites. Fortunately, says Mr. Sedgwick,
the organization of the Federal government, in
which the elective principle plays little part, rests
on the true theory, and much of the success that
has attended its administration is due to this.
Unquestionably, the author has pointed out one of
the most fallacious political ideas that has ever
gained a foothold in our democracy, and his argu-
ment in favor of the principle followed in private
business is logical and convincing. Thinking men
everywhere will agree that the remedy he proposes
is sound, and at the same time not necessarily incon-
sistent with the principles of true democracy.
More of ^° *ne already considerable number
Mn. Frater'i of volumes of reminiscences written
reminitcencet. j,v dipiomat8' wives there is now
added the third work of the kind from the fertile
pen of Mrs. Hugh Fraser. "Reminiscences of a
Diplomatist's Wife" (Dodd) fills in some of the gaps
left open in "A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan" and
"A Diplomatist's Wife in Many Lands." The late
Hugh Fraser's duties to his government called him,
first and last, to many parts of the world—to China
and South America and Japan, as well as to various
courts of Europe — and Mrs. Fraser enjoyed with
him the advantages of this method of introduction
to many social circles in many capitals. Personages
of note in public life pass across her pages, and now
and then a man or woman of lesser note with whom
one likes to come into familiar contact gives interest
to the narrative. In her latest volume Mrs. Fraser
lays her scene chiefly in Italy, with the figure of her
brother, Marion Crawford, much in the foreground,
at his spacious seaside villa at Sorrento. England,
Polish Prussia, Austria, and Chile serve also as the
setting of sundry interesting pictures of the past. A
sketch of Crawford's study, " that great upper room,
with its many windows and its wide door leading
to the terrace, which was in reality the roof of the
house," is drawn in a few lines; and repeatedly the
occupant of that study is exhibited in some character-
istic act or utterance by the admiring sister. Por-
traits of Mrs. Fraser, of her husband, and of her
brother are to be found in the book. The favor with
which its predecessors in the series were received,
and the demand for another volume, led the writer,
as she tells us in her preface, to give forth this agree-
able continuation of her random retrospections.
In a new book of essays, entitled
p^onaMMe "All Man ner of Folk" (Kennerley),
Mr. Holbrook Jackson interprets
the messages of a dozen or more modern artists and
thinkers, prefacing these studies with a few essays
more general in theme: "Concerning Personalities,"
"Lords of Whim," "Masters of Nonsense," "Of the
Self-Sufficient," and "Vagabonds." These opening
ays, and particularly the first two of them, serve
to suggest the dominating note of the whole book.
It is personality that interests Mr. Jackson; though
his subjects range from the airily brilliant Max
Beerbohm and the self-sufficient Whistler, to the
"suggestive heterodoxy" of Edward Carpenter, the
"Americanism " of Whitman, and the Social Democ-
racy of Henry M. Hyndman, all are united by their
possession of dominating, towering personalities, and
by their belief (sometimes, perhaps, unconscious) in
the modern gospel of individualism. Of the "in-
comparable" Max Beerbohm Mr. Jackson writes:
"Cleverness and brilliance are the tricks of the lit-
erary huckster, and to see only these characteristics
in Max is not to see him at all. Max Beerbohm is
first and foremost a personality; a point of view."
Again, he says of Walt Whitman: "Whitman .is
more than a mere literary phenomenon: he is a
symbol and a prophecy. His personality combines
all that is momentous and enduring in a complex
and cosmopolitan community. By his life no less
than by his work, he is the interpreter and expositor
of his land and race." And the essay on William
Morris opens with this spirited challenge: "There
are those who would separate the ideas of William
Morris from his art. . . . They are not entitled to
do so on the authority of William Morris. No artist
appreciated better than he the interdependence of
art, ideas, and affairs." It is this virile note, this
insistence upon the ideas back of the art, the man
behind the poems or pictures or social philosophy,
that gives Mr. Jackson's criticism something of the
personality and power that he looks for in the life
and art he interprets, and that is winning for him
friends and admirers with each new volume that he
gives us. Drawings by Messrs. Joseph Simpson,
Gordon Craig, Jo Davidson, J. B. Yeats, and Lovat
Fraser furnish illustrations of unique interest.
The name of Stonewall Jackson in
SEuSSSSZ *e title of a *°o\on the CiTil War
is sure to awaken interest and breed
a desire to make the book's nearer acquaintance.
"One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry" (Neale), by Mr.
John H. Worsham, makes a double claim on the
reader's curiosity. Why "foot" cavalry, and what
new stories of the redoubtable Confederate general
may the book contain? It was the twenty-first
regiment, Virginia infantry, that by its steady, com-
pact, and rapid marching won the name of Jackson's
Foot Cavalry. It formed a part of the famous
Second Brigade, which saw some of the hardest
service of the entire war, in the brilliant Valley
Campaign, the memorable and sanguinary Seven
Days' Campaign, and the Maryland Campaign.
Mr. Worsham enlisted in Company F of this gallant
regiment at the beginning of the war, rose by suc-
cessive promotions to the adjutancy of the regiment
in 1864, but was wounded and permanently dis-
abled a week later at Winchester. His narrative
is that of one viewing no extended field of military
operations, but unassumingly doing the nearest duty
and acquitting himself well in his allotted place.


148
[Feb. 16V
THE
DIAL.
Here is his picture of Jackson at Fredericksburg:
"Gen. Jackson soon made his appearance along the
line with a cavalcade of officers following him. He
was dressed in a brand-new uniform, with the usual
gold lace trimmings for a lieutenant general. He
even had exchanged the old gray cap for a new
bespangled one, and looked so unlike our 'Old Jack'
that very few noticed him, and none recognized him
until he had passed. Then the old accustomed cheer
to him went up with unusual vigor!" The whole
story of this campaigning with Jackson is well told.
One would have liked to find a portrait of the author
among those given, but his modesty has deprived the
reader of that satisfaction.
Bono, withmu.ic Delicious nonsense verses, set to
for children charmingly original melodies, both
and other: text an(j muB[0 the work of Mrs.
Louise Ayres Garnett, are given us in a volume of
"Creature Songs," published by the Oliver Ditson
Co. As if this were not enough, we are given for
good measure a series of illustrative drawings, sym-
pathetic in their humorous interpretation, by Mr.
Peter Newell. One of the three aspects of this de-
lightful book may be exhibited here:
"The Quadruped U just a beast,
With legs at north, west, south, and east.
Perhaps he longs to hare some more,
And jet he seems content with four.
"The Biped has a sorry lot,
For only two legs has he got.
He feels ashamed and hangs his head
Whene'er he meets the Quadruped."
Here is another merry little quip:
"To wear a pair of Garter Snakes
Would make me ill at ease;
Perhaps they were created for
The Aborigiknees."
A nicer book for children is not often to be found.
The same publishers send us, in their "Musicians'
Library," a collection of "Forty Songs by Peter
Hyitch Tschaikowsky," for high voice, edited by
Mr. James Huneker, who prefaces them by a bio-
graphical and critical introduction, done in a some-
what less staccato style than is usual with this writer.
"Reticent in life, in his art he overflows. No com-
poser except Schumann tells us so much of himself.
Every piece of his work is signed, and he does not
hesitate to make the most astounding confessions."
Of the songs, Mr. Huneker says: "He has left over
a hundred lyrics, a dozen of which place him in the
angelic choir led by Franz Schubert, and composed
of Schumann, Robert Franz, Brahms, and Richard
Strauss," which is probably not an over-statement.
The memoirt The once popular French actress
of a famous familiar to her host of admirers as
French actrc. Madame Judith, but known to her
smaller circle of friends as Julie Bernat and, after
her marriage, as Madame Bernard-Derosne, leaves us
her anecdotal and at times amusingly frank reminis-
cences in an entertaining volume entitled "My Auto-
biography" (Putnam). Contemporary with Rachel,,
with whom she was intimate from childhood, Julie-
Bernat took to the stage as a duck to water, and in
1833, at the age of six, she performed a juvenile
part at the Pantheon, to the vociferous delight of
the students in attendance. Her formal dibut as an
actress took place at Les Folies nine years later, and
in 1846 she joined the Theatre francais. Some still'
living will recall her effective rendering of the parts
of Pe'ne'lope, Alcmene, Rosine, Charlotte Corday,
and Mile. Aisse". She mastered the English language
sufficiently to appear on the Manchester stage with
credit to herself and acceptably to her audience.
The little vanities and jealousies of her profession
are not unapparent in her narrative, which for that
reason is probably all the more entertaining. Inci-
dentally she makes it very plain that the great Rachel,
the tragedienne whose word and gesture could thrill
a houseful of entranced play-goers, was a very human
and sufficiently spiteful and vindictive woman; and
it is not unlikely that Rachel would have felt herself
equal to the task of returning the compliment. Many
famous characters of an eventful period in French
history appear in Madame Judith's pages. The book
is well translated by Mrs. Arthur Bell, edited by Mr-
Paul G'Sell, and adorned with a frontispiece portrait
of its captivating heroine.
Memoriet ^e Scottish novelist, Mrs. L. B.
of Victorian Walford, whose "Recollections" ap-
eeiebritiet. peared some years ago, has now
published a by-product of that book,—"Memories of
Victorian London" (Longmans). In an excessively
loose and gossipy manner, she relates the social life-
in which, as a guest of her friend "Mary," she took
part in the London that is no more; emphasizing,
with good judgment, her acquaintance with men
and women who are, in another way, acquaintances
of the reader. Carlyle, Mrs. Carlyle, Tennyson,
Ruskin, George Eliot, Millais, Darwin, Tyndall,
Stanley, Oscar Wilde, and a dozen other celebrities
talk, and tell stories, and look what they are, or do-
not look what they are, till we are so much at home
that we do not wince when an "as we all know"
discloses our ignorance of that day of pink gloves
and balloon skirts and perfect propriety. Of course
we attend one of the inevitable Rogers breakfast-
parties,— this time the host is glum. We also meet
"George Eliot, with her large head, and rather horse-
like face." Mrs. Darwin hears, from her cook, that
her worthy husband is an idle man,—"I see him in
the garden yesterday sitting staring at a leaf over
two hours!" Carlyle lifts his shaggy head from the
pillow and thunders "Doctor? I'm for none of your
doctors. Of all the sons of Adam, men of medicine
are the most unprofitable"; and the terrified phy-
sician retreats, and Carlyle is so roused by the visit
that "it put fresh spirit into him, and he began at
once to get better." Ah, those were days! Small'
wonder that the novel, for instance, is not what
it was: "when great, strong notes were struck,
though it might be harshly and crudely, they vibrated1


1913]
149
THE DIAL
through the inmost fibres of our being, and we
kissed the hand that smote us. They do not smite,
and we do not kiss, now."
Latt ramblei That well-known bird-lover and writer
of an about birds, Bradford Torrey, who
omithoiogut. ^ied rather suddenly and at much
too early an age, last October, at Santa Barbara, had
sent the material for his last book to the publishers
a few weeks before his death. "Field-Days in Cali-
fornia" (Houghton) collects in attractive and well-
illustrated book form a number of sketches already
published in periodicals, with some new ones. They
tell us about the author's first condor and first water-
oazels, his "exciting forenoon " with a yellow-legged
plover, the happy issue of an unsuccessful hunt, a
walking tour in the Yosemite, the attractions of a
California beach, a visit to the redwood grove near
Santa Cruz, and other things well worth reading
about in Mr. Torrey's genial, fresh-air-and-sunshine
style. One of his chapters, of a bookish sort, for a
change, enlarges on the pleasures of reading a check-
list, and will appeal to the man of books. The au-
thor was not quite sixty-nine when his field-days were
cut short — an age that now represents the prime of
a man's life. To give his final volume something of
a memorial character, the publishers have provided
it with a good portrait of the author and illustrations
of some of his California haunts that are treated in
the book, and that, in two instances, show an open-air
view of Mr. Torrey. His friends and admirers will
prize the little volume.
BRIEFER MEN TION.
•'China's Revolution" (McBride), by Mr. Edwin J.
Dingle, can scarcely be said to fulfill the expectations
aroused by its subtitle,— " a historical and political rec-
ord of the civil war." The best chapters in the book are
those narrating events and describing scenes of the war
at Hankow, from which city Mr. Dingle was reporting.
These chapters are interesting and valuable. The rest
of the book indicates insufficient breadth of knowledge
and only moderate grasp of the problems of the present
in China. The style is decidedly journalistic.
"Fundamentals of French Grammar " (Holt), by Mr.
William B. Snow, is a practical text-book based upon
the inductive method, which has many points of excel-
lence, and which does not overburden the student with
grammatical material. "What might reasonably be
omitted " has been the author's chief concern. "Essen-
tials of French " by Dr. Victor E. Francois is a "slowly
progressive grammar " published by the American Book
Co. "Moliere en Recits" (Heath), is a title that ex-
plains itself. It is the joint work of Messrs. M. L.
Chapuzet and W. M. Daniels, two English teachers. A
few "scenes for acting" are appended. Moliere's "Les
Precieuses Ridicules" and "Les Femmes Savantes"
(Holt) are edited for school use by Mrs. John R. Effinger.
A welcome addition to the series of " Little Books on
Art" (McClurg) is Miss Muriel Ciolkowska's volume
on Rodin. It gives one an interesting glimpse of the life
and work of the greatest of living sculptors. Rodin's
relations to his predecessors, his obscure and difficult
beginnings, his long struggle for recognition, his chief
works and their occasions, his drawings and etchings and
ceramic designs, are some of the topics taken up in this
convenient little volume. The author gives a selection
of the master's opinions on art, and supports her esti-
mate of his place among artists by abundant and inter-
esting quotations from contemporary criticism. A list
of Rodin's exhibited works, a bibliography, and twenty-
five illustrations complete a book which seems to be
fairly accurate, despite the persistent neglect of Villon
as the creator of that tragic figure of poesy embodied
in "La Vieille Heaulmiere."
For more than a decade the " Oxford Book of En-
glish Verse" has held its own as the most widely
popular of all anthologies — with the possible exception
of Palgrave's " Golden Treasury." The oompiler, Sir
Arthur Quiller-Couch, now offers a companion volume,
the "Oxford Book of Victorian Verse," which covers
the field from Landor to Mr. Lascelles Ahercrombie —
certainly an elastic interpretation of the Victorian
boundaries. But elasticity of plan is a good principle
for any anthologist, and probably most readers of this
collection will be chiefly grateful for the generous
space given to writers who have come to tbe front
during the past quarter-century. Eighteen American
poets are represented, usually with a poem or two apiece.
This does not seem to us well-advised; our writers should
have been dealt with more adequately or else omitted
altogether. However, after the shabby treatment ac-
corded Whitman in Professor Lounsbury's " Yale Book
of American Verse " a great deal can be forgiven an
English editor who devotes eleven pages to "the good
gray poet." As must be inevitable with any anthology,
the individual poetry-lover will grumble a little over what
will seem to him errors of proportion or omission; but
his abiding feeling will be one of gratitude for such a
wealth of treasure in so compact and beautiful a form.
The volume is gracefully dedicated "To my future friends
and pupils at Cambridge,— this propitiatory wreath."
The delightful Oxford reprints continue to multiply.
Chief among tbe newest batch of volumes is a collected
edition of Robert Bridges's poetical works (exclusive of
the dramas). It is something of an honor to be the
only living poet thus far included in the Oxford series;
but Mr. Bridges is deserving of such distinction, and we
hope this volume may widely extend his reputation.
Next in interest is "The Pageant of English Prose,"
made up of seven hundred pages of choice passages
selected with rare good judgment by Mr. R. M.
Leonard. A third volume gives us the entire contents
of the recent two-volume definitive edition of Coleridge's
complete poems, edited by Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge;
a fourth contains Browning's "The Ring and the Book,"
with an introduction by Professor Dowden; while the
poems of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Australian writer,
make up a fifth. The ordinary editions of these books
are models of inexpensive bookmaking; but those who
care for luxurious perfection may obtain, for a little
more than the price of the average novel, the same
books printed on India paper, with limp covers and
photogravure portraits. By means of these Oxford
India paper editions, authoritative texts of all that is
of first importance in English literature may now be
brought together almost on a single shelf of an ordinary
bookcase, in a form that could not be excelled for beauty
and dignity of workmanship, and at a price well within
the means of any but the most impecunious of book-
lovers.


150
[Feb. 16,
THE DIAL
Notes.
A study of "The American Spirit" by Hon. Oscar S.
Straus is announced for publication in April by the
Century Co.
Mr. Will Levington Comfort's new novel, " The Road
of Living Men," will be published immediately by J. B.
Lippincott Co.
Mr. E. V. Lucas will publish shortly, through the
Macmillan Co., an "anecdotal guide" to "Pictures
and their Painters."
Mr. Winston Churchill's long-awaited novel, "The
Inside of the Cup," is announced for spring publication
by the Macmillan Co.
A study of "The Evolution of Modern Germany"
by a Frenchman, M. Henri Lichtenberger, will be issued
immediately by Messrs. Holt.
Publication of Mr. Jeffery Farnol's new novel, "The
Amateur Gentleman," has now been definitely settled
for March 15 by Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co.
Admiral Mahan's forthcoming work on the naval
tactics of the Revolutionary War, of which we spoke in
a recent issue, has been postponed until autumn.
Sir Gilbert Parker's latest novel, "The Judgment
House," which has been apf earing serially in " Harper's
Magazine," will be published in book form on March 19.
Collected editions, in a single volume each, of the
plays of Mr. Galsworthy and August Strindberg are
promised for immediate publication by Messrs. Scribner.
Mr. Woodrow Wilson's forceful address entitled
"The Free Life" will soon be issued in a new and
specially attractive form by its publishers, the Thomas
Y. Crowell Co.
Mr. Thomas Robinson Dawley, Jr., author of " The
Child That Toileth Not," has in preparation a volume
of personal reminiscences entitled " Fragments from a
Venturesome Career."
The volume of "New Comedies" by Lady Gregory,
which Messrs. Putnam have in preparation, will contain
five plays, at least two of which are being given by the
Abbey Company in their present American visit.
Two new books by Mr. Maurice Hewlett are a feature
of Messrs. Scribner's spring list. One, "The Lore of
Proserpine," is a volume of allegorical studies; the other
is a book of poems entitled "Heleu Redeemed."
The Doves Press edition of Goethe's "Torquato
Tasso" is promised for March publication by Mr.
Cobden-Sanderson; and in June next the Press will add
"Julius Cresar" to its edition of Shakespeare reprinted
from the early folios.
Mr. Gordon Craig's latest volume, "Towards a New
Theatre," will be issued in this country by Messrs. E. P.
Dutton & Co. It consists of large-sized reproductions
of Mr. Craig's unique scenic settings, with introduction
and descriptive notes.
Two books of travel covering widely different scenes
will be issued this month by Messrs. A. C. McClurg &
Co. in Miss Betham-Edwards's "In French Africa:
Scenes and Memories," and Mr. E. A. Bostwick's "The
Different West: As Seen by a Transplanted Easterner."
A useful series of small volumes dealing with the
great writers is announced by Messrs. F. G. Browne &
Co. in "The Regent Library." Fourteen volumes,
headed by one on Johnson by Mrs. Alice Meynell, will
appear m March, and numerous others are in prepara-
tion.
Professor A. F. Pollard has been chosen to inaugurate
the Goldwin Smith lectures at Cornell University. His
subject is " The Place of Parliamentary Institutions in
the Development of Civilisation." The lectures are to
be delivered early this year, and they will be subse-
quently published in book form.
"The Russian Empire of To-day and Yesterday," by
Mr. Nevin O. Winter, is announced for early issue in
Messrs. L. C. Page & Co.'s well-known travel series.
This firm has also in press "The Art of the Wallace
Collection," by Mr. Henry C. Shelley, to appear in the
"Art Galleries of Europe " series.
It is not often that the first three books issued by a
new publishing house reach second or third editions
within a few weeks after publication. This is the rec-
ord achieved by Messrs. F. G. Browne & Co. with their
three novels, " The Lapse of Enoch Wentworth," " Pil-
grims of the Plains," and "The Stain."
The first issue of an important new religious journal,
to be called " The Constructive Quarterly," will appear
in March. Its comprehensive purpose and scope may
perhaps best be indicated by its sub-title—" A Journal
of the Faith and Work and Thought of Christendom."
Mr. Silas McBee, for many years editor of "The
Churchman," will edit the new journal, and George H.
Doran Co. will be its American publishers.
A collection of essays by Professor George Santayana
is announced under the title of "Winds of Doctrine:
Studies in Contemporary Opinion." It deals with "The
Intellectual Temper of the Age," " Modernism," " M.
Bergson's Philosophy," " Pragmatism " (on which Pro-
fessor Santayana agrees with the criticisms of Mr. Ber-
tram! Russell), "Shelley, or The Poetic Value of
Revolutionary Principles," and " The Genteel Traditions
in American Philosophy."
Among the more noteworthy of Messrs. Scribner's
spring announcements are Mr. Henry James's autobio-
graphical account of "A Small Boy and Others"; a
volume of studies by Mr. James Huneker entitled "The
Pathos of Distance"; Mr. Price Collier's "Germany
and the Germans"; a two-volume "Life of John Paul
Jones" by Mrs. Reginald De Koven; "The Letters of
General George G. Meade," in two volumes; "European
Cities at Work," by Mr. Frederic C. Howe; and "Mon-
archial Socialism in Germany," by Mr. Elmer Roberts.
Dr. Samuel Willard, educator and author, and for
many years a contributor to The Dial, died at his home
in Chicago, on February 9. He was born in Vermont
in 1821, and came to Illinois at the age of ten, graduat-
ing from the state college in 1843. Previous to the Civil
War, Dr. Willard came into prominence in connection
with the "underground railroad," establishing with his
father a station for fugitive slaves. During the war he
served in one of the Illinois regiments. For many years
past he had been a teacher of history in the Chicago
high schools.
Among other important works of serious interest an-
nounced by the Macmillan Co. are "A History of the
American Negro" by Dr. Benjamin Griffith Brawley,
» The Soul of America" by Dr. Stanton Coit, " Amer-
ican Syndicalism: The I. W. W." by Mr. John Graham
Brooks, "Ancient Ideals" by Mr. Henry Osbora Taylor,
"The Problem of Christianity" by Professor Josiah
Royce, "The Unoonscious: The Fundamentals of Hu-
man Personality " by Dr. Morton Prince, and " Social
Idealism and the Changing Theology" by Dr. Gerald
Birney Smith.


1913]
151
THE DIAI,
IasT of New Books.
[The following list, containing 97 titles, includes book*
received by The Dial since its last issue.]
BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES.
The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England
and America, Based upon hitherto Unpublished
Family Papers. By Lewis Melville. In 2 vol-
umes; Illustrated, Svo. John Lane Co. $10- net.
Daniel Gookln, 1012-1687. Assistant and Major Gen-
eral of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: His Life
and Letters and Some Account of His Ancestry.
By Frederick William Gookln. Illustrated in
photogravure, large 8vo, 207 pages. Chicago:
Privately printed. $7.25 net.
The Romance of the Rothachlld*. By Ignatius Balla.
With portraits, 8vo, 298 pages. G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $3. net.
Heroines of Modern Progress. By Elmer C. Adams
and Warren Dunham Foster. With portraits, 8vo,
324 pages. Sturgis & Walton Co. $1.50 net.
Dr. William Leroy Bronn. Compiled by Thomas L
Broun, assisted by Bessie Lee Broun and Sally F.
Ordway. Illustrated, 12mo, 247 pages. Neale
Publishing Co. $2. net.
The Romance of the Men of Devon. By Francis Grib-
ble. Illustrated In photogravure, etc., 12mo, 282
pages. Little, Brown & Co. $1.75 net.
Mrs. Flske. By Frank Carlos Griffith. With por-
trait, 12mo, 146 pages. Neale Publishing Co.
$1. net.
Frledrlch Gents I An Opponent of the French Revolu-
tion and Napoleon. By Paul F. ReifT, Ph.D. 8vo,
159 pages. Urbana: University of Illinois. 80 cts.
HISTORY.
Lectures on the American Civil War. Delivered be-
fore the University of Oxford in Faster and Trin-
ity Terms, 1912. by James Ford Rhodes, LL.D.
12mo, 206 pages. Macmlllan Co. $1.50 net.
Fighting by Southern Federals. By Charles C. Ander-
son. With frontispiece, 8vo, 408 pages. Neale
Publishing Co. $2. net.
France. By Cecil Headlam, M.A. Illustrated, 8vo,
408 pages. "Making of the Nations." Macmlllan
Co. $2. net.
The Balkan Wan Adventures of War with Cross and
Crescent. By Philip Gibbs and Bernard Grant.
Illustrated, 12mo, 241 pages. Small, Maynard &
Co. $1.20 net.
The Attack and Defense of Little Round Top, Get-
tysburg, July 2, 1863. By Oliver Willcox Norton.
With portrait, 8vo, 350 pages. Neale Publishing
Co. $2. net.
A nt let am and the Maryland and Virginia Campaigns.
By Isaac W. Heyslnger, M.D. 12mo, 322 pages.
Neale Publishing Co. $1.50 net.
Curious Bits of History. By A. W. Macy. 12mo, 225
pages. Cosmopolitan Press. $1. net.
GENERAL LITERATURE.
Dante and the Mystical A Study of the Mystical
Aspect of the Divina Commedia and Its Relations
with Some of Its Mediaeval Sources. By Edmund
G. Gardner, M.A. Illustrated in photogravure,
large 8vo, 357 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $3.50 net.
Irish Plays and Playwrights. By Cornelius Wey-
gandt. Illustrated, 12mo, 314 pages. Houghton
Mifflin Co. $2.net.
The Influence of Baudelaire in France and England.
By G. Turquet-Mllnes. 8vo, 300 pages. E. P. Dut-
ton & Co. $2.50 net.
Famous Speeches. Selected and edited, with Intro-
ductory notes, by Herbert Paul. Second series;
8vo, 382 pages. Little, Brown & Co. $3. net
English Epic and Heroic Poetry. By W. MacNelle
Dixon, M.A. 8vo, 339 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co.
$1.50 net.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Blerce. Edited and
Arranged by the Author. Volume XII., large 8vo,
411 pages. Neale Publishing Co.
Along the Road. By Arthur Christopher Benson.
12mo, 462 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net.
Shakespeare's Londoni A Commentary on Shake-
speare's Life and Work in London. By Thomas
Falrman Ordish, F.S.A. New edition; Illustrated
In photogravure, etc., 12mo, 331 pages. E. P. Dut-
ton & Co. $1.25 net.
Cross Views. By Wilfrid Scarborough Jackson.
12mo, 312 pages. John Lane Co. $1.25 net.
The Pageant of English Prose i Being Five Hun-
dred Passages by Three Hundred and Twenty-
flve Authors. Edited by R M. Leonard. 12mo.
743 pages. "Oxford Standard Authors." Oxford
University Press. 50 cts. net.
DRAMA AND VERSE.
The Dramatic Works of St. John Hankln; with In-
troduction by John Drinkwater. In 3 volumes;
with photogravure portraits, 8vo. Mitchell Ken-
nerley. $8. net.
The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, excluding the
Eight Dramas. With photogravure portrait, 12mo.
472 pages. Oxford University Press. India paper
edition. $1.75 net.
The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann. Edited
by Ludwig Lewlsohn. Volume I., Social Dramas.
12mo, 649 pages. B. W. Huebsch. $1.50 net.
FICTION.
Adnam's Orchard. By Sarah Grand. 12mo, 623 pages.
D. Appleton & Co. $1.40 net.
My Little Sister. By Elizabeth Robins. 12mo,' 344
pages. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.25 net.
'Twlxt Land and Sea. By Joseph Conrad. 12mo, 287
pages. George H. Doran Co. $1.25 net.
Patsy. By S. R Crockett. 12mo, 311 pages. Mac-
mlllan Co. $1.25 net
Pilgrims of the Plains! A Romance of the Santa Fe
Trail. By Kate A. Apllngton. With frontispiece
in color, 12mo, 400 pages. F. G. Browne & Co.
$1.25 net.
Poor, Dear Margaret Klrby, and Other Stories. By
Kathleen Norrls. With frontispiece in color,
. 12mo, 393 pages. Macmlllan Co. $1.30 net.
The Night Riders i A Romance of Early Montana.
By Ridgwell Cullum. Illustrated In color, 12mo,
426 pages. George W. Jacobs & Co. $1.26 net.
The Day of Daysi An Extravaganza. By Louis Jos-
eph Vance. Illustrated, 12mo, 300 pages. Little,
Brown & Co. $1.26 net
Jesebel. By Richard Pryce. 12mo, 378 pages.
Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.35 net.
The Burden of a Woman. By Richard Pryce. 12mo,
299 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.36 net.
King John of Jingaloi The Story of a Monarch in
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THE DIAL
3 Snni«fflontl)lg Journal of ILttrratjj drftttissm, Otscuaaion, anb Enformatton.
THE DIAL (Sounded in 1880) is published on the lit and 16th of
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THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago.
Entered as Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3,1879.
Nc 641. MARCH 1, 1913. Vol. LIV.
Contents.
PAOE
JOAQUIN MILLER 165
A GREAT LADY AND A GREAT TRADITION.
Mary Augusta Scott 167
CASUAL COMMENT 171
The present popularity of the classics.— A question
of usage.— The sauity of genius.— Our daily debt to
Shakespeare.—A literary dumping-ground.— A lack
in English literary criticism.— Literature as a living
art.—Liberal library rules.—Lincoln's liking for apt
quotations.— The growth of the periodical press.—
The beginning of the new library building at Harvard.
WISDOM AND UNWISDOM ABOUT WOMAN.
Cornelia A. P. Comer 174
Mrs. Christie's The Advance of Woman.— Owen's
Woman Adrift.— Ellen Key's The Woman Move-
ment.— Miss Tarbell's The Business of Being a
Woman.
GREEK LITERATURE AND THE DOOR OF
TO-MORROW. Fred B. R. Hellems .... 176
THE COMEDY AND TRAGEDY OF AN ACTOR'S
LIFE. Percy F. Bicknell 178
MR. ZANGWILL'S NEW PLAY. James Toft Hatfield 180
A CONCORDANCE TO DANTE'S LATIN WORKS.
Theodore W. Koch 183
PERSONALITY IN CRITICISM. RaymondMacdonald
Alden 182
Ian Maclaren's Books and Bookmen.— Posthumous
Essays of John Chnrton Collins.—Harrison's Among
My Books.— Matthews's Gateways to Literature.
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 185
A French study of Chaucer.— Bergson's own intro-
duction to his own philosophy.—The crowded life of
a great religious leader.— Essays by the wife of a
famous essayist.— Studies in primitive Christianity.
— Later memories of an English publicist.— Some
curious modern trials.—Two booklets in varying vein.
— New light on the exploration of the Ohio valley.
— A new volume of Mr. Belloc's diversions.
BRIEFER MENTION 188
NOTES 189
TOPICS IN MARCH PERIODICALS ...... 190
LIST OF NEW BOOKS 191
JOAQUIN MILLER.
A year ago, the National Institute of Arts
and Letters bestowed its gold medal for poetry
upon Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, thereby ex-
pressing the opinion that he was the most dis-
tinguished of American poets then living. We
might comment upon this grotesque award in
considerable detail, instituting "odorous" com-
parisons with quite a number of men who have
better realized the high seriousness of the poet's
calling, and have avowed themselves servants of
the muse to such effect that they have made no
bid for vulgar applause, and have been content
with the small but fit audience of " them that
know." But at present we will do no more
than call attention to the fact that the award in
question overlooked the fairly obvious title of
another son of Indiana, whose place in the poeti-
cal firmament was fixed long before Hoosier
dialect "had the cry" in our literature, and
whose light reached to the far places of the earth
at a time when the number of American poets
whose names had ever been heard of abroad
might be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The famous American poet who died on the
seventeenth of this month was born in Wabash
District, Indiana, on the tenth of November,
1841. It is with something of a surprise that
we realize that his years were no more than
seventy-one, so long has he figured in our imag-
ination as a venerable and almost legendary
figure, and so far back seems the time when his
"Songs of the Sierras" took the English-
speaking world by storm. We have somehow
acquired the habit of associating him with the
other " good gray poet" whom he resembled in
his amazing intellectual energy and his defiance
of conventionality, and who was really more than
a score of years his senior. He lived a hermit
for so many years of his later life that his figure
gradually assumed heroic proportions, and men-
tion of his name recalled the distant past rather
than the pulsating present of the world of men.
Cincinnatus Hiner (sometimes spelled Heine)
Miller was the name with which his misguided
parents did their best to handicap his career,
and for which he substituted the more melodi-
ous and fitting " Joaquin" when he commenced
poet in the sense of publication. When a boy
of tender years, he was taken by his family to


166
[March 1,
THE
DIAL
Oregon, which was his home until 1870, except
for the periods during which he became a wan-
derer and an adventurer. The settled years of
his Oregon sojourn found him a student of
Columbia College, Portland, from which he was
graduated in 1858 as valedictorian, then a stu-
dent and practitioner of law, then the editor of
a Democratic paper suppressed for sedition dur-
ing the Civil War, then a county judge for four
years. His vagrant years found him playing
many parts — California gold-miner, Indian
sachem, and Spanish vaquero. It is reported,
although we believe upon uncertain authority,
that he was with Walker on his filibustering
expedition into Nicaragua. At all events, he
made Walker the subject of one of his most
striking poems.
It was in 1870-71 that "Joaquin Miller"
became a name to conjure with wherever the
English tongue was spoken. That was the year
of his apotheosis, when he visited England, was
welcomed by Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne,
and Rossetti as one of their company, and pub-
lished in London his "Songs of the Sierras."
No American poet (except possibly Longfellow)
had ever enjoyed such a vogue in England, or
received such tributes of admiration from those
most competent to appraise a poet. The day of
Whitman was to come later, and Poe had long
been in his grave before his extraordinary Eu-
ropean fame had come to fruition. But the
recognition accorded Miller was immediate and
unstinted, and no American has better savoured
the sweets of appreciation in a foreign land, or
been made more fully conscious of the verdict of
his " contemporaneous posterity." When his vol-
ume was soon thereafter republished in America,
his name was on every lip from Cape Cod to the
Golden Gate, and his country rejoiced in the
possession of a new and what seemed to be an
authentic poet.
Miller was thus fairly plunged into the liter-
ary career and, making his home in Washington
after his return to the United States, became a
prolific writer. Some of the works of the fol-
lowing years were "Songs of the Sunlands"
(1873), "Songs of the Desert" (1875), "Songs
of Italy" (1878), and "Songs of the Mexican
Seas " (1887). Besides these poems, there were
two novels, "The Baroness of New York "(1877),
and "The Danites in the Sierras"(1881). In
its dramatized form, this novel became "The
Danites," a very successful stage play. Thus
for nearly a score of years, Miller was constantly
before the public, was widely read, and known
to all his countrymen. His translation to Cali-
fornia in 1887 marked the decline of his vogue,
a decline that left him in the closing years of his
life little more than a legendary figure belonging
to the tradition of the past. For this there are
two chief reasons. The first is that his work
deteriorated in quality, owing to the journalistic
facility with which most of it was produced.
The proportion of dross to pure metal grew
steadily larger, and his verse tended to become
more and more diffuse and unrestrained. The
other reason is that his burst into fame resulted
largely from the English recognition accorded
him in 1870-71. This was in part fictitious,
resulting not so much from the feeling that he
was a great poet on the absolute terms of poetry
as from the fact that he lived up to the precon-
ceived idea of what an American poet ought to
be. As " The Nation " says: "It is the volcanic
or eccentric elements in our literature that Eu-
rope prefers to accept as typically American—
Poe and Whitman in the spirit of their works,
Bret Harte in his picturesque material, and
Joaquin Miller in his own picturesque person-
ality of flowing mane, flannel shirt, and boots."
In this country, we know enough to take such
things at their worth, and to understand that
they are anything but essential to the embodi-
ment of the American spirit in literature. Raci-
ness is a literary quality not to be undervalued,
but it is not enough alone to save a man's work
from oblivion.
When Miller went to California in 1887 to
establish his permanent home, he built a sort of
communal dwelling on the heights above Oak-
land, near San Francisco. There were several
small houses erected on the hillside for himself,
the members of his family, and the guests who
sought out his retreat — for his hospitality was
as generous and inclusive as that of Bjornson at
Aulestad. Here he made a garden spot on the
ungrateful soil, and lived out his last years in
patriarchal retirement. Such a home had been
the dream of his earlier years, and he had fore-
shadowed it in these verses:
"I know a grassy slope above the sea,
The utmost limit of the Western land.
Here I shall sit in sunlit life's decline
Beneath my vine and sombre verdant tree.
Some tawny maids in other tongues than mine
Shall minister. Some memories shall be
Before me. I shall sit and I shall see
That last, vast day that dawn shall re-inspire,
The sun fall down upon the farther sea,
Fall wearied down to rest, and so retire,
A splendid sinking isle of far-off fading Are."
Mr. F. W. Halsey, who visited him shortly
after the poet had retreated from his visit to


1913]
167
THE DIAL,
the Klondike in the year of the great stampede,
thus describes the poet as he then appeared:
"Imagine a man of tall, athletic build, with fine,
dome-shaped brow; long, tawny hair streaked with
gray; a tangle of yellow moustache and beard; a
strong, large, nose, sunburned like his cheeks, and clear,
flashing gray-blue eyes that look out from under heavy,
bushy eyebrows with the quickness and the eagerness of
a boy's. He looked as one fancies Kit Carson looked
when he guided Fremont the Pathfinder through the
hostile Indian country out to the Western sea. Miller
was dressed in a corduroy coat, trousers in boots,
pongee shirt, with loose Japanese neck-scarf, and broad
sombrero. The whole appearance of the man suggested
his revolt against any restraint of costume, just as his
talk suggests his warfare on conventionality and his
delight in what is free and spontaneous in nature and
life."
Miller was by no means idle during the
quarter-century of his hermit life in California,
and, although the poetic fire was somewhat
slackened, the output of verse did not cease.
Some of his noblest poems, such as the Tenny-
son tribute and the Columbus song, date from
this period of his life. Several years ago, he
built for himself a funeral cairn of black flint,
with hollowed top filled with logs, to serve as
his funeral pyre, and there it was that the other
day his ashes were returned to the elements.
His third wife and their daughter Juanita were
with him to the end. Nothing in his life became
him better than the leaving of it thus. Of his
poetical gospel, the following quotations may
give illustrative evidence: "Exalt your theme
rather than ask your theme to exalt you. Braver
and better to celebrate the lowly and forgiving
grasses under foot than the stately cedars and
sequoias overhead. They can speak for them-
selves. Be loyal to your craft, to your fellow
scribes. I plead for something more than the
individual hero. I plead for the entire republic.
Not to have a glorious literature of our own
is to be another Nineveh, Babylon, Turkey.
Nothing ever has paid, nothing ever will pay a
nation like poetry." Of Miller's outlook upon
life, and his appraisal of its values, the following
exquisite poem gives an idea:
"Ah, there be souls none understand,
Like clouds, they cannot touch the land,
Drive as they may by field or town,
Then we look wise at this, and frown,
And we cry ' Fool!' and cry ' Take hold
Of earth, and fashion gods of gold!'
"Unanchored ships, that blow and blow,
Sail to and fro, and then go down
In unknown seas that none shall know,
Without one ripple of renown;
Poor drifting dreamers, sailing by,
That seem to only live to die.
u Call these not fools, the test of worth
Is not the hold you have of earth;
Lo, there be gentlest souls, sea blown,
That know not any harbor known;
And it may be the reason is
They touch on fairer shores than this."
A GREAT LADY AND A GREAT
TRADITION.
Alice Spencer was the sixth daughter of Sir John
Spencer, of Althorp Manor, Northamptonshire.
In 1579 she married Ferdinando Stanley (1559[?j-
1594), Baron Strange and fifth Earl of Derby.
From 1589 to 1594 Baron Strange was patron of a
company of actors known as "Lord Strange's com-
pany," and directed for a time by Edward AUeyn,
son-in-law of Philip Henslowe, business manager.
Shakespeare was probably a member of this com-
pany for some years before 1592. In 1589 Robert
Greene dedicated his "Ciceronis Amor" to Baron
Strange. Thomas Nash has a panegyric on him in
"Piers Pennilesse," 1592. George Chapman, in
the dedication of his "Shadow of the Night," 1594,
speaks of Stanley as "that most ingenious Darbie."
In 1595 the Earl of Derby is the Shepherd Amyntas
in Spenser's "Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,"
who, Spenser writes, could "pipe with passing skill."
The only known poem by Ferdinando Stanley is a
pastoral of no great merit contributed by Sir John
Hawkins to Grose's "Antiquarian Repertory " and
reprinted in Horace Walpole's "Royal and Noble
Authors."
Six years after the death of the Earl of Derby,
in 1600, his widow became the third wife of Sir
Thomas Egerton (1540[?]-1617), Baron Ellesmere
and Viscount Brackley, Lord Keeper of the Great
Seal. But Lady Egerton retained her title, and
was known as the Countess of Derby, until her
death at Harefield Manor, January 26, 1636.
Sir Thomas Egerton was Bacon's immediate pre-
decessor as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. Ben
Jonson wrote three epigrams in his honor; and
"the silver-tongued" Joshua Sylvester, a sonnet.
In 1603, Samuel Daniel, then tutor to Lady Anne
Clifford, wrote a poetical epistle to the Lord Chan-
cellor, bewailing his "misery, that whilst I should
have written the actions of men, I have been con-
strained to live with children." Beside Daniel's com-
plaint should stand Lady Anne's appreciation of her
tutor. A large family picture of the Cliffords pre-
serves Daniel's portrait beside Lady Anne Clifford's,
while a detail of the painting shows a shelf on which
Daniel's poetical works stand next to Spenser's.
In 1596 Sir John Davies (1569-1626) dedicated
to Sir Thomas Egerton his "Orchestra, or a
Poeme of Dancing." A copy of the first edition of
"Orchestra," with Davies's dedicatory sonnet to
Lord Ellesmere. in manuscript, beautifully written,
is preserved at Bridgewater House.
The foundations of the great library at Bridge-


168
[March 1,
THE
DIAL,
water House were laid by Lord Chancellor Elles-
mere. Some of the books belonged to his third wife,
the Countess of Derby, who as Alice Spencer and
Lady Strange was a popular patron of literature.
John Egerton (1579-1649), son of Baron Elles-
mere, became the first Earl of Bridgewater. Before
him, as President of Wales, was presented Mil-
ton's "Comus," at Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, on
Michaelmas-Night, 1634. Bridgewater improved
the great library left him by his father. His son,
John Egerton (1622-1683).second Earl of Bridge-
water, is described by Sir Henry Chauncy, historian
of Hertfordshire, as "a learned man" who "de-
lighted much in his library."
By her first husband, the Countess of Derby had
three daughters. Lady Elizabeth Stanley married,
in June, 1603, Henry Lord Hastings, who succeeded
his grandfather as Earl of Huntingdon, in 1605.
Lady Frances Stanley, about the time her mother
married Sir Thomas Egerton, married his son, John
Egerton, created Earl of Bridgewater, 27 May,
1617. Lady Anne Stanley married Grey Brydges,
fifth Lord Chandos (1579[?]-1621).
It is Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby, of whom
Thomas Warton wrote, "The peerage-book of this
countess is the poetry of her time." Warton was
thinking of the unique distinction of a lady to whom
Spenser dedicated in her youth his "Teares of the
Muses," before whom and her guest, the Queen of
England, Shakespeare's "Othello" was first pre-
sented, and who lived to have Milton write "Ar-
cades" for an Entertainment to her at her house
at Harefield. Warton might well have written,
"The peerage-book of this countess is the literature
of her time," for Elizabethan literature is studded
all over with dedications, epistles, and poetical
laudations, which the Countess of Derby shared
with her two husbands, with her three daughters,
and with her grandchildren.
A series of most interesting dedications and lit-
erary memorabilia attest the interest in literature
of the Countess of Derby and her daughters and
grandchildren.
In 1591 Spenser dedicated to the Countess of
Derby, then Lady Strange, the poem of his "Com-
plaints," entitled "The Teares of the Muses." As
is known, Spenser claimed kinship with the noble
house of Spencer of Althorp. Whatever the relation-
ship was, the dedication of this poem shows that
it was acknowledged by the Althorp Spencers.
Spenser writes to Lady Strange: "The causes for
which ye have thus deserved of me to be honoured
(if honour it be at all) are, both your particular
bounties, and also some private bands of affinitie,
which it hath pleased your Ladiship to acknowl-
edge."
In 1595 the Countess of Derby, newly widowed,
is Amaryllis mourning for her mate, the shepherd
Amyntas, in Spenser's "Colin Clouts Come Home
Againe." Spenser's tribute to the Countess of
Derby, as Amaryllis, is:
"Shepheard, what ever thou hast heard to be
In this or that praysd diversly apart,
In her thon maiat them all assembled see,
And seald up in the threasure of her hart."
(lines 5GS-571.)
Amyntas, the Earl of Derby, is finely lamented:
"He, whitest he lived, was the noblest swaine,
That ever piped in an oaten quill:
Both did he other which could pipe maintaine,
And eke could pipe himselfe with passing skill."
(lines 440-443.)
In 1602 Queen Elizabeth paid a visit of four
day8, July 31-August 3, to the Lord Keeper, Sir
Thomas Egerton, and the Countess of Derby, at
their house, Harefield, in Middlesex, about four miles
north of Uxbridge, on the border of Bucks. The
cost of the visit was not far short of £2000—i.e.,
about £16,000, present value. Part of this money
was paid to "Burbidges players for Othello," the
, first recorded performance of the tragedy. Whether
Shakespeare accompanied "Burbidges players" to
Harefield, or was one of them, is unknown; but it is
certainly likely that he was present at the first pre-
sentation of his great play before the Queen. The
Entertainment at Harefield on this occasion was
written by John Lyly. A contemporary manuscript
of this Entertainment was owned by Sir Roger
Newdigate, in 1803, and was printed in Nichols's
"Progresses of Queen Elizabeth " from a copy made
by the Rev. Ralph Churton.
In 1603 a set of verses on the death of Queen
Elizabeth, entitled "The Death of Delia, with Teares
of her Funeral," was inscribed to the Countess of
Derby. In 1605 a "Countess of Derby" was one
of the noble ladies who assisted Queen Anne in Ben
Jonson's masque of " Blackness," "personated at the
Court of Whitehall on Twelfth Night." It is not
certain whether this was the Countess Dowager of
Derby, or the wife of her late husband's brother and
successor, William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby.
In 1607 John Marston wrote "The Lord and Lady
Huntingdon's Entertainment of their Noble Mother,
Alice Countess Dowager of Darby, the night of her
honor's arrival at the House of Ashby." This
masque was prepared by Marston in honor of a visit
which the Dowager Countess of Derby paid to her
son-in-law and daughter Elizabeth, the Earl and
Countess of Huntingdon, at their seat at Ashby-de-
la-Zouch, in August, 1607.
In 1608 a Countess of Derby, the Countess Dow-
ager, or her sister-in-law, assisted in Ben Jonson's
masque of "Beauty," performed by Queen Anne
and her ladies on the Sunday after Twelfth Night,
January 10.
On February 2, 1609, Queen Anne presented her
third masque at Whitehall, Ben Jonson's "Queens
celebrated from the House of Fame." Among the
noble ladies who assisted the Queen on this occasion
were the Countess Dowager of Derby, and her
daughter Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon.
In 1609, John Davies, of Hereford (1565 [?]-
1618), dedicated his "Holy Roode, or Christ's


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THE DIAL
Crosse," to the Countess of Derby and her three
daughters, in this strain:
"To the Right Honorable well-accomplished Lady Alice,
Countess of Derby, my good lady and mistress, and to her
three right noble daughters by birth, nature, and education,
the Lady Elizabeth Countess of Huntingdon, the Lady
Frances Egerton, and the Lady Ann, wife to the truly noble
Lord Gray Chandois that now is, be all comfort whensoever
crost."
Davies's "The Scourge of Folly," about 1610 or
1611, also celebrates the Countess of Derby as his
"good lady and mistress" in a series of verses in
her honor. In 1616 Thomas Gainsford published
a work called "The Historie of Trebizond." It is
a collection of romantic stories divided into four
books, whi