index.) "An Illuminating and Persuasive Volume" From a column editorial in Unity, Chicago "Mr. Mann does no careless work, and this book testifies to his usual painstaking and fearless labor. ... It is a book that will lift the word out of the list of the bugaboo words. Socialism is no longer to be disposed of by taboo. One read- ing this book no longer dreads it on account of the 1 material- ism,' the 'infidelity, or the * irreligion ' connected therewith. It is a book for the thoughtful, and particularly for the per- plexed . . . who realize that there is something the matter. The book is handsomely printed. We welcome it as one more timely volume for the teacher, the parent, the preacher, and, above all, the business man who is afraid to think out these economic and social problems." From an editorial in The Boston Common [public service] "Raises Socialism to the power of a religion. If we had to learn of historic, contemporary, and prophetic Socialism through one book only, we know of none other which so dearly or attractively presents it." From The Boston Globe "The book is not made of doubtful value by containing biased views, for the author has been fair in his presentation. To know these pages thoroughly is to be in touch with the essentials of a great question." One volume. Cloth, 5x8 inches. 336 paces. $1.50 net; postage. 12 cants. JAMES H. WEST CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON 62 [Jan. 16, THE DIAL, ROAI^Q ALI- OUT-OP-PRINT BOOKS SUPPLIED, uwrvij. no mittn on what subject. Writ* as. Wiounl you any book ever published. Please state want*. Catalogue free. BAKER'S GREAT BOOK SHOP, 14-16 Bright Bt., Pr-Tmrin. Em. LUZAC & CO. 46 GREAT RUSSELL STREET LONDON. W.C. MAKE A SPECIALTY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE, RELIGION, ETC. Catalogues iMued periodically of new and second-hand books which axe sent gratis on application! 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All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arte Bunding, Chicago. Entered as Second-Clan Matter October 8,1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3,1879. No. 591. FEBRUARY 1, 1911. Vol. L. Contents. PACE LIBRARY MACHINERY VS. HUMAN NATURE 7.1 ECHOES FROM THE LIBRARY PRESS OF 1910. Aksel G. S. Josephson 77 CASUAL COMMENT '. . . 79 Tolstoy's desire of seclusion. — Amateur censorship of current literature. — Recent library legislation in Maryland.— Literary and other dual personalities.— The criminal's taste in literature. — Education and efficiency.— The growth of the Library of Congress. — The story of a Byron manuscript. — The effect of book exhibitions at county fairs. — The proper in- gredients of a travelling library. — The organization of Harvard libraries.—Yasnaya Polyana as an inter- national peace memorial. — The tardy acceptance of a Carnegie library. COMMUNICATIONS 82 The Question of Library Renewals. Samuel H. SancJc. History and Macaulay. Charles Woodward llutson. TOLSTOY, ROMANCER AND REFORMER. Percy F. Bicknell 83 PENNSYLVANIA IN HISTORY. Charles Leonard Moore 85 THE HERO OF QUEBEC. Lawrence J. Burpee . . 87 A HISTORY OF SIX MILLION YEARS. T. D. A. Cockerell • H8 THE GENIUS OF BALZAC. Lewis Piaget Shanks 90 RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne ... 91 Rolland's Jean-Christophe.—Snaith's Mrs. Fitz.— Quiller-Couch's Lady Good-for-Nothing. — Hyatt's People of Position. — Mrs. Thurston's Max. —Miss Willeocks's The Way Up.—Nicholson's The Siege of the Seven Suitors.— Scott's The Impostor.— Jones's Out of Drowning Valley. — Harben's Dixie Hart. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 95 Library history in a nutshell. — Some memories of a popular story-writer. — Tramps in Mongolia. — Ad- dresses of a social reformer. — Relics of a mighty people.— An outline of Japanese history. — Biog- raphical studies in imposture.—The builders of early Babylonia. — Impressions of American travel by a Briton. — A naval officer of the olden time. BRIEFER MENTION 98 NOTES 99 TOPICS IN FEBRUARY PERIODICALS .... 99 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 100 LIBRARY MACHINERY VS. HUMAN NATURE. There was once an old-fashioned librarian at the head of a modern library (this was not long ago, and there may be others like him even now) whose conception of a head librarian's functions was beautiful in its simplicity and admirable in its theoretical provision for every foreseen or unforeseen contingency. He sat in his snug little book-lined office, read the liter- ary reviews and marked certain books for pur- chase, and formulated rules for the administra- tion of the great library whose destinies he con- trolled. These rules were handed to a sub- ordinate and duly published as the law of the institution until such time as they should be repealed or revised. Reports from depart- mental heads concerning the practical effect or non-effect of these rules were from time to time graciously received, as were also the properly registered complaints and suggestions of the visiting public; and after these reports, com- plaints, and suggestions, which often revealed an amazing discrepancy between the theoretical perfection of the rules and their practical de- fects, had been read and pondered by the lib- rarian, there was a fresh formulation of rules, or of amendments to rules, and the new code went into effect. If a public library were nothing but a ma- chine, however big and complex, and if human beings were walking mechanisms, all built on the same model, the old-fashioned librarian's method of administration would have worked to a charm. But they reckon ill who leave out human nature in their schemes for running the universe or any minutest part of it. Our learned bibliothecary above-mentioned never came in touch with his public, and hardly with his offi- cial staff. His surviving friends still smile at the remembrance of the almost panic-stricken haste with which he was wont to beat a retreat to his sanctum when waylaid by a reader or other person in quest of such assistance as, by the rules of the library, was to be rendered by a certain specified departmental superintendent or by some minor official. Between the mechanically perfect-running but otherwise worthless system by which a nickel-in-the-slot apparatus would furnish any 76 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL desired book, pamphlet, periodical, or piece of information, automatically registering the loan and return of books, and the unorganized, chaotic, hap-hazard way of conducting a library, there is surely a happy medium ; and this happy medium, with its maximum of quiet orderliness and frictionless efficiency, and its minimum of red tape and vexatious restrictions, every ear- nest library worker is more or less consciously striving to attain. Just now the pendulum has been set in full swing toward an unbureaucratic management of " the people's university," and this is well. What unnumbered disgusts and "disgruntlements" have been excited by the un- wise or untactful enforcement of rules not dic- tated by the ripest judgment! The weaknesses and prejudices of human nature insistently de- mand recognition in the formulation of library rules, so far as such rules must be formulated. What library worker cannot recall instances of astonishing and often amusing sensitiveness or resentfulness in book-borrowers and readers? There comes to mind a certain middle-aged man who had in an advanced stage of development what we call "the library habit." That is, he was a frequent and long-staying visitor at the public library, without any manifest consistency or earnestness of purpose in his visits. But by some chance he had applied several times for a particular book that happened on each occasion to be out or misplaced, and the perhaps un- necessarily curt announcement of the book's unprocurability, two or three times repeated in response to rapidly successive requests, begot in his mind a suspicion that it was being pur- posely and even malevolently withheld from him. As soon as the existence of this unjust suspicion was discovered, the man was reasoned with and the most convincing arguments were brought to bear upon his understanding, if he had any, to bring him to a saner frame of mind; but all to no purpose, and he summarily with- drew his patronage from that library. Another instance of whimsical resentfulness recurs to memory. At a certain library where, as is universally the case, the demand for recent popular books is far in excess of the supply, applicants are notified by mail, upon request, when any desired work may be had. Moreover, in its praiseworthy attempt to do the greatest good to the greatest number, the library some- times sends these notices to those who have not asked for them, but who are known to have applied unsuccessfully for certain books. It was one such gratuitously-notified card-holder who one morning came snorting into the library and up to the delivery desk with a vigorous complaint against the authorities for bothering him with postal cards whenever he happened to ask for a book that was out. The tactful librarian is he who knows by something like intuition how to avoid all such ruffling episodes as the foregoing. Nothing mars the pleasure and impairs the usefulness of library work like these petty discords between the serving and the served. The importance of an ingratiating manner and an unfailing ability to avoid giving offense was felt by that public speaker who, in addressing a certain recent con- vention of librarians, began with the assertion that no one could hope to succeed in the profes- sion if he ate onions. The increasing attention now given to the "human appeal" side of library work is evidenced by the various affili- ated activities that are carried on under the modern library's roof. It is rightly held that to make a good library-user of a person, he must be caught young. Hence the picture- exhibitions and the story-hours and, of late, the indoor games that serve as beneficent lures to turn many juvenile footsteps library-ward. Not only educative games, like Authors and Logo- machy, but even jackstraws and tiddledewinks receive the sanction of children's librarians. From Madison, Wisconsin, there comes word that the moving-picture apparatus has now been pressed into the service of the juvenile depart- ment at the public library," as an aid in making the library more fully an educational institu- tion." The story of Sir Galahad, of Oliver Twist, of King Lear, or perhaps of Robinson Crusoe, is first told in a brief and simple manner by the children's librarian, and then the moving pictures present the same series of events to the eye, "the scenery and costuming of the char- acters being in perfect accord with the theme." One can easily imagine the breathless interest with which the assembled little ones watch Oliver as he extends his bowl for more gruel and encounters the scandalized astonishment of the poor-house officials. How many a Dickens- lover, or potential Dickens-lover, must be then and there called into being! The question how far it is wise or indeed legitimate for the public library, established in accordance with certain State laws, to go into the business of furnishing mere amusement, however harmless and health- ful, to the children of its community, will never be settled by any hard and fast rule; and it is undoubtedly well that the error, if any, should be on the side of indulgence and a large-minded and large-hearted interpretation of library law 1911.] 77 THE DIAL rather than on that of bureaucratic stiffness and over-cautious conservatism. Something at any rate may be learned from errors of com- mission; little or nothing by refusing to make experiments and strike out new paths. Our above-mentioned old-fashioned librarian chose to play toward his library somewhat the part of an absentee deity who winds up his universe and leaves it to run until it runs down. The modern librarian, on the other hand, feels himself to be something like an immanent pres- ence in his little world, and if he absents him- self even for a day the system tends to languish and suffer torpor. He resists the temptation, so natural to one having to do constantly with rules of classification, systems of labelling, and methods of shelving, to classify and label and shelve his helpers and his visitors and thereafter wash his hands of them. Ever on the alert for new and unexpected developments in human nature around him, and for fresh and unforeseen demands on his tact and resourcefulness, as well as on his stores of technical and general knowledge, he recognizes that there is no such thing as finality or completeness in library economy, and that the library with a flawless set of rules flawlessly enforced would be a hopelessly dead library. ECHOES FROM THE LIBRARY PRESS OF 1910. "The library world is still seeking an equilibrium between things essential and things non-essential," says Mr. Charles E. Rush in the January number of the "Library Journal," in an article called "Practical Problems in Reorganization Work." Among the non-essentials he classifies the greater part of library statistics, — " page after page of bare figures." "Who cares for them and reads them "? he asks. The accession book is another fossil which he would like to see removed; and he is not alone in his objections to it. Mr. Rush refers to "the per- sistent and increasing demands that are daily made by library patrons (and we know not by how many hundreds more of would-be patrons) to leave out the red tape in our rules, open the shelves, liberalize the allowance of books and the time limits, simplify our catalogues, show more books and less library ma- chinery." The library should carefully consider the needs of its constituency, the attitude of its patrons toward it, and not hesitate to reorganize if that seems to be the best way to meet the demands of the public. After all, the library exists to serve the public. The necessity of occasional reorganiza- tion is also pointed out by Mr. W. Dawson Johnston, in his paper on "The Librarian as an Educator," printed in the October number of the same periodi- cal. "The work of organization," he says, " is con- ceived to end with the establishment of the library. Now, from any point of view but a personal one, the establishment of a library is only the first step in its organization. Even a machine requires re- modelling; much more an institution. The changes in the community, the changes in other institutions, and the changes in the institution itself make reorganization necessary." Mr. Johnston's paper discusses the position of the library towards the educational revolution of our day, and he urges that the services of the school to the library be con- sidered,—it has in the past been neglected even by librarians for the discussion of how the library could serve the school. There are, he thinks, some things that the school does now that the library could do better, and he thinks that such topics in the curriculum as the reading of literature might well be taken from the school and turned over to the library. To quote from another part of the same paper: "The demand for school extension has resulted in the establishment of evening schools, summer schools, continuation schools, and other in- stitutions for adult education. In many cases, per- haps in most cases, these institutions have justified their establishment, but many times and in many places it would have been more economical and sometimes better to have provided added library facilities instead of added school facilities, or, per- haps, gardens and playgrounds." But would it? That would depend on the personality, the interests, the sympathies of the librarians in charge. In the last part of the paper, Mr. Johnston speaks of "Research and Libraries," and here points out par- ticularly two defects of the present organization of libraries: that special collections coming to libraries either by bequest or by purchase are not kept up and added to through new purchases, and the lack of specialization in the reading-room service. The latter question was also taken up by Mr. Frank P. Hill in his contribution to the symposium of " Retrospect and Forecast" which was presented at the annual meeting of the New York Library Club in May, when the club celebrated its first quarter century, and printed in the June "Library Journal." The retrospects were concerned with the changes that have taken place during the last twenty-five years, in statistics, methods, scope, and ideals. Mr. Hill speaks of the possibilities of special- ization, pointing at a movement which became crys- tallized at the A. L. A. conference of 1909 when the Special Libraries Association was organized. "The work thus initiated," he says, "and for which there is a legitimate and, heretofore, practically unexplored field will no doubt go forward, though perhaps not through the medium of a separate organi- zation. More and more the need of specialization in libraries presents itself, and as resources become known students will turn from the free and reference libraries to special libraries, where they will find all material connected with their own line of work." And further: "In order to ensure the efficient 78 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL handling of the many and varied collections result- ing from increased specialization, a staff of consult- ing librarians will probably be necessary to render the collections available, and it will only be in the spirit of cooperation that the best results will follow." Miss Mary W. Plummer, in her contribution to the Forecast, dealing with the future of the library schools, urges what it may be permitted to say that the present writer has advocated for years, and which it is pleasant to see that a director of a library school has at last taken up, namely, the establishment of graduate schools of library administration and bibli- ography in connection with one or two universities. She characterizes the present situation aptly enough as chaotic, and says that she "can see nothing to bring order out of this growing chaos but organiza- tion and systematization on a larger scale than any- thing we have tried. Let the general courses con- tinue for the younger people, for the general work, always having in view the discovery of talents and aptitudes for specialization ; and let there be two or three schools in the country, connected with univer- sities and an integral part of them, in which the study of technique and administration may be con- nected with an outline course in medicine, law, theol- ogy, science, pure and applied, civics, child study, or whatever specialty calls for training. A university frequently carries on a course followed by one or two students only, so that a paucity of applicants in any one division of the work would not mean dis- couragement or bankruptcy. What do I mean by an outline course? To begin with, the history and biography of a science or an art; a reading know- ledge of the languages in which its best treatises have been written; a knowledge of the rarities and the curiosities of its literature; an understanding of its terminology, past and present; an acquaintance with its present development, tendency, literature, and practice,"—in other words, the history and bib- liography of scientific literature. Something of the same note is found in Mr. Adam J. Strohm's paper read at the Library School Section at the 1909 con- ference of the A. L. A., entitled: "Do We Need a Postgraduate Library School," and printed in con- densed form in "Public Libraries" for February. "In examining the study courses of the library schools one cannot escape a sense of confusion from their mixture of trifles and ponderousness. Picture bulletins and story hours on one hand; architecture and Latin paleography on the other. The student who may find interest in the one is not of the intel- lectual caliber that will master the other, while the college graduate and the more desirable library school students will frown at some of the food set before them. The library schools, in taking cogni- zance of certain manifestations of modernism in library methods and bidding scholarship to enter as well, are falling between two stools. It is feast for one and starvation for the other." Mr. Louis N. Wilson, the librarian of Clark Uni- versity, has again used the method of the question- naire to bring out some mooted problems of library work; this time his attention is drawn to the rela- tions between " The Library and the Teaching Pro- fession," under which title the results of his inquiry are published in the March "Public Libraries." He finds that "the situation is hopeful, and one cannot help the feeling that the problem is nearer solution than is generally supposed. Both sides are anxious to bring about changes, upon which they seem to be fairly well agreed, and all that remains to be done is to get to work and do it." But there is the rub, it seems; for, after having given some examples of what a few librarians and teachers have to say about what should be done, and having cited a few instances of cooperation, he continues: *' But these are only a few bright spots amid a sea of gloom. In the great majority of cases libraries are still far behind what they might be and the teachers do not afford them the help they have a right to expect. Teachers are, as a rule, overworked, and librarians have to struggle for sufficient funds to keep the machine going." Turning to the con- siderations of ideal conditions, the author outlines briefly what may reasonably be asked of librarians and teachers in order to bring the conditions about, "In the first place, libraries must make their books available to scholars. The day when people desir- ing to use books will be satisfied to be turned over to the tender mercies of a complicated card catalogue, has passed. Librarians should realize by this time that books placed in a closed stack room are fast dying, if not already dead books." "There should be a large, well lighted, and well ventilated room set aside for students and teachers in the library. In this room the most expert attendant should be on duty and should seek the cooperation of the teachers in selecting and displaying books and artic- les of interest to the profession. Here library rules and regulations, necessary in dealing with the gen- eral public, perhaps, should be abolished, and no effort spared to aid the seeker after knowledge. Teachers in special lines should be induced to take a special interest in keeping the library advised of any new book that they consider of value or wish to see." To fill out the space at the bottom of the column where Mr. Wilson's article closes, the editor has printed the following quotation from Whately: "It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do." What is probably the most important utterance made during the past year to any group of librarians may be read in the •' Presidential Address of Fred- erick George Kenyon, Principal Librarian of the British Museum," in the September number of the British " Library Association Record." Mr. Kenyon begins by saying that he is not a librarian in the ordinary sense of the term, the books with which he has had to deal having been manuscripts; nor has the practical experience of the administration of a great library of printed books been his. He proposed, therefore, to deal, not with the practical application of any principles of librarianship, but 1911.] 79 THE DIAL with some of these very principles themselves. He asks the pardon of the audience, if he, in so doing, should he found to utter a number of platitudes. "It does us no harm, I think, sometimes to turn our thoughts from the details of our daily work to the principles which inform them and the ideals which inspire them. The principles and ideals may appear to be platitudes, but like many other platitudes, they are sometimes in danger of being overlooked in practice." "Books," he says, "may be roughly divided into three classes, the literature of the imagination, the literature of knowledge, and the literature of pastime," and he gives a highly instructive and entertaining description of these three classes and the way in which they are inter- woven with each other to form the organic whole known as the world's literature. The chief attrac- tion of a librarian's position Mr. Kenyon sees in the opportunity to guide the reader's taste. "Many of his readers are, no doubt, persons in search of definite information with regard to their trade or profession; many others are merely in search of an agreeable method of passing their leisure time, but others are young men and women in search of edu- cation and self-improvement, and to them the advice of the librarian may mean much." And he proceeds to disprove, with statistics (which, he says, though "they often are dangerous things, and as unreliable as experts," often have "a steadying effect on con- troversy ") the current idea, popular, at least, with certain British newspapers and politicians, that libraries are chiefly concerned with the circulation of colorless and worthless fiction. "Libraries should be the salt of the nation." And he feels that they have an important function before them in guiding the workingman (and probably not the workingman alone) from racing tips and foot-ball reports to "the literature which gives refreshment and knowledge, the literature which gives ideas and expands the mind. This cannot be done all at once. The desire for self-culture is not a plant of natural growth in this country, and in the past many influences have been hostile to it. The people of this country have for two generations listened to the doctrine that the pursuit of material self-interest is the law of human progress, and they cannot now readily assimilate the doctrine of self-culture and self-training for the good of the community. . . . The man who considers his own material welfare the sole subject of importance may, if he is ignorant enough, think that material welfare will come to him from the study of betting news; at least it is not for those whose daily occupation is the fluctuation of rubber shares to contradict him. A higher stage is reached when a man studies the literature of his own trade or profession in order that he may get on in it The motive is still material self-interest, but it is self-interest of a more enlightened kind, and exercised on nobler subjects. It involves a training of the intellect which may lead to higher things. Yet a further stage is reached when the reader seeks knowledge for its own sake, from the sense of the mysterious attractions of knowledge, the wonders of nature, of mechanical science, of human life and thought. And the highest stage of all—apart from that mystery of the intercourse of man with his Creator, of which I will not speak here — the highest stage of all is reached when a man realizes that his supreme duty is not self-interest, but self-training in the interest of the community." In the latter part of his address, Mr. Kenyon touches upon the preparation of the librarian for his duties, the chief of which he summarizes as being concerned with the selection of the books for the library, the making them accessible to the public, and the guid- ance of the readers in their use. "The first is a matter of knowledge, subject — an important pro- viso— to financial limitations. The second is a matter of technical training in classification and cataloguing. The third is a matter again of knowl- edge, but still more of tact and sympathy." And he closes with the following appreciation of his former colleague, the late Richard Garnett: "His knowledge, which ranged from astrology to horse racing, approached omniscience; if he had not the actual information you required at his fingers' ends, he could almost certainly tell you where to look for it, and knew something of what had been done and written with regard to it; he had a reverence for every kind of work and research, and could enter into the feelings and aspirations of any one who would consult him; and his good-nature was in- exhaustible." Aksel G. S. Josephson. CAS UAL COMMENT. Tolstoy's desire of seclusion was long cherished by him before his secret departure from Yasnaya Polyana in the early morning of Nov. 10. A letter written to his wife thirteen years ago but not to be delivered to her until after his death has now appeared in print, in the St. Petersburg Novoe Vremya, and reveals a state of domestic friction that had long ago become hardly bearable to the earnest apostle of the simple life. "Long have I been tormented," he writes, "by the discord between my life and my beliefs. To compel you all to change your life, the habits to which I myself had accustomed you, I could not; and to leave you ere this I also could not, believing that I should thus deprive the children, while they were little, of whatever small influence I could have over them, and that I should grieve you. On the other hand, to continue to live as I have lived these sixteen years, struggling and irritating you or falling myself under those influences and temptations to which I had become accustomed and by which I am sur- rounded, I also cannot. . . . The chief thing is that just as the Hindus nearing sixty retire into the woods, and as old religious men seek to devote their last years to God and not to jokes, puns, gossip, or tennis, so for me, entering my seventieth year, the soul-absorbing desire is for tranquillity, for solitude, 80 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL and, if not for entire harmony, at least not for crying discord between my life and my beliefs and conscience." A still more recent communication to the press from Mr. P. A. Boulanger, an intimate friend of Tolstoy's, and one who was with him at the end, pictures in harrowing detail the increasingly inharmonious state of affairs at Yasnaya Polyana during the last few years. Hopelessly unadjustable differences of ideals and aspirations, of tempera- ment and of the sense of what is demanded by con- science, made the Tolstoy home life a growing agony for the ardent reformer and moralist, and scarcely less so for his wife and those others of his house- hold who failed to share his views. Amateur censorship of current literature, pithily expressed in terms of uncompromising direct- ness, may be found in almost any much-used public library list of recent accessions, especially in fiction. Written in pencil against various titles in these lists, and sometimes even on the cards in the card catalogue, one encounters such brief and emphatic commendatory or condemnatory expressions as "Fine," "A 1," "Tip-top," "O. K.," "N. G.," "Rotten," "Mush," "Horrid." These and other like nut-shell criticisms serve to warn and advise succeed- ing readers much as the symbols adopted by profes- sional wanderers, and found on gate-posts and tree- trunks and dead walls along the highway, constitute a code understood and heeded by every member of the guild who is in search of a desirable place of re- freshment and rest. Another significant though mute and involuntary seal of approval or disap- proval is the appearance of the book itself. It is astonishing how invariably the more interesting books quickly shed their cloth covers and get them- selves enrolled in the library-bound regiment, and how a failure to win this promotion within six months ordinarily means permanent exclusion from the favored company. Critical comment, written in the book itself, especially at the very end, is not uncommon, however strongly discouraged by the ruling powers. All this unlawful scribbling is of course very wrong, but the actuating motive is altruistic. Being invariably anonymous, it can bring no fame or acknowledgment of any kind to the discerning and public-spirited critic. • • • Recent library legislation in Maryland reveals progress toward better things in that far too sparsely be-libraried State. The revised library law of 1910 created a Maryland Public Library Com- mission, in place of the State Library Commission which had existed since 1902; and it gives to the new body certain "additional functions of advising and stimulating the establishment of County and Election District Libraries, and of purchasing and sending one hundred dollars worth of books to lib- raries established under the Act." The county lib- rary system, as illustrated so creditably by the Washington County Free Library at Hagerstown, appears to meet local needs and fit in with local conditions in a way hardly possible throughout the country at large; yet the hastening of the day when every Maryland village shall have its own perma- nent library administered by its own chosen officers is to be prayed for. We note in the "First Annual Report" of the newly constituted Commission that whereas the new library law, as originally drafted, provided for a yearly appropriation of five thousand dollars to carry on the Commission's activities, this amount was cut by the legislative shears to fifteen hundred, thus cruelly crippling that zealous band of workers. But, as in a damage suit, it was probably understood on both sides that the sum asked for would undergo a process of subtraction, the only question being the exact size of the subtrahend. Literary and other dual personalities, such as the late William Sharp, who was both Saxon and Celt — the latter under the pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod" — are likely to have new light thrown on their complexities of mental and moral structure by the new method just introduced at the Johns Hopkins Hospital of studying and treating nervous diseases. The nervous person, according to Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna, the inventor of this new method, is nervous simply because his un- conscious half is craving some satisfaction or some activity that is withheld. This possession on our part of a dual nature is of course a matter of com- mon knowledge ever since "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" reminded us of it. To learn what this latent self is thus dumbly and feebly groping for, it is proposed to subject the patient's dreams to expert interpretation, and thereby to supply the want and cure the nervousness. All very good, we say, if the thing the unconscious self is trying to do or to attain is harmless, like writing poetry or translating Homer or acquiring a copy of the original edition of "Rasselas"; perhaps some mute inglorious Milton may by this means be rend- ered vocal and illustrious. But if one's subliminal consciousness is fretting for the summary extinction of a hated enemy or an odious rival, or if the un- conscious part of a person is longing to seize and devour some particularly luscious specimen of for- bidden fruit, what then? • B • The criminal's taste in literature, so far as that taste has been noted by public library workers in reference to the incarcerated criminal, is surpris- ingly and encouragingly high. Possibly, and indeed probably, in his native habitat he might not give the impression of possessing delicate discrimination in the matter of reading; but in the quiet seclusion of prison life he most often chooses from the books offered him those that have stood the test of time and have earned the right to be called classics. The current report of the Vermont Board of Library Commissioners emphasizes the fact that from the traveling libraries sent for the last three years to the State Prison the books borrowed by the convicts have been handled very carefully, have been much read, and evince a demand "for a better class of reading than the average patron of a public library 1911.] 81 THE DIAL calls for." Among other Vermont library notes of interest it is cheering to read that all but sixty-seven of the two hundred and forty-six towns and cities in the State are now provided with established libraries; and of the unprovided sixty-seven, seven- teen have traveling library stations. When it is remembered that Vermont's total population is little more than half that of Boston, these figures become significant of much. Education and efficiency are related to each other, necessarily and increasingly, in this strenu- ous age of ours; and if a school or college is ineffi- cient in its methods or wasteful in its expenditures, it is likely to be made unpleasantly aware of the fact at an early stage in its struggle for existence. This truism by way of introduction to some brief men- tion of an elaborate investigation into "Academic and Industrial Efficiency " that has been conducted under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and whose results are presented in "Bulletin Number Five " of that Foundation. Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, a mech- anical engineer and not a teacher, and therefore without the prejudices of a teacher, has made this investigation and written a full account of his find- ings. Eight institutions of learning were visited, and their department of physics was subjected to a searching scrutiny. "It may well be," remarks President Pritchett in a Preface to the printed re- port, "that a thorough-going administrative study of the income and expenditure of one of our large and newly grown universities may be more helpful to it at this moment than more money. We have gone through a period of great expansion. Just now a critical examination and appreciation of what we are getting out of the expansion is probably more to be desired than further expansion." These words, ut- tered just at the moment when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, over which Dr. Pritchett presided before assuming his present office, is urging acute need of funds to meet the increasing demands made upon it, or even to continue its activities at all, have a peculiar significance and timeliness. The growth of the Library of Congress has been so increasingly rapid under its present able head as almost to make the observer gasp for breath. The current "Report of the Librarian," a bound volume of three hundred and five octavo pages, shows noteworthy recent development in all departments. A few random notes from its rich pages will convey even to the unbibliothecal mind a sense of the vastness and vigor of this our national library. Whereas there were but one hundred and twenty-five persons employed when Mr. Putnam took office not so very long ago, there are now three hundred and thirteen engaged in the library's various departments. Its book collection numbers one million seven hundred and ninety-three thousand volumes. Its expenditures for the last fiscal year were more than eight hundred thousand dollars. Its bindery handled thirty-one thousand volumes. Its copyright department registered more than one hundred thousand books, pamphlets, and other items. Finally, the libraries subscribing to its printed catalogue cards form a list filling thirty-five pages of the Report. But to gain a clear concep- tion of the Congressional Library's manifold and ever-increasing activities, one needs to examine the Report itself, which is obtainable at a nominal price. • • • The story of a Byron manuscript of con- siderable interest to autograph-collectors and Byron- lovers was recently told in the •' Pall Mall Gazette." It was the discerning eye of a London bookseller, Mr. Charles J. Sawyer, of New Oxford Street, that recognized the peculiar worth of a bit of writing lately offered for sale by a Nottingham auctioneer. The treasure was secured by Mr. Sawyer, and proves to be the original draft of the poet's epitaph to his dog Boatswain, who died in 1808 and was buried in the garden at Newstead Abbey, not far from the spot where his master was to be interred sixteen years later. The manuscript, given by the poet to the family of Job Turton, the man who erected (at a cost of one hundred pounds) the monument that attested the grief of the dog's master, passed from hand to hand until finally it was carried to the auc- tion room by a granddaughter of Turton, and so came to public view and into Mr. Sawyer's possession. • • • The effect of book exhibitions at county fairs is encouraging. Note has already been made here of last autumn's experiment, particularly in Indiana and Vermont, with carefully selected col- lections of agricultural and other works as a new feature at the annual "cattle-show." And now from Indiana, on the authority of Dr. Stanley Coulter of Purdue University, as quoted in the current issue of the "Library Occurrent," we learn that "ap- proximately five hundred dollars' worth of purely agricultural books were sold to them [t. e. the farm- ers] from a collection of about 75 volumes exhibited at the county fairs this present summer and fall." What further stimulus to reading and to miscellan- eous book-buying should be credited to these literary exhibits will never be known, but from the general interest shown on the part of the rural public it may be confidently reckoned as considerable. • • • The proper ingredients of a travelling library must depend largely on the nature of the communities it is designed to serve. Among rural readers, especially feminine readers, one is not surprised to find the borrowers following the example of the small child that eats the frosting of its cake first and then, surfeited with sweet, perhaps takes little or nothing of the more substantial and nutritious under-layer. From the "Fifth Biennial Report of the Nebraska Public Library Commis- sion" we learn that the book collections now visit- ing the prairie settlements of that promising com- monwealth have perforce been reduced to little else than fiction. Starting originally with ten works of fiction, ten of a more serious nature, and twenty 82 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL children's books, these travelling libraries have shown so extremely little wear and tear in the non-fiction section that gradually they have undergone the transformation indicated above, while the eliminated idle books have been set apart as a reserve collec- tion from which to supply study clubs, individual students, or other persons desiring reading matter of a serious sort. Eighty-three counties of Nebraska have in the last two years profited by the Commis- sion's services in this sending out of good literature, four hundred and forty-two requests for travelling libraries having been responded to. • • • The organization of Harvard libraries under one administrative head has at last been effected. In its various schools and departments the university numbers more than thirty separate librar- ies beside the main one in Gore Hall, and hitherto 'each of these has had its own librarian who has dis- charged his duties with no strict regard to the policy and proceedings of the other libraries. Now, how- ever, to provide an administrative head of the entire system, the university authorities have created the post of Director of University Libraries, and have appointed as its first incumbent Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge, of the class of '87, who has long been a liberal giver of his time and his means to the library of his alma mater. This coordination of university libraries, like that which has recently been intro- duced at Chicago University, should be of great service to the interests of economy and efficiency. Yasnaya Polyana as an international peace memorial, which is the disposition of the estate said to be favored by the Tolstoy family, would serve a larger purpose than if simply set apart by Russia as a Tolstoy museum. There is no reason why the great peace-advocate's old home should not be preserved both as a memorial to him and as an impressive reminder of his earnest protest against war. A nephew of the late Count has recently ar- rived in this country on a mission, it is rumored, to Mr. Carnegie for the purpose of interesting that wealthy promoter of peace in the proposed plan. Unless Mr. Carnegie chooses to give his personal attention to the matter, here would seem to be a piece of work cut out for the trustees of the lately- established Carnegie Peace Fund. The tardy acceptance ok a Carnegie li- brary that was generously offered to the District of Columbia seven years ago is now gratefully noted in the current report of the Washington Pub- lic Library. As mentioned by us in a previous issue, the difficulty of getting our national legisla- tors to focus their gaze on so small a matter as a branch library for Takoma Park has seemed for years all but insuperable. But the impossible has at last been accomplished, Congress has actually consented to concern itself with so trivial a detail as a forty-thousand dollar library building, and the offered present to the people of the District has been formally accepted, with the somewhat niggardly stipulation, however, that no provision for mainten- ance shall be made over and above ten per cent of the total cost of the building—an unwise economy, to be sure; but we must save our pennies for the fortifying of the Panama Canal. COMMUNICA TIONS. THE QUESTION OF LIBRARY RENEWALS. (To the Editor of The Dial.) The paragraph in a recent issue of The Dial with reference to the renewal of books in this Library, as discussed in our last annual report, came to my atten- tion about the time I was leaving the city, and the matter was pushed aside and overlooked imtil the present time. Permit me to go into the question of renewals a little more fully than it was discussed in our annual report, bearing in mind that what I have to say does not apply to new fiction — seven-day books. We look upon this whole matter as chiefly one of administration, for most of the mistakes or misunderstandings with the public which arise in the circulating department are in connec- tion with renewals, — persons thinking that books had been renewed when they were not, and therefore becoming subject to fine. Furthermore, renewals are given practically to everyone who asks for them, so that anyone who wishes to retain a book four weeks gets it for the asking. If the Library is willing to let him have the book four weeks (provided he asks for it) it seems to us that it would eliminate a lot of red tape and trouble to cut out the renewals and allow the bor- rower to keep the book the straight four weeks if he wished to do so, without bothering him to have the book renewed in order to escape a fine. Most libraries in renewing books (many of them taking the request for renewal over the telephone) count the renewal as a second issue, and in that way the statistics of circulation are swollen; but I believe that that is not the best way for a Library to increase its circulation. To have some one sit at a telephone desk all day taking requests for the renewal of books and then count those requests as circulation, is going through the motions, but without giving any real ser- vice. I believe that the sooner our libraries cut out all make-believe service of this kind the better it will be for them and for their communities. I might add that at least two well-known libraries (Newark and Pitts- burgh) have abolished renewals, or restricted them to fiction, to the great satisfaction of all concerned. There are many books which it is impossible for a busy person to get through with in two weeks, and a fixed time limitation of that kind is in reality a limita- tion to the real usefulness of the library. I personally know of many such cases. In some instances it is true that to lengthen the retention period would curtail the general usefulness of the books; but these instances are comparatively very few, and the time, trouble, and dis- satisfaction that this Library would save by abolishing renewals would, I believe, more than enable it to pay for the few additional duplicates that might be neces- sary. The best place for almost every library book in the circulation department is in the hands of some borrower, and not on the shelves waiting for the possible time when someone may want to use it. In every large library there are thousands of volumes that do not circu- late once in three years, and some not once in ten years. 1911.] 88 THE DIAL In short, as we see the problem in Grand Rapids, the abolishment of renewals would make for a better and more satisfactory service, thereby enabling the people to get more real use out of the library than they can get at present. It should be understood, however, that no definite action has yet been taken in the matter; the abolishment of renewals was simply recommended in our last annual report. Samuel H. Ranck. Grand Rapids Public Library, January 10, 1911, HISTORY AND MACAULAY. (To the Editor of The Dial.) That my note on "The Writing of History " should have called forth the scholarly paper of "J. W. T." is greatly to its credit. It is the more so, however, that so able a pleader should have been compelled to resort to the dexterous parry the lawyers call a plea by way of confession and avoidance. For he admits all that is claimed for Macaulay, but denies that the latter lacks appreciation in the house of the doctrinaires. Whose, then, are all the sneers I have been hearing for wellnigh fifty years? To all seeming they came straight from the schools of the pedants of research. It is true, they were couched in English so clumsy as forever to debar them from reaching posterity. Pos- sibly his good taste has spared "J. W. T." the pain of reading them. This correspondent also makes the point that there have been good writers of history since Macaulay, and instances a number of them. I gratefully agree with him, and wish that there were more of them. But surely this in no way contravenes my contention that the school of Stubbs and Freeman — which had such vogue in the last generation and still influences the present — deliberately slighted the graces of style and somehow infused into their admirers the notion that accuracy and bareness or slovenliness of diction were inseparable. The argument, based on the declaration that Macaulay was a great artist and that we must not look to see his like in many an age, strikes me as having little bearing on the subject. It would be absurd for everybody to try to write like Macaulay: to use his methods and to adopt his spirit is a very different matter; and it is all that I contended for. Mannerism is a poor equipment for an author of any kind. What Professors Adams and Hodder say of the neces- sity for thorough investigation before the work of the true historian begins, is of course sound doctrine; but there certainly is no intrinsic necessity for even the most careful and painstaking investigator to put crude material before the public and call it history. Yet that is what many have been doing, with but little adverse criticism to deter them. As for Dr. Carl Becker, he tells us frankly that Macaulay bores him. Impossible as it is to understand his point of view, one must surmise that this judgment is based wholly on the attempt to read the History, and not the historical essays. It is inconceivable that any one should fail to find the latter delightful. As this gentleman dislikes Latin quotations (yet rashly uses one), I shall not quote the old adage as to tastes, but only remark that there are also those in this generation whom Walter Scott bores, just as there were few at the Restoration period who could abide Shakespeare. But one can forgive anything to a man who has so sound an opinion in regard to doctors' theses. Charles Woodward Hutson. New Orleans, La., January 17, 1911, % i«to iooks. Toi,stoy, Romancer and Reformer.* An unforeseen timeliness marks the appear- ance of Mr. Aylmer Maude's "Life of Tolstoy." Brought to a conclusion only a few months before the great Russian's death, and published almost simultaneously with that closing of the book of his life, the biography, in its two thick volumes of fine print, presents a complete and authoritative account of Tolstoy's life-history. The writer's twenty-three years' residence in Russia, and his intimate acquaintance with the author-moralist whose works he and Mrs. Maude have done so much to render accessible to En- glish readers, together with Tolstoy's expressed confidence in his biographer's scholarly equip- ment and thorough trustworthiness, inspire a not unreasonable confidence in the elaborate work now offered to the British and American public after a careful revision at the hands of Countess Tolstoy. The treatment of Tolstoy's life and character naturally divides itself into two parts: the his- tory of the romancer and the history of the reformer; and to each of these a volume is devoted, although with much inevitable over- lapping on both sides. These two personalities of the man become more and more at war with each other as he grows older, the moralist and reformer finally almost displacing the creative artist of the earlier years. But while the two natures are felt to be mutually antagonistic, each grievously hampering the free activity of the other, they yet in a certain sense aid and strengthen each other; for without his deep moral convictions Tolstoy could not have made his fiction so impressive and of so powerful appeal to humanity at large, nor without his fine mastery of literary art could he have reached so many readers with his ethical, religious, and social-reform writings. How early the serious problems of life, and even some of the abstruse questions of meta- physics, began to interest him is revealed in the story of his life. It even appears that when about twelve years of age he arrived, unaided, at a pretty clear notion of the meaning of "solipsism," without of course knowing that this was its name. A passage from his much later written " Boyhood," quoted by Mr. Maude, makes this apparent. As revealing thus early the combined speculative, self-indulgent, and •The Life or Tolstoy. By Aylmer Maude. In two volumes. Illustrated. New York: Dodd, Mead <& Co. 84 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL self-chastising elements in his nature the fol- lowing extract is significant: "It will hardly be believed what were the favorite and most common subjects of my reflection in my boy- hood — so incompatible were they with my age and situation ... At one time the thought occurred to me that happiness does not depend on external causes, but on our relation to them; and that a man accustomed to bear suffering cannot be unhappy. To accustom myself therefore to endurance, I would hold Tatishef's dictionaries in my outstretched hand for five minutes at a time, though it caused me terrible pain; or I would go to the lumber room and flog myself on my bare back with a cord so severely that tears started to my eyes. At another time, suddenly remembering that death awaits me every hour and every minute, I decided (wondering why people had not understood this before) that man can only be happy by enjoying the present and not thinking of the future; and for three days, under the influence of this thought, I abandoned my lessons, and did nothing but lie on my bed and enjoy myself, reading a novel and eating honey-gingerbreads, on which I spent my last coins. . . . But no philosophic current swayed me so much as scepticism, which at times brought me to the verge of insanity. I imagined that except myself no one and nothing existed in the world, that objects are not objects but apparitions, ap- pearing only when I pay attention to them, and disap- pearing as soon as I cease to think of them. . . . There were moments in which, under the influence of this fixed idea, I reached such a stage of absurdity that I glanced quickly round hoping to catch Nothingness by surprise where I was not." Very early there appear signs of his zeal for reform, and his restless desire to make over the world according to the ideal that, for the time being, presented itself to him as the pattern of perfection. In one of his many and usually discreditable love affairs we find him actually engaged to be married to an apparently respect- able girl; but in a sudden fit of moral reform he allowed himself to assume toward her the role which, twenty-five years later, he was to play for the benefit of the world at large, and reproached her with the unworthy and frivolous nature of her interests and occupations, giving vent to some scathing sarcasms against the fashionable society she found so delightful, and making himself so odious to the lively young lady that one cannot be surprised at the dis- continuance, not long afterward, of their inti- macy. Some of the hereditary influences that shaped Tolstoy's character are traced by the author. On his father's side, and still more on his mother's, he came of aristocratic stock more or less in passive opposition to the ruling powers and sharing the humanitarian sympathies prev- alent in the early years of the reign of Alexan- der I. A cousin of Tolstoy's mother was one of the Decembrists, and on the accession of Nicholas in 1825 participated in their unsuc- cessful attempt to establish a constitutional government; for which he was exiled to eastern Siberia for thirty years and condemned to hard labor in irons for a part of that period. From Tolstoy's mother it was that Tolstoy the novelist inherited his genius for romance and his remark- able language sense. She was a woman of education, had five languages at her command, and possessed a remarkable gift for impromptu, fictitious narrative of the most delightful de- scription. In the same way that afterward the son could hold a circle of army comrades spell- bound by the charm of his improvised tales, so the mother would in her maidenhood draw around her a group of companions who gladly forsook the fascinations of the ball to hear her tell a story in a dark room where her shyness would be shielded by the gloom. "Her most valuable quality," Tolstoy has related, "was that though hot-tempered she was yet self- restrained." Of the father, early cut off by an attack of apoplexy, some pleasing traits are sketched in "Childhood," from which it ap- pears that he was most agreeably remembered by the son as " sitting with grandmother on the sofa, helping her to play Patience. My father," he adds, "was polite and tender with every one, but to my grandmother he was always parti- cularly tenderly submissive." Leo was the youngest of the five children (four sons and a daughter) born to Nicholas and Marie Tolstoy, and he lost his mother in 1830, when he was not much over eighteen months old, and his father seven years later. His Aunt Tatiana (in reality a very distant relative, but affec- tionately called "aunty" by the orphans) was in some sort a mother to Leo after his own mother's death, and seems to have had great influence over him. Tolstoy's university days at Kazan and St. Petersburg, his army experiences in the Caucasus and in the Crimean War, the irregularities and impetuosities that preceded his happy marriage at the age of thirty-four, and his subsequent fruitful years at Moscow and at Yasnaya Polyana (his birthplace and the part of the family property that fell to his share when he came of age), are all treated with fulness of detail by his biographer, who has made wise use of Tolstoy's own writings, both his letters and his published works, to illustrate his development and indicate his dominant aims and interests. It is not surprising to find that from the very start Tolstoy's writing activities were hampered in the most trying fashion by the official censor 1911.] 85 THE DIAL of the press. In an early letter to his brother Sergius he complains that '•'•Childhood was spoilt and The Raid simply ruined by the Censor. All that was good in it has been struck out or mutilated." With no freedom in the literary expression of his germinating ideas and ideals, the wonder is that Tolstoy gained so early and so marked success as he did. The non-Russian reader of his life will see reason to be thankful not to owe submission to any such despicable satellite of despotism as strove to put out the new light that was breaking on the world of letters in the middle of the last century. Characteristic criticisms of his earlier works are quoted by Mr. Maude from the author's own lips. These comments, it will of course be remembered, are from Tolstoy the reformer. "He told me that in War and Peace and Anna Karenina his aim was simply to amuse his readers. I am bound to accept his statement; but one has only to read either of those books to see that through them Tolstoy's ardent nature found vent, with all its likes and dislikes, strivings, yearnings, hopes, and fears. I asked Tolstoy why in What is Art? he relegates these great novels to the realm of 'bad art'; and his answer showed, as I expected it would, that he does not really consider them at all bad, but condemns them merely as being too long, and written in a way chiefly adapted to please the leisured well-to-do classes, who have time for reading novels in several volumes, because other people do their rough work for them. Of War and Peace he said, 'It is, one would think, harmless enough, but one never knows how things will affect people,' and he went on to mention, with regret, that one of Profes- sor Zaharin's daughters had told him that from his novels she had acquired a love of balls and parties; things of which, at the time of our conversation, he heartily disapproved." Like all authors of repute, Tolstoy was sought out and more or less grievously pestered by aspiring and admiring young writers, poets, and would-be poets, and by the idle curious who swarm about a celebrity of any sort. To one of these uninvited visitors, who had brought a set of verses with him and desired the great man's opinion of them, he delivered himself in the following frank and characteristic fashion: "There is nothing original here; and besides, every- body writes poems nowadays. There are hundreds and hundreds of people turning them out t And not one of them writes a single good line. In the days of Poushkin and Lerroontof there used to be poetry, but not now. Verses have gone out of fashion. And what's the good of them? You will agree that prose expresses our thoughts much better — it is easier to read and has more sense in it. Take our conversation, for instance: We say what we want to. But if some one tried to put it into verse, it would come out all upside-down. Wher- ever a definite, clear expression is wanted, it either spoils the rhythm, or doesn't suit the style: and one has to substitute some other word, often far from the real meaning." Little has here been said of Tolstoy's later labors. With these, and with the abnormal place in his mind occupied by the sex question, the second volume of Mr. Maude's work chiefly concerns itself. One cannot but be disagreeably impressed with the strength and persistence of Tolstoy's animal passions, and with his morbid fondness for puzzling over the eternally insol- uble sex problem. His biographer, in pictur- ing him as gaining in old age a glorious victory over his baser nature, gives him perhaps too much credit. The low desires that we gradually outgrow we are always too prone to regard as triumphantly overcome. The reason why Tolstoy himself, and why this life of him, are so fascinatingly interesting must be chiefly because the man so strikingly illustrates the duality in all human nature. He is ever at war with himself, and yet no com- plete conquest on either side is possible or, indeed, desirable. The study of his troubled life helps one better to understand what is meant by the " eternal antinomies." Percy F. Bicknell. Pennsylvania in History.* Pennsylvania has always been somewhat in the case of the man who lost his shadow. How- ever great or formidable it was, it did not seem to project any effluence beyond itself; people did not see any Brocken spirit cast upon the clouds. The good and sufficient reason for this has been the distrust and depreciation of litera- ture which has always prevailed in the Keystone State. The Quaker blood, the Dutch tempera- ment, the tincture of the Southern spirit — a spirit which has always seen everything in society as Malebranche saw everything in God, — have combined to keep down any literary outburst or output. Pennsylvania has been a bitter stepmother to her imaginative sons; at best, it has regarded them as a hen does her brood of ducklings. While New England made idols of its writers, Pennsylvania has turned such unprofitable children out of doors for fear that they might impart some touch of color to the drab of its disposition or suspend for a single minute the maxims of Poor Richard. It has been Sparta in act but Boeotia in thought. •Pennsylvania in American History. By Hon. Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker. Philadelphia: William J. Campbell. 86 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL It has said to all within its borders, " Do some- thing useful, and be honored. Invent a shovel, or be a magistrate." It has never realized that imagination and enthusiasm and charm pre- vail more mightily over mankind than utility. What is the result? New England's influence has been, and is, dominant from the Atlantic to the Pacific; the sayings and doings of a group of not absolutely first-rate writers are treasured all over the world. There are people in England and Germany who really think that America consists of Concord, Brook Farm, Walden Pond, and Harvard University. But Pennsylvania has depended on the Deed and despised the Word, — and the Word and the world have left it severely alone. No charge of disregarding the Word can be brought against Ex-Governor Pennypacker, whose book on "Pennsylvania in American History" has just been published. For many years the author has held up the historian's torch to illuminate the greatness and virtues of his State. He has not only had to face criti- cism and misrepresentation from without, but some hatred and obloquy from his own folk. To be shot in the back by the soldiers you are trying to urge to victory is the hardest fate that can befall a captain. The deeds and men of Pennsylvania have been mighty, in very truth. Take its generals of the Civil War, — Meade, McClellan, Han- cock, Reynolds, McCall, Humphreys, Birney, Gibbon, Park, Naglee, Smith, Cadwallader, Crawford, Heintzelman, Franklin, Gregg, Geary, Pennypacker, and Hartranft. It is hardly too much to say that this galaxy equalled in military talents and proved effi- ciency all that all the other Northern States contributed to the officering of the Union armies. Or take its three great names of the Revolution, — Franklin, Morris, and Wayne. The success of the American cause was probably due as much to them as to any other three who can be named. Ex-Governor Pennypacker shows that Morris financed the Revolution, Stephen Girard the War of 1812, and Jay Cooke the Civil War. Franklin was of Massachusetts birth, but his life-work was done in Pennsyl- vania. There are really two Franklins, — one, the great patriot, statesman, and philoso- pher, who loomed so large in the eyes of his contemporaries both here and in Europe; and the other the business man and retailer of petty proverbs, who was nothing in his own day, but who has since become the Franklin of fame and has stamped himself on the American mind. Ex-Governor Pennypacker quotes from Henry Adams's History of the United States this pas- sage: "If the American Union succeeded, the good sense, liberality, and democratic spirit of Pennsylvania had a right to claim credit for the result." And again: "Had New England, New York, and Virginia been swept out of ex- istence in 1800, democracy could have better spared them all than have lost Pennsylvania." Ex-Governor Pennypacker discusses such matters as the history of Congress Hall in Philadelphia, the Louisiana Purchase, George Washington in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, German Immigration, the Dutch Patroons of Pennsylvania, the High- Water Mark of British Invasion, Gettsyburg, and a number of other allied subjects. One of the most engaging and valuable of his contri- butions to history is a somewhat extended biog- raphy of General Anthony Wayne. Though one of the most popular of American heroes, as his sobriquet "Mad Anthony" and the efflor- escence of his name all over our map show, the facts of Wayne's career are little known. He fought from Canada in the North to Georgia in the South, and in after life against the Indians in Ohio. His most daring exploit—the capture of Stony Point—remains perhaps the most bril- liant feat of arms in our history. With four- teen hundred men he attacked and captured a fort on a steep hill a hundred and fifty feet high, defended by six hundred British troops with eight cannon. But he was practically in everything during the Revolution—the battles of Brandy wine, Germantown, Paoli, Monmouth, Yorktown, and Savannah,—and he was always sent to the front. Washington leaned on him more than on any other one man. His defeat of the Indians on the Miami opened the West to civilization. In most of his engagements dur- ing the Revolution, Wayne was in command of the Pennsylvania Line, an almost separate organization of thirteen regiments, which in the worst times formed the bulk of Washington's army. In a similar way, during the War of the Rebellion, Pennsylvania had a complete division in the field. The present writer feels a touch of personal interest in this last matter, because his father, who was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature during the first three years of the Civil War, was of some service to Governor Curtin in passing the bill for the formation of the Pennsylvania Reserves. Of this same Legislature, ex-Governor Pen- nypacker writes: "At half-past four on the morning of April 12, 1861, the rebels opened 1911.] 87 THE DIAJL fire upon Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. Before the sun went down that day Pennsyl- vania had appropriated five hundred thousand dollars with which to arm the State. This first step in the war upon the part of the North, quick as a flash, three days before the call by the President for troops, followed by New York on the 15th, and the other States later, is one of those momentous and over-powering events that determine the fate of nations, to be remem- bered with the crossing of the Rubicon and the Dinner of the Beggars of the Sea." Rather unaccountably, ex-Governor .Penny- packer has omitted in his testimony any re- ference to the naval glories of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia was the nursery of the American navy, and Barry, Bainbridge, Dale, Stewart, Decatur, and Hull were natives or residents of that city. Another lack which we confess we feel is the one glanced at near the beginning of this re- view,— a dearth of the humanizing light of let- ters. History is an elastic word, and in the mod- ern conception of the term includes much besides Statesmanship and War. Ex-Governor Penny- packer has not made the most of what Penn- sylvania has to show in this field. If he had given us a study of Charles Brockden Brown, the first American romance writer, who fascin- ated Shelley, influenced Hawthorne and Poe, and is good reading yet on his own account; if he had given us some account of Thomas Buchanan Read, some of whose graceful or fiery lyrics will live long in our literature; if, best of all, he had made an analysis, as he could prob- ably do better than anyone else, of the genius of Charles Godfrey Leland, whose "Hans Breitman" is one of the greatest creations of American humor, he would, we think, have rounded out his book and given it a wider appeal. As it is, he has made a truthful, log- ical, and often eloquent plea for the preemin- ence of Pennsylvania. Charles Leonard Moore. The Hero of Quebec* Of the lives of great men of action — Napoleon, Cromwell, Washington, Nelson, and their kind— the world never grows tired. Such a man of action was James Wolfe, the appear- ance of a volume of whose letters is, or should be, an event of importance in the literary world. Editor and publisher have combined to produce ♦The Life and Letters of James Wolfe. By Beckles Willson. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. a substantial and attractive volume, containing a great deal of material bearing on both the public and private life of the hero of Quebec which has never before appeared in print. The book will appeal to the average uncritical reader because of the intimate light it throws on the character of one whose brief career was so packed with dramatic situations and splendid achievements. That it will appeal with equal force to the serious student, is questionable. Undoubtedly the book contains material of the highest importance, not elsewhere accessible in print; and if the editor had carried out the promise of his preface, his work would rank with Doughty's " Siege of Quebec " and Wood's "Logs of the Conquest of Canada," filling in fact the one remaining gap in the literature of the great siege. The student had every right to expect that Mr. Willson would remember the one essential characteristic of such work — that his transcripts should agree word for word with the originals. Unfortunately, they do not. Not only is the spelling and punctuation of Wolfe's originals not followed, but whole sen- tences are omitted, or represented by only a word or two. It cannot be positively stated that this criticism applies to all the letters, as a large number of the originals are not accessible; but as it certainly does apply to some, there is reason to fear that the whole work is unreliable. Not only is the text inaccurate, but the editor's comments are in many cases not what one would expect from one who has made such a close study of his subject. He refers to "Sir Charles Saunders" in 1759, although the admiral did not receive knighthood until 1761; similarly, Pitt is spoken of as "Chatham," though he was not elevated to the peerage until 1766. These are but trifles, comparatively. A much more serious error is the statement on page 422 that "Saunders was merely to co- operate with Wolfe, whenever that military commander should stand in need of such ser- vices as the navy only could give. Otherwise he was to 'cover' Wolfe's army, and keep con- trol of his communications." He adds that Saunders exceeded his instructions, and gave Wolfe "a warm and loyal support." The King's secret instructions to Wolfe and Saunders bear no such interpretation. On the contrary, they make it perfectly plain that Saunders was expected to give Wolfe "a warm and loyal support"; that, in fact, the attack on Quebec was to be a joint one, in which the army and navy were to work in perfect harmony. The King wrote: 88 [Feb. 1, THE DIAL "Whereas, the success of this Expedition will very much depend upon an entire Good Understanding be- tween Our Land and Sea Officers, We do hereby strictly enjoin and require You, on Your part to maintain and cul- tivate such a good Understanding and Agreement, and to Order, that the Soldiers under Your Command shall man the Ships, when there shall be occasion for them, and when they can be spared from the Land Service, As the Commander in Chief of Our Squadron is instructed, on His Part to entertain and cultivate the same good Understanding and Agreement and to order the Sailors and Marines under His Command, to assist Our Land Forces and to man the Batteries, when there shall be occasion for them, and when they can be spared from the Sea Service; And in order to establish the strictest Union that may be, between You and the Commander in Chief of Our Ships, You are hereby required to com- municate these Instructions to Him as He is directed to communicate those He shall receive from Us to You." As to the Letters themselves, one would like to quote many passages for the sake of the new light they throw on Wolfe's character and motives, and the clarity of his vision as a military commander. One or two must, how- ever, suffice. In one of the letters to his mother, we find this modest appreciation of his own merits: "The officers of the army in general are persons of so little application to business and have been so ill educated, that it must not surprise you to hear that a man of common industryjis in reputation amongst them. I reckon it a very great misfortune to this country that I, your son, who have, I know, but a very modest capa- city, and some degree of diligence a little above the ordinary run, should be thought, as I generally am, one of the best officers of my rank in the service. I am not at all vain of the distinction. The comparison would do a man of genius very little honour, and does not illus- trate me, by any means; and the consequence will be very fatal to me in the end, for as I rise in rank people will expect some considerable performances, and I shall be induced, in support of an ill-got reputation, to be lavish of my life, and shall probably meet that fate which is the ordinary effect of such conduct." This was written in 1755, before the Rochefort expedition. That same disastrous campaign forms the text of one of Wolfe's letters to his friend Rickson, in November 1757, in which he lays down those sound principles of coopera- tion between army and navy which he was after- ward to illustrate so brilliantly at Quebec, and the ignorance of which, on the part of his com- manding officers, made the Rochefort expedi- tion such a dismal failure. He says: "I have found out that an Admiral should endeavor to run into an enemy's port immediately after he ap- pears before it; that he should anchor the transport ships and frigates as close as he can to the land; that he should reconnoitre and observe it as quick as pos- sible, and lose no time in getting the troops on shore; that previous directions should be given in respect to landing the troops, and a proper disposition made for the boats of all sorts, appointing leaders and fit persons for conducting the different divisions. On the other hand, experience shows me that, in an affair depending upon vigour and dispatch, the Generals should settle their plan of operations, so that no time may be lost in idle debate and consultations when the sword should be drawn; that pushing on smartly is the road to success, and more particularly so in an affair of this nature; that nothing is to be reckoned an obstacle to yoirr under- taking which is not found really so upon trial; that in war something must be allowed to chance and fortune, seeing it is in its nature hazardous, and an option of difficulties; that the greatness of an object should come under consideration, opposed to the impediments that lie in the way; that the honour of one's country is to have some weight; and that, in particular circumstances and times, the loss of a thousand men is rather an ad- vantage to a nation than otherwise, seeing that gallant attempts raise its reputation and make it respectable; whereas the contrary appearances sink the credit of a country, ruin the troops, and create infinite uneasiness and discontent at home." An interesting point arises in connection with the fact that Durell, instead of sailing to the St. Lawrence at the earliest possible mo- ment, kept his ships in idleness at Halifax, and so permitted Bougainville, with news of Pitt's plan of campaign, and with a couple of frigates and a score of storeships, to slip up the river to Quebec. Mr. Willson suggests that, had Durell done his duty, Wolfe, "instead of the long and dreary task before him, might have fallen on the enemy's weak point and won vic- tory in July instead of September." The argu- ment is not convinciug, but it suggests a curious question: Had Quebec fallen in July, without the sacrifice of the life of the British general, Washington might have had to cope with the genius of Wolfe instead of with the mediocrity of the actual commanders. What, then, might have been the fate of America? La whence J. Burpee. A History of Six Million Years.* "When the Rabbit actually took a loatch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a Rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge."—Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The modern student of animal life finds him- self somewhat in the position of Alice. The close study of fossil mammals has revealed to him that these animals carry time-pieces, not exactly in their waistcoat pockets, but in their bones and teeth. Burning with curiosity, he •The A BRYANT WHITTIER MEREDITH LOWELL MRS. STOWE DICKENS ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Librarian Leavenworth (Kas.) Public Library. Plate 13X x i8#. Arrangements for private plstei miy be made by mail. , Send for descriptive Price List. 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Advertising Rates furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Entered u Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. Xo. 592. FEBRUARY 16, 1911. Vol. L. Contents. PAGE MISGUIDED POETS 113 CASUAL COMMENT 115 The duties of the New Theatre.—Insect book-lovere. — A forced interpretation of Lincoln. — The death of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. — A polygrapher extraordinary. — The prospective sale of the Huth library. — The special librarian's qualifications.— The public library as a profitable investment.—The. haunting associations of a word. — Sir Francis Gal- ton. — The centenary of the Academia della Crusca. — Richard Wagner's forthcoming autobiography.— John Lock wood Kipling. COMMUNICATIONS U8 Mr. Shaw's Attitude toward Shakespeare. Mar- garet Vance. The Pleasures of Serious Reading. Anne Warner. The "Thirteen Original Situations" and "Eleven Ancestral Witticisms." Daniel Edwards Kennedy. AN EARLY VICTORIAN ROMANCER. Clark S. Northup 119 THE ANCIENTS ILLUMINATED. Grant Showerman 121 LYRIC IRELAND. Louis James Block 122 THE LATEST STUDY OF MOLIERE IN ENG- LISH. F. C. L. van Steenderen 12fi AN IMPRESSIONIST IN SPAIN. George G. Brownell 127 VEGETARIAN BIOLOGY. Raymond Pearl . . .128 BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 129 A near view of a great inventor at his work. — Turgenev and Tolstoy compared and contrasted.— A handbook on Japan.—Reminiscences of a noted prima donna. — An English magistrate in Northern China. — The makers of California. — Mr. Lang and the Homeric controversy. — Reminiscences of Lin- coln by his law-partner. — Amusing foolery in small fragments. NOTES 132 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 133 MISGUIDED POETS. The amiable gentleman who organized the Congresses of the Columbian Exposition, and who presided over their sessions, included among his duties that of opening the proceedings of each new Congress with an introductory address. Being a gentleman of much learning and versa- tility, his opening remarks were usually appro- priate and felicitous. But on one occasion he went distinctly wrong. When the Congress of Authors convened for the first time, he felt that the gathering called for an unusual effort, and his friends were a little aghast when they de- tected a semblance of rhythm in what he was saying, and soon found their suspicions con- firmed by the discovery that they were listening to an address in blank verse. No mere prose would serve for such an occasion and audience as this, and the presiding officer was not the man to shirk an obvious obligation. So the assembled authors were addressed (fortunately at no great length) in what was supposed to be their own tongue, and endured the ordeal with a degree of well-bred composure that effectively concealed their real feelings. "Gute Leute aber schlechte Musikanten" was Goethe's de- scription of the class of people to which the speaker belonged; misguided poets we have thought to call them, although there is an element of question-begging in the phrase. The number of people who think that they can write poetry if they wish, and with easy assurance "toss off " a pedestrian effusion (often ornamented with bad rhymes) when some occa- sion seems to call for it, is a large one; and the number is unduly swollen by the easy-going character of the average American company, ready to bestow equal applause upon thought and inanity, and to weigh the intention rather than the performance, provided only the inten- tion be to flatter or to please. The sort of com- position in spurious verse to which we refer is alarmingly prevalent at banquets, and in women's clubs, and upon ceremonial occasions generally, when the whole proceedings are of a nature to induce a condition of hebetude in those present, and when the critical faculty is by tacit consent held in abeyance. The victims of the misguided poet are apt to have dulled senses at such times, the result of too much eating and drinking, possibly, or of the toxins 114 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL developed in the system by too many statistics or too much oratory. There are things for which even a bad poem will offer a kind of relief, and the relief is too frequently forthcoming. It sometimes happens that the ready versifier occupies a position, or possesses an influence, that makes the raising of objections, or the indulgence in anything but warm expressions of simulated delight, a delicate if not a danger- ous matter. We think of Nero and Richelieu and the German Emperor as historical examples. An instance at once modern and American is supplied by the circular letter of remonstrance that was recently sent from Panama to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives at Washington. It seems that the Governor of the Canal Zone is one of those persons who indulge in poetical propensities at the expense of their entourage, and his per- formances have become more than sensitive souls can bear, especially in a tropical climate. "It is not," says the letter, "that we who are helping to dig the canal have any objection to real poetry. But Governor Thatcher's poetry has corns on every foot, despite which he feels it his duty to board incoming steamships and read a rhymed address to the most distinguished visitor on board. He did this in the case of the late President Montt of Chile. Something should be done at once by those in authority at Washington." The accompanying exhibit enables us to share in the disturbed sensibilities of the remonstrants. "Who are loyal, strong, and brave? The Chileans, sir! Who are masters of the wave? The Chileans, sir! Who laugh at danger and the grave? Who gladly die their laud to save? Who rule where mighty waters lave? The Chileans, sir!" It must be admitted that here is a grievance. The immediate victim of this assault may have escaped unscathed because of his blissful ignor- ance of the English language, but our heart goes out to the unfortunate Americans who were compelled to stand by and listen. This Macedonian cry closes with an appeal that "all in authority read these effusions, understand our position, appreciate our difficulties, and give us relief. We do not ask for the Governor's removal. He is a well-meaning man, although misguided. But we do demand that he stick to prose, keep out of the moonlight, and not inflict verses on his helpless subordinates." History has a way of repeating itself, and the disclosure of the conditions above described recalls a similar instance which we have long cherished. There was once a schoolmaster in Dundee whose poetic offerings upon public affairs were of such a nature as to evoke a vigorous protest. His verses have not, to our knowledge, been preserved, but they were bad enough to occasion the following entry, dated 1745, in the town archives: "The Council authorize the Theasaurer to give to Mr. Lawder, one of the Masters of the Latine School of this Burrow, Two Guineas for his pains and Charges in making some poyms upon the Town of Dundie, which are now hung up in the Town House; but at same time intimate to him not to make any more of those poyms without the Magistrates' approbation." This seems to cover the case very completely, and to afford a precedent for our own official action. May it not be suggested that this judgment, in the absence of any statutory provision fitting the case, should be considered a part of the common law, and applied for the relief of the oppressed Panamanians? Our self-appointed Poets Laureate, wherever they may raise their voices under the a?gis of political station, should be gently but firmly taken in hand by some kind of authority. In the class of misguided poets we must include many for whose activities the public shares the responsibility, not merely by reason of its excess of good nature, but by reason of its uncritical approval of productions that belong upon the rubbish-heap. We have been speaking only of effusions that are taken seriously by none save their authors, of " freak" poetry that reveals to the least discriminating readers its own halting gait and manifest absurdity. But there is a great deal of bad verse that owes its existence to the applause of people who are ignorant of the very meaning of the word "poetry," but whose ears are tickled by any kind of a jingle, and whose feelings are stimu- lated by any kind of mushy sentimentality. There is no more important task for the mis- sionary work of criticism than that of laboring with those strata of the uneducated in which brummagem is thought to be precious metal, and the counterfeit coin passes undetected. For bad poetry of the sort that finds warm ad- mirers has always existed, and always will; the task of Mrs. Partington with her broom was not more discouraging than is that of the preacher of the gospel of pure literature in this unregen- erate world. But the task must not be shirked, despite its hopelessness, and here and there the rescue of a soul from the mire of vulgar im- agery and false sentiment will be accomplished, giving the worker an ample sense of reward. 1911.] 115 THE DIAL CASUAL COMMENT. The duties op the new theatre were the subject of caustic comment by Sir Henry Arthur Jones, in a lecture recently delivered at Columbia University. The English playwright, inspired by the presence in the audience of ten of the founders of the enterprise, spoke somewhat at length on the unescapable responsibility resting upon the great playhouse of "fostering a school of American drama," of "bringing about an alliance between lit- erature and the drama in America." Performances of classic plays, revivals of interesting works of the last generation, the encouragement, by occasional presentation, of plays of literary and artistic merit, hut without the power to capture immediate popular attention, — these are all objects subsidiary to the first great one, which alone can justify an institution with the national scope of the New Theatre. And it is a grave question where the worthy plays are to come from, and why the New Theatre, more than any purely commercial enterprise, may expect to bring them forth. This criticism is especially in- teresting in view of the theatre's recent production of "The Piper," surely an example of the sort of play that the lecturer had in mind. The American pro- duction is to the honor of the New Theatre; although, as Mrs. Marks, who still writes as Josephine Preston Peabody, laughingly said in an interview, they were n't "dreadfully keen " to have it until after its English success. "There had been plenty of time after it was published in book form and before the English prize-winner was announced, for any enthusiasm, if it was really felt, to be manifested on this side, and none was apparent." Mrs. Marks, in the course of rehearsals, found the American actor's inability to catch the rhythm of poetry very "har- rowing"; and she shares the opinion of many New York critics that the Piper's part has not been wisely cast, though she speaks most appreciatively of the wonderful artistry displayed by Miss Matthison in the rdle. • • • Insect book-lovers, including paste-eaters, binding-devourers, and paper-gluttons (divided into those that prefer wood-pulp, those that feast on other vegetable fibres, and those that hunger after mineral fillers), are far more numerous than is com- monly believed. The insects destructive of bindings alone may be subdivided into those whose taste is for morocco, those that delight in vellum, those whose preference leans toward calfskin, those with a plebeian fondness for the plain wood that covers some volumes, and so on. Mr. William R. Reinick, custodian of public documents at the Free Library of Philadelphia, has been for several years hot on the track of these illiterate devotees of literature, and has not only published a highly informing and useful treatise on "Insects Destructive to Books" (in "The American Journal of Pharmacy" for December, 1910, and reprinted in separate form), but hopes to give out before long some later and fuller information on the same subject. As to methods of destroying these pests, he says in con- cluding his treatise: "Cleanliness in the handling of papers, books, and documents will be of more value than all the poisons combined. Let common- sense prevail, make sanitary rules in the home and in the public library an enforced rule, and it will lessen and arrest the rapid growth of the little in- sects which feed upon our silent friends of so much value to us, besides eliminating the possibilities of contagious diseases." Rather startling, if true, is the statement that "more books and papers are de- stroyed by small forms of life in one year than by fire and water combined." On the whole, it seems safe to say of the oft-mentioned but seldom-seen book-worm, that its name is legion, and its variety innumerable. But, fortunately, we of northern lati- tudes are comparatively immune from its ravages. • • ■ A forced interpretation of Lincoln, the writer and speaker of dignified and sonorous Eng- lish, is contributed to "The North American Re- view" for February by Mr James Raymond Perry, who has convinced himself, and wishes to convince his readers, that Lincoln's prose is in reality poetry in disguise. To this end, he cuts up into lines, arbitrarily enough many times, a number of pas- sages from Lincoln's writings, presenting them thus in a certain Walt Whitman dress which does bear some visible resemblance to poetry. The Gettys- burg address indeed rises to the dignity and im- pressiveness of an elegiac poem, but not even this eloquent utterance admits of being divided into lines metrically faultless, or even approximately faultless. And when the attempt is made, as Mr. Perry cour- ageously makes it, to versify the "First Inaugural," the result is, to say the least, not convincing. Who, without a pet theory to prove, would ever discern much of real poetry in the opening of that address? "I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservation, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional." Let the reader try to cut this into verse-lengths, and then see how nearly, or how distantly, his division agrees with Mr. Perry's. If Lincoln was a poet, then every writer of good rhythmical prose — and all good prose is rhythmical — is likewise a poet. The death of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, on the 29th of January, came unexpectedly, her illness having been hut a short one. Ever since the age of thirteen she had been writing for publica- tion, and her earliest book, "The Gates Ajar," which appeared in 1868, when she was but twenty-four years old, immediately won for her a host of read- 116 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL era, their numbers rather increasing than diminish- ing as she followed up this remarkable success with novels not always so strikingly original, but always inspired with intensity of conviction and loftiness of moral purpose. The list of her books is a long one, and need not here be given even in part. Hardly a year passed, during her productive period, that did not see a new book, sometimes more than one, from her pen; and they always maintained the same high ethical and religious level, impressing their lessons indeed with some straining of incident, some undue shrillness in the note struck, and some- thing that was occasionally out of drawing in the characters delineated. But this daughter of the gifted Andover professor of "sacred rhetoric " was always true to her New England traditions, and her work is not unworthy of comparison with the best of the good old New England school to which she properly belonged. Her biography of her father, Austin Phelps, teacher at the Andover Theological Seminary, and for ten years the executive head of that institution, should not be overlooked in any review of her writings; nor should her fame as novelist wholly obscure her talent as a writer of verse. Her death at the comparatively early age of sixty-six will cause deep and lasting regret to the many who found solace and cheer in her books. A POLYGRAPHER EXTRAORDINARY, who is a very Roosevelt or William II. for mingled versatility, impetuosity, impatience of opposition, and sublime self-assurance, now makes a bid for the world's attention in books that have been translated from their original French into English, German, Span- ish, Italian, Danish, Russian, Hungarian, and even Esperanto. Dr. Gustave Le Bon, whose latest book is entitled "La Psychologic Politique et la Defense Sociale," has written also on so many other subjects that it would be easier to name the branches of learning left untouched by him than to enumerate those with which he has concerned himself. If one is to believe his friends and admirers, he possesses a sort of intuitive knowledge of all science. His "Evolution of Matter" is hailed by one reviewer as the most startling pronouncement in science since Newton's "Principia," and his "Psychology of Education" is declared by another to have already influenced a large part of the educational world. We used to take justifiable pride in the scope of Professor Shaler's studies and writings; he could apparently with equal ease compose an epic poem and write a textbook on geology; but if all the things we hear of Dr. Le Bon are true, Shaler's readiness as an encyclopaedic writer was not worthy of comparison with this extraordinary Frenchman's. • • • The prospective sale of the Huth library, one of the last of the famous collections of books got together by English bibliophiles, will disperse some literary treasures of unequaled value. Alfred Henry Huth, of Fosbury Manor near Hungerford, succeeded in 1878 to the ownership of the splendid library that his father, Henry Huth, had spent a quarter of a century or more and one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in forming. The death of the son last year seems to have left the library practically without an owner, or at least without one interested in preserving intact this rare collection, and the executors of the estate are about to place the library in the hands of Messrs. Sotheby for auction sale. Among the treasures of the collection are several fifteenth-century Bibles, notably the Mazarin for which Henry Huth paid nearly three thousand pounds, and the Faust and Schoffer which cost him considerably less, but is hardly less interesting to the book-lover. A good number of Caxtons, in- cluding "The Game and Playe of Chesse" and the "Speculum Vitae Christi," and the four Shakespeare folios, with some of the rarest quartos, are named, as well as many other first or early editions of Eng- lish classics. The joy in the bosom of collectors at the release of all these treasures, many of which will be scrambled for at fabulous prices, and the inevitable bitterness in the heart of unsuccessful bidders, are matters passing the power of pen to deal with adequately. • • • The special librarian's qualifications, or, in other words, the equipment necessary for the management of a special library, must always in- clude a good general knowledge of library science built upon a broad basis of general education. The 24th annual report of the New York State Library School closes with some remarks on "Training for Special Library Work," and maintains that "the ideal combination is a technical training in some branch or related branches, a broad general educa- tion, and library training or experience." The special library is coming into more and more promi- nence in the business and industrial world, and in the arts and sciences, thus affording new openings for our library school graduates. In regard to these newly created positions, which are sure to become more numerous as time passes, the writer already quoted says: "Though opportunities in special libraries (other than in cataloguing or clerical posi- tions) seem better at present for men than for women, there is a growing demand for both men and women of suitable personality, education, and training. From its practical character and its direct contact with men and industries, the special library should be a particularly attractive field for the young man of scientific or professional training to whom the bookish side of his profession appeals more strongly than its field work or its office routine." • • • The public library as a profitable invest- ment was the subject of a recent notable address from Mr. Hiller C. Wellman, librarian of the Springfield (Mass.) City Library, before the local Publicity Club. A surprising array of facts was placed before the audience to prove the money value of the library to the community; not that this is its chief value, but, as the speaker took occasion 1911.] 117 THE DIAL to explain, "it is just because the primary purpose of a library is not commercial that I suspect we are apt to overlook the actual cash dividends which a library yields. The library of to-day studies the industrial life of the community and endeavors to supply the books that will aid every trade and every calling that exist in the city. It is eager to meet every demand, but it goes further: it en- deavors to create the demand. It advertises; it uses every legitimate means of making its resources known. As advertising men, you may be interested to know that at least three per cent of the library's expenditure is used directly or indirectly to further this sort of advertising. The result has been an increase in the extent and variety and scope of the services rendered that few people have any idea of." To refer to a single one of these profitable activities, by furnishing the numerous foreigners of its com- munity with elementary text-books from which to acquire a knowledge of their adopted language, the Springfield library has helped many of them to secure and retain paying positions, besides helping to make them good English-speaking citizens. • • • 4 The haunting associations of a word will never be explained by any analysis of its sound- elements or any tracing of its etymology. Mr. F. M. Wells writes in the London "Book Monthly" on "Why Some English Sounds are a Delight to the Ear," adducing a number of words that have especial charm or significance to him and quoting aptly an unnamed critic's commendation of Pater, Stevenson, and Lafadio Hearn as producing literature "in which form and matter are essentially one . . . besides ful- ness, beauty and melody of sound. Words are so used as to summon to the mind a deeper, a more psychic or, if you will, spiritual feeling than the primary thought which the language superficially conveys." Every man can instance words that from his early child- hood have possessed for him unaccountable power and beauty. To the present writer the word " fairy" was one of the earliest of these magic words. Another word, which turned out to be no word at all, had acquired a peculiar and satisfying significance until, on first hearing it pronounced after having only a literary acquaintance with it, the delightful illusion was shattered. The word was "misled," which had been conceived of as the past tense of a present " misle" (pronounced mi-zel). To " misle" a person had seemed the most perfect form of humbuggery conceivable; and how much poorer the language seemed when it was learned that no such word existed! • • • Sir Francis Galton, whose recreations, accord- ing to "Who's Who," were "sunshine, quiet, and good, wholesome food," lived by their aid to the ripe old age of eighty-nine years less one month. His "Memories of My Life," which came out two years ago, reminded a too forgetful world that before achieving fame as an anthropologist (as a writer on heredity, as inventor of finger-print identification, and as a pioneer in the science of eugenics) he had already, sixty years ago, done notable things in African exploration (as chronicled in his "Narra- tive of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa" and "The Art of Travel") and in the science of meteor- ology (see his "Meteographica, or Methods of Map- ping the Weather "). But it will be for his " Hered- itary Genius," his " Inquiries into Human Faculty," and his " Natural Inheritance," that he will be best remembered. As a skilful manipulator of statistics and as a deducer from them of daring and original conclusions, he won the admiring attention of readers far beyond the limits of his own country. He de- monstrated in his own person the wisdom of choos- ing one's ancestors with care. • • • The centenary of the Academia della Crusca was celebrated at Florence last month, and the occasion was made memorable by the announce- ment that work will at once be resumed on the great Italian dictionary long ago undertaken by the Academy but apparently languishing for want of that government aid which is now promised. The famous society is to be reorganized, says the report from Florence, and one hundred thousand francs is to be appropriated for its use. Now let the sister academy in Paris bestir itself and give the world a complete, authoritative, and up-to-date dictionary of the French language. This is the age of great enterprises in the department of reference works; witness the ponderous Oxford Dictionary and the wonderful Cambridge "Encyclopaedia Britannica," as well as the "English Literature" and the "Mod- ern History" bearing the latter university's name. Richard Wagner's forthcoming autobiog- raphy, which is promised for May publication, was written in the years 1868-73 and runs to nearly twelve hundred pages of manuscript Clearer light on an interesting and variously interpreted as well as variously misrepresented character is to be ex- pected from this notable contribution to autobiog- raphical literature. The reason why this light is so tardily shed may be gathered from the following extract from the musician's own preface: "The contents of these volumes were taken down from my dictation, in the course of several years, by my friend and wife, who desired that the story of my life should be written by myself. The value of this autobiography is based on its plain truth. . . . My statements are, therefore, accompanied by exact names and figures, and consequently publication is not possible until some time after my death, if my descendants still care to undertake it" • • • John Lockwood Kipling, notable as architec- tural sculptor, artist, art-teacher, author, and illustra- tor of his more famous son's works, died in London January 29. The relations between the father and son were almost those of comradeship in their interests and occupations. Mr. Rudyard Kipling has warmly acknowledged his indebtedness to his father. THE DIAL [Feb. 16, "Everything I am and everything I hope to be," are his reported words, "I owe to my father. He taught me the way to see things and how to know things, and I have never departed from his teach- ings. I am only satisfied when my work meets with his approval." The father's memory is per- petuated, in a veiled form, in several of the char- acters of the son's books; but with all these claims to remembrance he will probably be best remem- bered (as doubtless be himself would wish to be) simply as Rudyard Kipling's father. COMMUNICA TIONS. MR. SHAW'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SHAKESPEARE. (To the Editor of The Dial.) Are you not rather inconsistent in printing, in the same issue (that of Jan. 16), an account of the Irish playwright John Synge, with a reference to his getting his dialogue through "a cbink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant-girls in the kitchen," and a paragraph about Mr. Shaw's " Dark Lady," which assumes Mr. Shaw's purpose in showing Shakespeare as likewise a "snapper-up of other men's good sayings" to have been, plainly, "a desire to make Shakespeare ridiculous"? I have taken time to get a copy of " The Red Book" for the purposes of careful perusal of Mr. Shaw's latest ebulition; and I am inclined to .think that at least a part of his object is to show a very warm appreciation of the particular sort of genius that he is willing to grant the god of the English stage; namely, not the furnishing of a great philosophy or of a working theory of life, but the getting real life down on paper in an intensely interesting and wonderfully lyrical fashion. In one of the criticisms entitled "Poor Shakespeare !" in the first volume of the "Dramatic Opinions," Mr. Shaw insists upon the over-mastering music of the early plays: "it is the score and not the libretto that keeps the work alive and fresh, and this is why only musical critics should be allowed to meddle with Shakespeare — especially early Shakespeare." A re-reading of that and other essays in the same series will serve to remind one that Mr. Shaw has never once shown "a desire to make Shakespeare ridiculous;" his attitude in the matter has been quite obscured, for most of us, by an amusing and daring epigram about Shaw and Shakespeare. Therefore, if there is humor in Mr. Shaw's having written "The Dark Lady" to assist the projected Memorial Theatre, we should call it a humor of Mr. Shaw's own particular brand, which is as far removed as possible from the "horse-play" that your rash paragrapher finds in his latest published work. Mr. Shaw has spoken so often and so clearly about Shake- speare that he is probably tired of the subject; but we wish he might be induced to clear up the present dis- cussion with one of his inimitably cogent "rejoinders." Chicago, Feb. S, 1911. Margaret Vance. THE PLEASURES OF SERIOUS READING. (To the Editor of The Dial.) I want to commend the views expressed by Mr. Cockerel] in the last paragraph of his review entitled "Six Million Years," in The Dial of Feb. 1. There is not a tenth part enough good reading done, and, furthermore, not one person in twenty-five who calls himself or herself a "great reader" has any idea of how vastly his or her life would be improved in every way if the level of reading were raised. The con- tinual newspaper and magazine reader of to-day bears the same relation to life that a Cook's tourist does to travel. If you cannot do better, why, do the best you can, of course; but if you can choose between a smat- tering and a study, or between an express trip or a single long heaven-aud-health-giving tramp, do try the little-tried once and you will never hesitate again. There are planes of readers, as there are ranking classes; but we cannot always choose our class, and we can always choose our reading. As one who has just finished John Morley's Life of Cobden and Fuller's Life of Cecil Rhodes, as one who is wandering in the footsteps of Scott and Dickens through the pages of Christian Tearle's "An American in England " and is learning both sides of the greatest modern problem by contrasting chapters from Mallock and Sidney Webb,— I do feel qualified to speak for the fascination of good reading. The infallible test of a book is the same as of that treasure referred to in the Bible, — to modernize the rust and the moth, let me say that a really "good book " leaves the reader consciously ahead in life. There are few "good books" which do not give those who absorb them a newer and higher view out over a bigger and better world. Anne Warner. St. Paul, Minn., Feb. 6, 1911. THE "THLRTEEN ORIGINAL SITUATIONS" AND ' ELEVEN ANCESTRAL WITTICISMS." (To the Editor of The Dial.) Being interested in Professor Felix E. Schelling's reference to " the thirteen original stage situations " and "the eleven ancestral witticisms," as quoted by you in your issue of January 16,1 wrote to Professor Schelling asking if he would tell me just what these situations and witticisms were. He replies that the expressions were figures of speech, and were not intended to be taken literally. Regarding the "eleven ancestral witticisms," he says that the expression " has reference to a clever saying of Miss Agnes Repplier some years ago. She was speaking on the subject of wit, and said that a learned friend of hers had informed her that all current jokes might be reduced to 'eleven ancestral witticisms.' She also told us that she remarked, upon hearing this, that she was surprised there were so many." It seems to me that her "learned friend" might better have traced the sources of current humor to "the seven original jokes," that beiug the usual expression as I have heard it, and one of long standing. In this connection 1 should say that I once wrote to Mark Twain for information about the "seven original jokes." Perhaps he saw in the question a contemplated thievery of his secret; for I only received a formal note from his secretary saying in effect that he did not know of them but had often heard of them. Professor Schelling's reference to the "thirteen orig- inal situations" is explained by him as having arisen in his mind "from some of the statements of books on dramatic technique which referred dramatic situations to a small number of possibilities." Possibly some reader of The Dial may be able to shed more definite light on the source and meaning of these expressions. Daniel Edwards Kennedy. Chestnut Hill, Mats., Feb. 7, 1911. 1911.] 119 THE DIAL An Early Victorian Romancer.* In his sketch of William Harrison Ainsworth in "The Dictionary of National Biography," Mr. Axon observes: "No biography of Ains- worth has appeared or is likely to be published." The improbable, however, frequently comes to pass; and as for biographers, no man, good or bad, who attains to any prominence is free from the possibility of undergoing their curious microscopic researches. A popular author like Ainsworth, whose pen was busy for sixty years, and who was a familiar figure in London lit- erary and journalistic circles for a quarter of a century, was, it seems to us, not so unlikely to find his biographer — though there could now be no chance that a Boswell would appear. Mr. Ellis's biography is one of which any man might be proud to be the subject — if not the author. It fills two handsome volumes, aggregating over nine hundred pages, and in- cluding fifty-six illustrations, four of which are photogravures. There is a genealogical chapter, a bibliography, and an index which alone fills seventy-four pages and should satisfy the de- mands of the most exacting critic. The story of Ainsworth's life is well planned and well told. Some deviations from a strictly chrono- logical order seem to be justified. The author shows commendable restraint and taste in not dwelling on the strictly private life of Ains- worth, with which the public need not concern itself; indeed, he almost forgets, it would seem, to mention Ainsworth's second marriage, merely referring to it several years after it took place. His admiration for Ainsworth is great indeed,— some will call it excessive. He is not wholly blind, however, to Ainsworth's defects of char- acter. Of literary criticism the book contains perhaps too little. Mr. Ellis makes no attempt to compare Ainsworth with other writers of romance or to estimate his achievement. He does to some extent compare Ainsworth's books one with another. Although "The Tower of London" has been the most popular of Ains- worth's stories, Mr. Ellis believes "The Lan- cashire Witches" to be his best. In dealing with the principal stories, the biographer de- votes considerable attention to the local scenery, the underlying basis of historical fact, and the artist's illustrations. Interesting light is thus •William Harrison Ainsworth and his Friknds. By S. M. Ellis. In two volumes. Illustrated. New York: John Lane Company. thrown on Cruikshank, who drew the illustra- tions for ten of Ainsworth's romances, and on the methods of working together adopted by author and illustrator. In claiming to be the "originator" of " The Tower of London," Cruikshank is seen in an unfavorable light; probably he was the victim of a hallucination. In the treatment of "Jack Sheppard" the ethics of the desperado romance receive due con- sideration, and the inconsistency of Thackeray in condemning Ainsworth for writing a story "infinitely more immoral than any thing Fielding ever wrote " and praising Cruikshank for " really creating the tale" is pointed out with telling effect. As a matter of fact, Ainsworth, in being censured by a part of the British public for writing "Jack Sheppard," became a kind of scapegoat; other " offenders" should have been included. Mr. Ellis puts it thus: "If it is inherently immoral to take a criminal for literary purposes and make him picturesque and inter- esting, then the greatest writers will have to stand in the same pillory as the author of Jack Sheppard. The principal characters of Shakespeare's tragedies — of Hamlet, of Macbeth, of Othello — are but murderers; Falstaff is a robber and worse. Scott must answer for Rob Roy; Fielding for Jonathan Wild; Gay for The Beggar's Opera; Schiller for The Robbers; Hood for his magnificent Eugene Aram; Dumas for his Celebrated Crimes — and so on through Literature of all times and countries." It may be added that if immorality was actually promoted by "Jack Sheppard" and the plays to which it gave rise, it is a nice question as to what share of the guilt—certainly a not incon- siderable one — belongs to the latter. In the course of an extremely busy life Ainsworth found time for several Continental journeys. Of the journey to Italy in 1830 he kept a full record, from which about thirty pages of extracts are reproduced by Mr. Ellis. This diary is full of youthful enthusiasm and shows Ainsworth's power of description to advantage. His narrative of the ascent of Vesuvius, for example, though too long to quote here, is extremely vivid. Here is an impression of Venice: "After visiting other churches and palaces, we saw the Palazzo Foscari — not that it is a show house, but merely because I felt some interest in the house itself.* It was shocking to see the deplorable state in which it is. It is an immense mansion, and must have been fitted up with great magnificence. The lower room is turned into a workshop for masons; and the Grand Hall on the first floor is hung with faded tapestry, in depressing contrast beneath the proud portraits of the Doges, Senators, and Cardinals of this once lofty and * In 1821-2 Ainsworth had published parts of a tragedy entitled "Venice, or The Fall of the Foecaris." 120 [Feb. 16. THE DIAL illustrious, but ever unfortunate line. It is in itself an emblem of Venice, of which the shell alone remains. All the spirit is fled, and the inhabitants who dwell here are no more the Venetians of old. "After dinner we rowed out to the Islands, and on our way enjoyed one of the most superb sunsets it has ever been my good fortune to witness. It was more than beautiful; the sky and sea were stained with crimson, orange, gold, and blue—all uniting and blend- ing with an infinity of shades more exquisite than the hues of a rainbow. The effect of this extraordinary relief to the spires of Venice and its picturesque outline of houses was quite wonderful. Some smoke, which was issuing from one of the islands, was tinged au couleur de rose. As the light faded away, the whole mass of the city was thrown into dark relief against the horizon and presented a picture something like a great trans- parency." In the article already referred to, Mr. Axon also remarks that Ainsworth's correspondence, when examined after his death, was found " to have but little biographical or literary import- ance." The large selection printed by Mr. Ellis does not wholly negative this view; yet several letters are of much interest from a lit- erary point of view, and all are written in a fresh, true, natural style. We quote his de- scription of Browning, written to John Macrone in July, 1836: "I had yesterday, as I anticipated, the pleasure of making your new Poet's acquaintance, and from what I saw of him — and from what I heard and saw — I am induced to form a very high opinion of him. He is full of genius. In appearance he might pass for a son of Faganini, and Maclisc and I must hide our diminished heads before his super-abundant black locks ■—while even your whiskers, improved as they are by the salt water, are insignificant compared with his lion- like ruff. But this is absurd — and as absurdity is the farthest thing removed from Mr. Browning, I ought not to connect anything of the kind with him. Sordello complete, he is to write a Tragedy for Macready—and I feel quite sure that he has great dramatic genius." We do not know whether Ainsworth under- stood " Sordello " or not; but it is pleasant to note that he recognized Browning's genius and urged Macrone to publish "Sordello"; the latter apparently would have done so in 1837 had not death prevented. Many other great Victorians figure promin- ently in Mr. Ellis's pages; the list of Ains- worth's literary friends was a long one. Thus we find Charles Lamb writing in 1823 about William Warner's " Syrinx ": "I have read Warner with great pleasure. What an elaborate piece of alliteration and antithesis! Why, it must have been a labour far above the most difficult versification. There is a fine simile or picture of Semi- ramis arming to repel a siege." Ainsworth and Charles Dickens were close friends for many years; " Boz " was a frequent guest of Ainsworth at Kensal Manor House, and the two planned in 1838 to collaborate in a work which should "illustrate ancient and modern London in a Pickwick form," but the plan came to nothing. Thackeray likewise was intimate with Ainsworth; he was very fond of Ains- worth's three little daughters, and often used to walk out to Kensal on Sunday and accompany the Ainsworths to evening service at Willesden Church. Wordsworth was also a visitor at Kensal Manor. There is no record of Ains- worth's opinion of Wordsworth; but an amus- ing letter from Mrs. Hughes to Mrs. Southey is quoted in which she intimates very distinctly that for her, as well as for Fanny Burney, the Laureate idol had more than feet of clay. Canon Barham, of '* Ingoldsby Legends " fame, took great interest in Ainsworth's work, and Ainsworth often visited Barham at his house in Amen Corner. Here also figure Sergeant Talfourd, Douglas Jerrold, G. P. R. James, Lockhart, Sir Theodore Martin, Captain Marryat, Horace Smith, Daniel Maclise, and many other important Englishmen of the forties and fifties. But the friend whose name recurs oftenest was James Crossley, of Manchester, who became president of the Chetham Society and who was one of the most bookish of men, amassing a library of over a hundred thousand volumes. His was a peculiarly devoted friend- ship, extending to almost seventy years, and Ainsworth fully recognized its value. But we must take leave of this interesting book. There is about Ainsworth's life a pathos which strikes the reader somewhat forcibly as he finishes this biography. Here was a man who, though he once spoke of himself as "the idlest of the race of authors," lived to produce forty romances and was at one time the editor of three prominent magazines. Yet so fleeting is literary fame that in his advanced years, in order to maintain his family, he was compelled to keep on writing long after he had spent him- self, and that he died in reduced circumstances and comparative obscurity. It is customary, of course, to say that Ainsworth was careless in his writing, and that if he had taken more pains he would have achieved a more lasting reputa- tion. But it will not do to say that Ainsworth was careless (cf. Ellis i. 413); and although somebody has found a few dangling participles in his works, that does not account for his pass- ing from the field of popularity. It is owing in large measure to the coming in of new fash- ions in literature and of new writers with no 1911.] 121 THE DIAL more genius than Ainsworth possessed and with perhaps not so many admirable qualities as are exhibited in his character and his best works. For this much can be said for Ainsworth: that he was far from being the least of those numerous "imitators " who followed in the wake of Scott; that he had great powers in descrip- tion and the combination of historical facts with thrilling imaginative scenes which are essentially not untrue to life; that his stories are never tainted by immoral suggestion, and never in reality make the worse appear the better; that the influence of his work on readers and writers alike has on the whole been good. By no means a great man, Ainsworth at least earned a humble place among the romancers of his day, and is cer- tainly worthy of the sympathetic and creditable biography which Mr. Ellis has produced. Clark S. Northup. The Ancients Illuminated.* The minute and laborious scholarship of the past century is at last bearing fruit that is within the reach of the ordinary public. The ancient Roman world is coming really to be understood. To books on Roman social condi- tions, such as those of Inge, Dill, Pellison, and Warde Fowler; to the archaeologically flavored works of Thomas, Boissier, and Mau-Kelsey; to text-books on Roman life and Roman monu- ments, like those of Johnston and Platner and Carter-Huelsen; and to works of historical fiction, like Mrs. Elizabeth Champney's "Ro- mance of Romeand Mrs. Anne C. E. Allinson's brilliant essay-stories in " The Atlantic." — to these are now added "The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome," by the well-known author of "A Friend of Caesar," " A Victor of Salamis," etc.; and "Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul," by Professor Tucker of the University of Melbourne, whose popularization entitled "Life in Ancient Athens " appeared four years ago. Both these books are frank attempts to stim- ulate interest in Roman antiquity in those who may not have had the privilege of special study in ancient history and the classical literatures. "Political Corruption and High Finance," "The Accumulation and Expenditure of Wealth," •The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome. By William Stearns Davis, Professor of Ancient History in the University of Minnesota. New York: The MacraiUan Co. Lite in the Roman Wohld of Neho and St. Paul. By T. 0. Tucker, Professor of Classical Philology in the University of Melbourne. New York: The Macmillan Co. "Private Munificence," "Marriage, Divorce, Childlessness," "Why the Roman Empire Fell," — such are some of the topics on which Professor Davis writes, with a range so wide that his book is almost deserving of the title of " Roman Life." In his attractive chapter on "The Business Panic of 33 A.D." he begins by delivering the "stunning blow between the eyes " recognized in these days as the sine qua non in the publish- ing industry, and the reader is filled with lively anticipation of travelling the hedonistic, if not the royal, road to learning. Professor Davis's succeeding chapters do not quite fulfil the promise of the first. They are so closely packed with masses of data, and court so little the graces of presentation, as to savor somewhat of lecture-notes and the card- catalogue; the proof is carelessly read; there are occasional gaucheries which mar the other- wise nervous and rapidly-moving style; and there are inaccuracies in statement of fact. One might find fault, too, with the use in the same paragraph of evidence from Horace and Jerome, or from Ammianus and Pliny. To treat as a unity the diversities of a period embracing three or four centuries, or of the lands of an empire extending from Spain to Syria and from England to Egypt, may indeed find its excuse in the homogeneity of Roman civilization; but, after all, when we think of a historian doing the like for Great Britain or the United States, we begin to realize the possi- bilities of such license. And again, the book contains too much detail for the lay reader, and too little apparatus for the scholar. On the whole, Professor Davis would have better ful- filled his declared purpose of conveying to the average reader a realizing sense of "the realm of the great god Lucre" if he had presented his points of view in a series of essays, making sparing use of representative facts from the great mass at hand; or if he had utilized again the historical novel, a vehicle which he has shown himself so competent to employ. The lighter form of conveyance would at the same time have conciliated a larger audience and made stronger impression on the individual. We hasten to add that Professor Davis's work has pronounced virtues, and will be found highly serviceable. It has a wide range, is pre- sented in orderly and effective manner, and really illuminates; and it is the only book in the language that covers the ground in this manner. Those who wish to rehabilitate in imagination a great period in the history of the great people whose civilization lies so broadly 122 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL and deeply at the foundations of our modern life will place this work upon their shelves. Professor Tucker's "Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul" is composed upon a different plan. Its purpose is to pre- sent a picture of the universal life of the period. It is not only avowedly popular, but really so. Its author makes most judicious selection of material, omitting all that is superfluous, and yet sets before his readers an abundance of in- formation. He refrains, in a manner quite heroic for a professor of the classics, from the use of Latin quotations and expressions; he is chary even of proper names, and displays no slight degree of ingenuity in avoiding them. "Broadway" for Via Lata, "backbone " for spina, " many-cornered" for polygonal, "an old grandfather, the forerunner of the modern pantaloon," "a cunning sharper," "a garrul- ous glutton with a fat face (known as Chops)," and "an amorous Simple Simon " for Pappus, Maccus, Bucco, and Dossennus of the Atellana, — these are a few examples of the humane Pro- fessor's dread of frightening the reader with technicalities and foreign phraseology, a dread which is to be regretted only so far as it seems responsible for the almost total absence of illus- trative passages from Latin literature even in translation. Professor Tucker's language is natural, straightforward, and easy, and is occasionally beautified by quiet literary ornament. His lucidity of style is equalled by the lucidity of his arrangement; the first eight chapters, on the Empire and its administration, the character of the Capital and its Emperor, etc., introduce the main body of the book. Nine chapters which describe the house and the private life of its inhabitants, and the concluding six chapters, on the army, religion, study, philosophy, art, and burial, sum up certain of the larger phases of existence in an age which for fulness has rarely been paralleled. Sometimes, as in " The Social Day of a Roman Aristocrat," the chap- ters are semi-narrative. Everywhere the author displays the natural teacher's bent by so paral- leling ancient with present-day conditions as to make antiquity rise before his audience in flesh and blood. A hundred and twenty-five illus- trations, including maps and plans, contribute to the usefulness of the work, though their elegance is not always worthy of the text. In spite of the popular nature of Professor Tucker's book, it never lacks thorough dignity, and is throughout a work of sound scholarship. The student of Roman literature and history will find its sane and sensible presentations at the same time entertaining and helpful. One of the impressions carried away from the reading of these two books is that of the ex- ceeding modernness of antiquity. We seem to stand on familiar ground especially in Professor Davis's account of the crimes and follies of the ambitious rich. We are told of the anti-treat law of A.D. 67, of a block system of controlling votes, of the centralization of wealth, of union labor and strikes, of pall-bearers who stood for the "closed shop" in their business, and of "graft" in a thousand forms. A big estate supports 4117 slaves, 3600 yoke of oxen, and 257,000 other animals, and has funds amount- ing to $3,000,000. Hadrian says of the Alex- andrians that " their only god is money"; and we are assured that Caesar would have sub- scribed to Walpole's alleged assertion that" all men have their price." Altogether, Professor Davis's book might almost be entitled " Muck- raking in Roman Antiquity." Despite his care to paint in the lights as well as the shadows, the nature of his subject leads him inevitably to present facts of such character as to strengthen belief in the adage that the love of money is the root of all evil. It leaves us no happier. Let the newspapers and the muckraking magazines and book publishers look to it: in spite of the purification they are working, too much setting forth of one kind of truth is making us a nation of pessimists. We are put in mind by it all of the ancient historian who says that the time has come "when we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies." Professor Tucker's book, by reason of the universal sweep of his subject, leaves us with a truer and more encouraging picture of Roman society. It should be read for the sake of a background and corrective for special works like Professor Davis's, whose fault of producing distorted impressions is inherent rather than due to the author. Grant Showerman. Lykic Ireland.* Whether Mr. Redfern Mason, in his " Song Lore of Ireland," has written the story of Erin's chief contribution to the world's music, or whether he has given us a moving picture of the island's many yet lessening disasters, are questions, to each of which, it seems to us, can be made an affirmative or negative reply. * The Song Lore of Ireland. Erin's Story in Music and Verse. By Redfern Mason. New York: Weasels & Bissell Co. 1911.] 123 THE DIAL Indeed, Mr. Mason calls his book alternately a History of Irish Songs or a History of the Irish People. We shall, however, deal here in the main with the music, and only second- arily with the people. Mr. Mason, although not a native son of Erin, is an ardent partisan, and his narrative glows with a sympathy to which the reader readily responds, and burns with an indignation that, kindles the corre- sponding emotion as it is intended to do.: The unfortunate country of which he treats has sent forth a series of songs which represent her every mood and display her every characteristic — her lightrhearted gaiety, her love of family and kindred, her religious enthusiasms, her hatred of wrong, her devotion to the abused and long-suffering fatherland. Ireland has always been the lyrist among nations. Her principal instrument has been the harp, and from time immemorial she has poured forth her full heart in song. The record goes back to a period long before the Christian era, and the claims which are made for her priority in many forms of musical invention and construction are curious and edifying. Unhappily, however, the power of musical de- velopment and the vigor of continuous and sys- tematic production do not seem to have been hers. Richey, in his "Short History of the Irish People," makes the following statement: "As to Celtic music, the separate airs handed down from remote antiquity are unequalled in variety, tenderness, and expression; but Irish music has never risen beyond an air; operas, oratorios and concerted pieces have been pro- duced by people of inferior sympathies but greater industry." That is to say, Irish music is of the naive and primitive type ; it has never entered upon the phase of elaborate exploitation of its resources, nor upon the yet higher stage of full expression of man's conscious and deeper experiences. Mr. Mason says, perhaps with pardonable enthusiasm: "Irish song is the expression of Celtic genius in music and verse, in every-day life and history. . . . Gerald Barry, the Welsh monk and historian, hater of the Irish though he was, declares that Erin's harpers surpass all others. That was in the twelfth century. Ireland's musical skill had won her fame long ages before that, however; when the wife of Pepin of France wanted choristers for her new abbey of Nivelle, it was not to Italy, to Germany, or to England, that she sent, but to Ireland. That was in the seventh century. In Eliza- bethan days the songs of Ireland won praise even from her enemy and traducer, Edmund Spenser. Shake- spearian enigmas, long insoluble, become plain in the light of the poet's acquaintance with Celtic lore. Bacon of Verulam declared that of all instruments the Irish harp had the sweetest note and the most prolonged. Irish airs found their way into the virginal books of Tudor and Jacobean days. Byrde and Purcell wrote variations on Irish tunes. As in peace, so it was in war. England's battles have been fought and won to Irish music. The United States won its freedom to the strains of ' All the Way to Galway,' known all over the world as 'Yankee Doodle,' and while the English marched out of Yorktown, the pipes squealed the tune of < The World Turned Upside Down.' Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Berlioz all confess the beauty of Irish melody." The structure of these songs is, of necessity, simple, as is the case with the folk-song every- where. They are a combination of words and music which came together into the world at one birth. They are written in primitive keys, which signify their far-off origin. They have been handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter; and they have that variety of versions which such a descent brings with it perforce. These songs have no known authors; they belong to the whole people, and the tribe, or district, or kingdom, or even nation, is their creator. This is true of the old and original Gaelic songs ; when the Anglicization of Ireland began and progressed to its inevitable conclu- sion, the individual composer appeared and made songs for the men and women about him; but then the individual composer was possessed of the national feeling and predisposition, and he followed the model of the ancient and per- vasive popular song. A primitive classification of these songs, as found in an old Gaelic battle-story, divides them into the Soontree, or sleepy music, lullabies, which Mr. Mason declares to be the most beauti- ful in the world; the Goltree,or the music of sad- ness, including the keens and laments; the Gauntee, or mirthful music, jigs and reels which were danced under the trees or in the halls of the chiefs and castellans. This does not exhaust the characterization of Irish music. There are hymns belonging to both religions, Pagan and Christian; battle-odes, songs accompanying the daily work, agricultural and other; mystical songs full of the fairy lore which fills the island from sea to sea. The musician of Ireland was not necessarily the poet; the bard and the minstrel fulfilled distinct functions. The former occupied an important place in the household of the chief or king in the tribal and communistic organization which persisted to so late a period in Ireland; he was part of the reigning pageantry, he was the chronicler of the dynasty's great achieve- ments, he was a counsellor, he received an 124 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL elaborate education. The music usually came from another hand, although the bard often was musician as well. The bards and minstrels continued in Ireland down into the eighteenth century, and the songs of one of the last of them, Carolan, received the commendation of Beethoven. The Irish bard, however, in the main took only short flights of song; he was capable of the lyric ecstasy, but he had not the construc- tive ability nor the power of consecutive labor which bring forth the epic. The three great cycles of Irish adventure and achievement—the triumph of the mythological Tuatha de Danann over the Fomorians, the heroic tales of Deirdre and of Queen Meve of Connaught, the Red Branch Series, and the more simple and human narratives of Finn MacCool and his son Ossian, come down to us in prose versions like the sagas of Iceland. Some Irish poet is yet to appear and do for these separate legends what Tennyson did for the Arthurian cycle; he will weave them into the national epic of Ireland. The number of the songs now to be found in collections, which have been made with great care, is very large. Mr. Mason gives in his book about forty; and this is only a small fraction of extant and authenticated pieces. Among them are specimens of the various compositions which have always solicited the Irish muse. "The Last Rose of Summer" appears in its original form, somewhat sophisticated by Moore, and not to its advantage. The famous " Coulin" occurs first in its prime simplicity, then as sung in another part of the country, and then as embroidered by the harpers ambitious for instrumental effects. We find Ti Plough Song, a Smith Song, a Spinning Song, several jigs, reels, laments, the Cry of the Banshee, "The White Cockade," "All the Way to Galway," and a stirring march. Mr. Mason carries his history through the Gaelic period, the Danish and Norman invasions, the Tudor tyranny, the Cromwell persecution, the Jacobite illusion, and into the morning redness of to-day. In spite of everything, the Irishman has main- tained himself, has always expressed himself in lyric outbursts of joy or indignation, and has never abandoned the hope which has been always on the eve of success and fulfilment. Mr. Mason inspires his critic with a measure of his unquenchable ardor. Mr. Grattan Flood, in his exhaustive " His- tory of Irish Music," quotes the following state- ment from Sir Hubert Parry: "Irish Folk Music is probably the most human, most varied, most poetical in the world, and is particularly rich in tunes which imply considerable sym- pathetic sensitiveness." Mr. Douglas Hyde, in his " Early Gaelic Literature," makes a strong plea for the study of the bardic writings and the accompanying music, on account of its antiquity and its representation of primitive social conditions; and we have all heard what Matthew Arnold had to say on the same subject. Through the labors of O'Curry and Petrie, and a later band of scholars, the light of scientific research has been cast upon the dark places and the story has been successfully unfolded. Throughout Gaelic times, Ireland, in spite of fearfully untoward conditions, continued pro- ductive in literature and music; when English superseded the ancient tongue, she illustrated her vicissitudes with history and poetry and oratory and song, and at the present hour she has a band of patriots who are also writers, and who have given ber what she has hitherto lacked—a real dramatic literature. The melo- dies of Moore were a notable achievement; the old songs were again presented to the world, and furnished with new words which in most cases married the fitting verse to the expectant song; and the later poets and musicians have added to the credit and honor of the country. The book of Mr. Mason deserves only praise; he has done very well a work by no means easy. He has the gift of clear and picturesque nar- rative; he is a musician of learning and under- standing; he knows his subject, and has pre- sented it in attractive guise ; he has not been the antiquarian only, but everywhere has brought the human interest into the foreground; if he is evidently a partisan, he can perhaps be for- given when one follows the events as he discloses them. The book is a credit to the publishers, and it should certainly be attractive to the gen- eral reader as well as to the lover of music. Louis James Block. Mr. Herbert W. Paul is the editor of a volume of "Famous Speeches" by British statesmen, from Crom- well to Gladstone. The volume has a general introduc- tion, and a special introductory note is provided for each of the selections. Sixteen names are represented, besides that of Lincoln, who is the one exception to the rule which confines the contents to British examples. Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. are the publishers of this work. A different sort of volume is the American Oratory of To-day," which Professor Edwin Du Bois Shorter has edited, and which comes to us from the South-West Publishing Co. Here we have only ex- tracts, and the writers represented (to the number of nearly two hundred) are living, save for a few who have very recently died. 1911.] 125 THE DIAL The Latest Study of Moliere in English.* In a prefatory note, the author of the latest of the encouraging number of recent Moliere studies in English,! se^ forth his plan and his point of view. He purposes to present, first, "the facts of Moliere's life, stripped of all the legends which compass it about; second, to trace his development as a dramatist, making it plain how cautiously he advanced in his art and how slowly he reached the full expansion of his power; and third, to show his intimate relation to the time in which he lived, the glit- tering beginning of the reign of Louis XIV." Professor Matthews calls his book a biography, and has " endeavored always to centre attention on Moliere himself." Of the three avenues by which Professor Matthews has approached his subject, he has evidently been attracted most by the middle one, i.e., Moliere's development as a dramatist. In discussing this development he has wisely kept the plays in their chronological order, thereby avoiding confusion and impressing the reader with the continuity and the homogeneity of the great Frenchman's growth as a dramatic power. Indeed, this part of the plan has been so well conceived and so cleverly executed, especially as regards the lighter plays and the bearing of the unusually intelligent theatre- going Parisian public upon the length and breadth of Moliere's career as a playwright, that one may reasonably be inclined to regret that the author has not confined himself to the discussion of this development. But the book is intended as a biography. It is not a history of Molidre's dramatic career, but a biography of Moliere himself which the author has " sought to establish solidly on the admitted facts," using no "legends" and refraining from borrowing hints or drawing inferences from such pam- phlets as "Elomire Hypocondre" and "La Fameuse Comedienne." The intention clearly has been dictated by scholarly integrity. It is not, however, a critic's province to dis- cuss an author's intentions; rather is it his * Moliere. His Life and his Works. By Brendu Matthews, Professor of Dramatic Literature in Columbia University. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. t Beginning with Henry M. Trollope's " Life of Moliere," London, 1905, we have had: Karl Mantzius's "Moliere and his Times" (translated from the Danish), London and New ^ork, 1905; Marzials's Moliere in the Miniature Series of Great Writers, 1905: H. C. Chatfield-Taylor'g "Moliere, a Biography," New York, 1906; A. R. Waller's "The Plays of Moliere," 6 vols.. London, 1902-08; and Curtis Hidden Page's Moliere, in the French Classics for English Readers Series, two volumes, New York, 1908. function to discover how thoroughly they have been carried out, and to state his findings as impartially as may be. It seems to me, in the first place, that Professor Matthews has scarcely distinguished between biography and history. Montesquieu's distinction is still valid. He said that biography studies the peculiarities of individual character, and history the general aspects of the society in which these peculiar- ities appeared. The general aspects of French society contemporaneous with the great humor- ist are placed before us with fine integrity; the author's characterization of Louis XIV. as mon- arch and as man is done in masterly manner, although the courtly background of the lighter plays is scarcely more than sketched in; but what of Moliere the man? Do we not miss that coloring, that vivifying power which is so essen- tial in the process of presenting the subject of a biography as a living human being? The modern view of history is hostile to the anecdote, but biography cannot well get along without it. What if it be not true that the king invited the actor to sit at meat with him ?— what if it be not proved that Bellocq the poet offered to help him make the king's bed? These "legends " are truer than many a fact may be, because they are generic and stand for a long series of facts which it would l)e futile to es- tablish, and of which the significance is that Moliere, being an actor, was a social outcast with whom courtiers would not associate. This fact being either established or corroborated by these legends, it follows that Moliere must often have been deeply offended, and, being human, must sometimes have reacted, especially when opportunity offered during the building of a comedy. But it is exactly this biographical point of view that Professor Matthews eschews. He separates the man from the playwright, on the ground that the construction of plays is the most objective of the arts. He neglects the man, he does not make him live before us in his characteristics; the man merely estab- lishes the Illustre Theatre, fails, goes to the country, comes back to Paris, and dies on schedule time. But the playwright we see at work very clearly; and if the scope of the book had been limited to that of a history of Moliere's dramatic career, it would have found an empty niche waiting for it. Moliere created the era of modern comedy. Was a new era ever created objectively, in cold blood? Is not Moliere's deep melancholy alter- nating with rollicking fun proof enough of his abiding subjectivity? Your objective man or 126 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL woman is wont to have a cheerful or grave, but an equable temper, and creates no new eras. I venture to doubt whether an equable temper was ever humoristic also: the millennium is not yet. If Professor Matthews had stooped to the legend of the Due de la Feuillade who rubbed Moliere's nose against the buttons of his coat till it bled, or to the legend of his quarrels with Armande Bejart, the reader woidd not have received an altogether incorrect im- pression of the dynamics of Moli&re's sensitive- ness. Bruneti&re points out how the ascendency of women in the seventeenth century, which is at the root of its contrast with the sixteenth, hampered Moliere's growth and accounts for his not being greater than he is. Considering his penetrating genius and the excellent educa- tion he had had, he must have known that this ascendency was a fact. Besides, he was a naturalist,—i.e., he insisted on seeing things as they are. But society in his day insisted on warping nature into artificiality and con- vention, with their corollaries of "humbug and pretense." As Professor Matthews points out, Moliere hated these. Would mere academic dis- like, or the requirements of the ticket-office, or a laudable desire to write a good play, nerve a human being to such attacks upon women as we find "Les Precieuses Ridicules" and the "Femmes Savantes "to be? or to such an attack upon woman-dominated society as is "Le Misanthrope"? No; indignation, hate, underlie these. Is hate not a very subjective passion, and is it not always caused by personal incidents and conditions which the hater finds unbearable? The "legends" tell what these incidents were or might be. Molifire reacted, fought back; it is not possible that a man of his high seriousness had that lukewarm pleasant thing, "a message," which the author twice asserts he had. It had not yet been invented. Again, Moliere lived at a time when the clergy were an all-pervading power, which—as far as he and those he loved were concerned — was exerted to keep him and them in a position of ignominious contempt, and who, unless he ab- jured his great life, would even make his death an occasion for insult. And yet is there only objective criticism in "Tartuffe"? Moliere had a grumpy, grasping father, and he himself delighted in generous expenditure for his wife and his friends. And yet is it mere coincidence that his comedy fathers are all grumpy and grasping towards their children? Moliere lost his mother in boyhood, — there are practically no mothers in his comedies; and what a carica- ture Madame Pernelle is! —yet was this owing to the fact that there was no "old woman " in his company? Indeed, I make bold to surmise that in suppressing the "legends" and in basing his biography only on "the admitted facts," Professor Matthews has merely invented a new method of expressing his opinion. The sort of reader to whom this biography is addressed cannot fail to discover that Professor Matthews has not always succeeded in keeping his foothold firmly on the admitted facts. A quotation will illustrate the author's procedure in this matter. He says, page 49: "These were the . . . performers Moliere in his boyhood had seen in the open street, at the fair of Saint- Germain, and perhaps also in the playhouse itself (if it was a fact that he was taken to the theatre by his grandfather)." On page 27 we are told that "it is likely that she—Madeleine B^jart—had hoped to become a countess," and on page 179 that "it is possible that this with- drawal of4 Don Juan' was made a condition for the ultimate approval of ' Tartuffe.'" These and many other similar facts are not yet admitted, as the author duly indicates; but that they have been used shows how difficult it is to carry out the programme he lays down in the preface. More serious is a slip like that on page 22, where the author states that the Illustre Theatre was housed in a tennis court "owned by a man named Metayer." But this court was the Mestayers' (joint — or share- renters') court. There was, of course, no man named Metayer. The business was transacted by Noel Gallois, the tennis master,* who signed the lease, the rent being 1900 livres a year. On page 83 the author makes Louis Bejart die just after the first performance of the Etourdi, which on page 33 he puts at 1653, although Grimarest's date has been discarded by Lefranc (1906) and others for that of La Grange, who mentions 1655. But in the immense labor of building a book of this kind one is fortunate in escaping with the very few errors of this sort that the book contains. I hope that a word or two concerning the English of the work may not be considered im- proper. When anyone takes pleasure in a thing, he is made to " joy in" it. When he has cause for an angry protest, that protest becomes "ex- acerbated." And Moliere "bodies forth " his interpretation of life. At the same time, to expose becomes "to show up," to address "to hold forth," to resign " to drop out," to exhibit •See "Le Molieriste," 1885-86, p. 123; or Aug. Vita, "Le Jeu de Paume dee Metayers," Lemerre, 1883. 1911.] 127 THE DIAL "to show off." On page 97, poor Moliere is made to " work against time," and to be " ready to the minute." It is a question whether or no Madame de Rambouillet was herself only " half an Italian," or whether "the immediate appeal of the playwright is to the eyes of the spectators and to the ears of the auditors in the playhouse itself." It is agreed that Moliere was a realist; but why he should as such not brood over the darker aspects of humanity, which the conjunc- tion " however much" (page 91) would seem to deny him the right to do, the author does not ex- plain. At the end of the book no one exceptacol- lege student would have a legitimate excuse for not knowing that MoliSre had been nourished on Rabelais and Montaigne, that he had a hearty detestation for humbug of all sorts, that he was a humorist, that he had had thorough instruc- tion in philosophy, or that in the Italian plays the acting occurred in the neutral ground be- tween the houses. These repetitions, and a little padding here and there, might easily have been avoided. When all is said and done, there remains the very praisworthy effort of which this book is a token. That professors of modern literatures should begin more and more to join urbanity with scholarship, and even to address the general reader now and then, is a hopeful sign,—hope- ful also for American scholarship itself. Pro- fessor Matthews is a modern pioneer in this respect, and on that ground alone deserves the most cordial recognition, the more so because he has had the courage to do this at a time when philological erudition of an almost physical type has been the surest road to a reputation for soundness. _ _ F. C. L. van Steenderen. An Impressionist in Spain.* Mr. C. Bogue Luffmann's "Quiet Days in Spain" is most appropriately named. Mr. Luffmann, already known as the author of "A Vagabond in Spain," confesses here to feeling a world weariness and to seeking a rest cure among the quiet hills of Spain. He shuns the towns, browses contentedly about the country, visiting forty-two of the forty-nine provinces during the nine months of his stay. At first he is conscious of the guilt of idleness, and feels that he must be off and busy; but he restrains •Qoibt Days in Spain. By C. Bogue Luffmann. New York: E. P. Dntton & Co. himself, and as he reclines upon a hillside look- ing over Cordova he thus communes aloud: "Shall I not dare to lie at ease upon the grass, to be warmed by the sun, to smell the odours of clean earth and pungent weed; may I not read my history here, and for a time rest unconcerned? What need I to care about news and the business of the world? Here is enough, for I can dream, and ponder over the past." In order to gain a knowledge of conditions of life and the nature of certain rural industries, Mr. Luffmann spends the winter upon a vine- yard of thirteen hundred acres situated in the highland between Malaga and Granada, while he passes the summer in what remains of an old Bernardine monastery on the Vega of Malaga. In these out-of-the-way spots he gathers much curious information about domestic customs, which he gives us in a discursive and gossipy manner none the less agreeable when the dis- connected observations are apropos of nothing. Many of these sketches of Spanish life are vividly and accurately drawn. Together with all this, however, there is no lack of soulful passages. Mr. Luffmann every- where seeks an impression. This he cannot always secure, and in plain old Santiago he is obliged to confess: "I can say no more than that I have seen Santiago, for I had no fine feel- ings there, and where one does not feel one does not live." He fares somewhat better elsewhere. At Covadonga, for example, he is impressed as follows: "T leapt the torrents and drank from dripping stones and calm, arrested pools. I tired, I rested, gathered strength, and must needs go on. Hills were below and above me, and valleys near and far. . . . "I fought with the bumble-bees for the honey within the throats of the large purple flowers of the wild nettle. I gathered nosegays and sniffed and chewed them as a child, and child-like threw them away. Where the ground was sure, I chased little blue and brown butter- flies, but without reason, for taking me for a Franciscan they settled on my hands. I drank more and more water, for the air lightened with every step, and there came that longing we have in mountain heights to be washed and pure. I rolled up my sleeves and let my arms sink to their elbows in an icy pool held by the ooze on the mountain-side. Then I lay on a mossy slab and felt it would be better if I lay beneath, in the con- viction that there I should be undisturbed forever. But freshening, a supple ash-plant waved in my face, and all the hard years slipped away. I made me a whistle with a high plaintive note like that of a wounded bird; so I took a thicker piece with a lip which almost filled my mouth; this had a full, challenging sort of sound and stimulated me to a quick march up the mountain. I climbed, I blew, and I laughed at my childishness and pride in small things. Then I came into the pres- ence of the great, for I arrived at the summit of what proved to be the highest peak for miles around. It was no great height, four thousand feet or so; but all in sight of it was mine !— to the east, mountains and 128 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL mist; to the north and the south, mountains and mist; and towards the west, the light of the setting sun. Far below lay wonderful valleys, castles, trees, and fields, and the shrine of Covadonga; around me swept buoyant and sustaining air, which said to my soul, 'Rejoice, thou art free I' So I sat me down on this crown of the world; and, looking round to see nothing I feared, there, with the rude pipe of my making, I blew out the song of my heart 1" We appreciate Mr. Luffmann's exaltation, and are glad to know that he was happy; but we are sorry that he could not see the indelicacy of printing such intimate heart-throbbings in a book and selling them for money. Reduced one-half, the work would be increased in value. George G. Brownell. Vegetarian Biology.* It is a pleasant duty devolving upon the writer to record in these columns from time to time the passing of a biological "paradoxer,"— one who thinks on a different plane from the rest of mankind, and as a result of this intel- lectual isolation and independence is able to solve the deepest problems of nature and life with a deftness and circumstance that can but compel the admiration of ordinary mortals. Each of these "paradoxing" individuals has his own particular brand of metaphysical eye- water, which when properly applied enables us to see not only how stupid we have previously been, but also how really simple an affair the universe is if only one's vision has the pre- scribed angle and acuteness. A worthy successor to the spiral philosopher and the vociferously immoral Italian who felt it his duty to point the way to the " unenlightables " is to be found in Mr. Hermann Reinheimer, the author of a book entitled "Survival and Reproduction." With the customary caution of its kind, the book starts off in a perfectly orthodox, if some- what obscure, fashion. For quite thirty pages the reader is led along through the mazes of a metaphysical discussion of evolution, with nothing in particular to excite his interest or arouse his suspicions, unless the very prosiness and orthodoxy of it has that effect. Then, no longer to be restrained, the cat pops suddenly out of the bag, in this wise: "It also follows that animals, instead of wasting time and energy in fighting and depredation, or in the search for «hosts' for parasitic indulgences, might by furthering the interests of a bountiful vegeta- •StmvrvAL and Reproduction. A New Biological Out- look. By Hermann Reinheimer. London: J. M. Watkins. tion almost indefinitely multiply their means of sustenance while at the same time justifying and ennobling their existence." This brilliant and profound thought strikes the keynote of the book. The author, like all good paradoxers, takes himself and his vegetarian philosophy most seriously, but this is a difficult thing for anyone else to accomplish. Try as one will to be properly respectful and serious about so weighty a matter, there creeps into his mind the notion of a large and hungry lion " justify- ing and ennobling his existence" by cultivat- ing, with the immortal Sairey, a taste for "cowcumbers." In Part II. of the book the author relates his peculiar ideas respecting nutrition to the different modes of reproduction observed in the organic world. The general upshot of the discussion is that: "Throughout we found it confirmed that the occurrence of antithetic developments is due to dysteleological function, i.e., physiological transgression." This may not be a particularly illuminating conclusion as it stands, but interpreted it is to be understood to mean that one should be a vegetarian. A really enormous mass of facts and speculations culled from recent and classical biological lit- erature is by truly Procrustean methods worked into the book. The breadth of the author's reading, and the zeal and diligence which have gone into the preparation of the volume are remarkable, and would, in a better cause, be worthy of all praise. But after all the marshal- ling of the heavy artillery of technical scientific data and hypotheses is over, the case reminds one of Eugene Field's "Militiaman": "He revels in scenes of blood and gore, Where the terrible bomb is hurled; He slaughters the foe and calls for more, And he wears his mustache curled." Raymond Pearl. A volume of " Essays in American History," pub- lished by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., is dedicated to Professor Frederick Jackson Turner upon the occasion of his presidency of the American Historical Associa- tion. The volume is the work of ten men, all of whom were once numbered among Professor Turner's students at the University of Wisconsin, and has been written and collected "out of the love and respect of the authors for the scholar and friend to whom it is dedi- cated." The writers of these essays (one of them a woman) all occupy at present chairs in American col- leges from Wellesley to Oregon, and from Wisconsin to Tnlane, thus extending over the whole country the stimulating ideals and methods of the man who supplied them with inspiration. The volume exhibits high qualities of scholarship, and embodies the results of several important original investigations. 1911.] 129 THE DIAL Briefs on New Books. a near view of A two-volume work, extending to a great inventor nearly a thousand pages, has been at hi, work. prepared by Mr. Frank Lewis Dyer and Mr. Thomas Commerford Martin on "Edison, his Life and Inventions" (Harper). Mr. Dyer is connected as general counsel with the Edison Lab- oratory, and Mr. Martin was at one time president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. "Well qualified for the task which they undertook, they have been ably assisted in its execution by "many loyal associates," as their preface explains, and have had the express sanction and the personal aid of the inventor himself and his wife. In fact, Mr. Edison's Imprimatur is prefixed to the work, and it may safely be received as an authoritative, even though not, while its subject still lives, as the "definitive" or final biography which its authors say they have designed it to be. At any rate, it is much fuller and, especially to scientists, more satis- factory than Mr. Francis Arthur Jones's similar work of three years ago. The history of the prin- cipal Edison inventions is set forth with a thorough understanding of technicalities, but in language not beyond the ordinary reader's comprehension. Naturally it is the inventor rather than the man that is the chief object of the writers' study and portrayal, though the touch of human nature is by no means wanting to their pages. One notable chapter, the last one in the book, is devoted to "The Social Side of Edison," and characteristic actions and utterances of his thickly sprinkle all the preceding chapters. What he has to say on the educational need of the hour is worth quoting, in part, as rather amusingly characteristic. "What we need," he declares, "are men capable of doing work. I wouldn't give a penny for the ordinary college graduate, except those from the institutes of technology. Those coming up from the ranks are a darned sight better than the others. They are n't filled up with Latin philosophy, and the rest of that ninny stuff. ... In three or four centuries, when the country is settled, and commercialism is dimin- ished, there will be time for the literary men. At present we want engineers, industrial men, good business-like managers, and railroad men." An appendix contains, among other interesting details, a good description, with drawings, of the new Edison storage battery; also a 28-page list of domestic patents taken out by the inventor, and a summary enumeration of his 1239 foreign patents. A full index concludes the work, and numerous illustrations, including portraits of Mr. Edison in a variety of attitudes (not poses), are scattered through the volumes. Those who dislike "Latin philosophy and the rest of that ninny stuff" will heartily enjoy this faithful account of one who, though not a Latin philosopher, is something of an American philosopher, in his way, as well as a marvellously gifted inventor. Turgenev and Mr' J- A> T- UoJd'8 "Tw0 Russian Toutov compared Reformers: Ivan Turgenev, Leo and contrasted. Tolstoy" (Lane) might just as well and perhaps better have been called "Two Russian Romancers," since it is rather more a study of their literary art than of their aims and methods in the way of reform. But any faithful interpretation of the two men, especially of Turgenev, must present them first and foremost as great writers, winning a hearing through the consummate mastery of their art far more than by the substance of their doctrines. How greatly the artist predominated over the re- former in the older man shows itself in his dying message to his "good and dear friend," with whom he was by temperament in perpetual discord, the recluse of Yasnaya Polyana. "I write to you before everything else," he says, "to tell you how happy I have been to be your contemporary, and to ex- press to you my last and immediate prayer. My friend, return to literature! Reflect that this gift has come to you from the Source of all things." Contrasting the genius of the two authors, Mr. Lloyd points out, in apt phrase, that "if Turgenev may be described as a gourmet of life, Tolstoy may be described as a gourmand. Turgenev communi- cates the aroma of a half-forgotten scene: Tolstoy lives it over again, reproducing the actual physical delight or pain that he had experienced in it." The book, divided into two unequal parts, discusses Turgenev in the first two-thirds of its 330 pages, and Tolstoy in the remaining third, following each author through a chronological survey of his works. From the title one might reasonably expect a rather more definite and detailed statement of the partic- ular reforms for which these two men stand, in the author's opinion; and he might perhaps instructively have shown a stronger causal connection between early excesses, especially in Tolstoy's case, and later disgusts and weariness and inclinations toward asceticism. It is, however, a carefully studied and richly suggestive piece of work that the author has given us, and like Mr. Maude's notable biography of Tolstoy it has an especial and unforeseen timeli- ness. Portraits and Russian scenes fittingly illus- trate the book, which has also chronological outlines of the two men's lives and lists of their principal works. "The Japanese Empire and its Economic Condition" (imported by Scribner) is a translation from the French of M. Joseph D'Autremer, lecturer at the School of Oriental Languages, Paris. The vol- ume appears to have been intended to serve as a handbook of exact information about Japan — its geography, topography, geology, race origins, gov- ernment, commerce, and art. Unfortunately the information given under these various heads is uneven in value; the material in the several chap- ters is ill-arranged; there are statements likely to mislead; the author dogmatizes without giving evi- dence of profound investigation; and the English A handbook on Japan. 130 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL translation reflects discredit upon the publishers. As typical specimens of the author's unsupported generalities the two following statements may be cited: "But from 660 B.C. . . . these different races have been replaced by numerous Malay peoples." "In spite of this shadow of Parliamentarianism [sic], it is clear that the political condition of Japan resembles in no respect what we call constitutional government." The chapters on art are an almost hopeless confusion of details ill-arranged and state- ments not carefully weighed. Useful sketches of the various art industries read like undigested material taken from note-books. Seven pages are devoted to lacquer; whereas cloisonne* is dismissed in the fol- lowing two sentences: "This latter never attained in Japan the solid quality of Chinese cloisonne", though it had greater elegance. At the present day Tokyo and Yokohama manufacture a great quantity of cloisonne" for exportation [sic] but little of it can be kept without deterioration." In regard to the beautiful Kutani and Satsuma wares the reader not otherwise instructed would carry away the im- pression that nothing is being done in these wares save to manufacture a great quantity of tawdry im- itations. No doubt it is true that Japanese ceramic art reached its zenith between 1750 and 1830 (see Chamberlain: "Things Japanese "); yet many ex- quisite pieces of Satsuma, Kutani, and cloisonni ware are still made to-day. As to the English of the book, one can excuse and even relish a slightly foreign flavor in translation, but there is no excuse for bad paragraphing and slipshod or unintelligible sentences. We are told that of the 19,000 foreign- ers in Japan, "13,000 are Chinese and the others Asiatic." Of Kioto we are informed that "for more than a thousand years it has been [instead of was] the residence of the Emperors." The follow- ing is an example of careless sentence-structure: "A piece of boehmeria cloth is taken, which is cut according to the size of the article to be covered [with lacquer], care being taken to apply it in such a way that there is no fold, and covered with shesime urushi, so that it may be glued and secured in that oondition." The treatment of Japan's industries and finances, in the last one hundred pages of the book, shows the writer at his best; the discussion is full, and appears to be based upon the latest and most trustworthy statistics, studied by one familiar with this phase of the general subject of his volume. ReminUcence, The newly-published Reminiscences of a noted of Clara Novello open the gates into prima donna. a yf0T\i 0f charm and romance. She was born in England in 1818, and died in Rome in 1908. She was one of the great singers of her time, brought up in the English traditions, especially noted for her renderings of Handel, and conspicuous for success in the elaborate music of the Italian opera in the resplendent days of Donizetti and Rossini. The latter illustrious master of the florid school was the close friend and adviser of the singer, as- sisted her in her early studies, and stood by her side at every turn in her career, when aid or en- couragement appeared desirable. She was a devotee of the Italian method and style; she witnessed the struggles and triumphs of Wagner's extraordinary career; but to the last she held out against the fascination and significance of the rising music drama. Thus she says in a section of her volume dated Fermo, Italy, 1886: "My sisters, Mrs. Cow- den Clarke and Sabilla, left Genoa at the end of June for Switzerland, and later Bayreuth, to receive there a three days dose of Wagner's 'Parsifal,' etc., as a substitute for music. I don't envy them j Louis of Bavaria's end shows what sort of a mad- man it was who proclaimed Wagner a musician — also the effects of Wagner." In the same connection we have the following: "So that very clever old Liszt is dead! You know what Rossini was found doing with his 'Pater Noster,' which was upside down on his pianoforte desk? To inquiries, Why so? he replied, 'I've been trying till now to make something of it right side up—in vain, so I'm now going to try this way.'" Clara Novello belonged to a notable family of artists and musicians. Her father, Vincent Novello, was a gifted organist and one of the founders of the London Philharmonic Society. At the Novello home in London assembled the choice spirits of the age in art and literature- Shelley and Leigh Hunt and Lamb belong to her youthful days in her father's home, and Lamb has encircled her name with the lambent play of bis wit and fancy. On the continent she was brought into association with the great of her period. She married an Italian nobleman, who stood high in the councils of his nation. They were both ardent upholders of the new order, and the leaders of United Italy were their friends. The world of music and the sister arts, of royalty, and of progress during the nineteenth century, passes before us in these womanly and sympathetic pages. There is included in the volume a memoir of the singer by Mr. Arthur D. Coleridge. Her high character, her disinterested devotion to her art, her deep appre- ciation of the important movements of thought and politics of her time (all but the Wagner innovations) shine through the book, to which the publishers (Longmans) have given a dignity of form appro- priate to the contents. AnEngiuh ^or several years past the English magutrate in have held as a leasehold the port and Northern china, territory of Weihaiwei, on the Shan- tung peninsula, in North China. Up to the present time the settlement has been of little value save as a station for the China Squadron on its summer manoeuvres; and eminent authorities still differ as to the political, strategic, and commercial possibili- ties of the place. But one very good result of the British occupation has just appeared, for it has per- mitted a well-trained and sympathetic English mag- istrate to gather material for a helpful study of a tiny part of the great Chinese Empire. Mr. R. F. Johnston, in his "Lion and Dragon in Northern 1911.] 131 THE DIAL Chi na" ( Dutton), is more concerned with the dragon than with the lion. In his position as magistrate, corresponding to a "father-and-mother" official of the Chinese administration, he has had exceptional opportunities to know the people entrusted to his charge, and on his experiences and studies he has based a very interesting and at the same time scholarly book. The people, their customs and observances, their laws and institutions, their re- ligions and superstitions, are described with such sympathy for the native point of view that the im- pression is left with the reader that the Chinese residents of Weihaiwei have been very happily favored in their magistrate. The author thus con- cludes his discussion of present conditions: "It is difficult to say whether China stands at present in greater danger from her own over-enthusiastic re- volutionary reformers or from her well-meaning but somewhat ignorant foreign friends who are pressing her to accept Western civilization with all its poli- tical and social machinery and its entire religious and ethical equipment. If ever a State required skil- ful guidance and wise statesmanship, China needs them now: but wise statesmanship will not consist in tearing up all the old moral and religious sanc- tions that have been rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people through all the ages of their wonder- ful history." Some sixty well-chosen illustrations, a map of Weihaiwei, and a good index add to the usefulness of the volume. The history of California has been California' surrounded by a halo of romance and adventure, from the days of the dar- ing exploits of Drake and the devoted labors of the Franciscan priest, Junipero Serro, to those pioneers of "40 " who braved the dangers of the Horn, the Isthmus, or the plains and sierras, in their eager rush to the land of gold. Indeed, there is even a savor of romance in the calculated narration of the exploits of the wizards of horticulture and of irrigation in the far West in the present day. The most striking incidents in the history of this land of great moun- tains, rugged coasts, appalling deserts, and giant forests are narrated in Mr. George Wharton James's account of the " Heroes of California " (Little, Brown & Co.). The author has selected for treatment some forty names famous in the annals of Californian exploration, settlement, and development, — trap- pers, explorers, soldiers, pony-express riders, rail- road builders, inventors, scientists, judges, writers. Many of these names are of national or international repute: Kit Carson, Bishop Taylor, Clarence King, John Wesley, P. Powell, John Muir, Helen Hunt Jackson, H. H. Bancroft, Luther Burbank, Henry George, and Edward Markham. Heroism is justly interpreted by the author with latitude to include not only deeds of daring in times of danger, or amid the fastnesses of mountain and desert; but likewise the achievements in other fields of endeavor, — re- ligious, economic, industrial, scientific, and civic. He might well have included some mention of the seer who dreamed and wrought out during years of effort the foundations of higher education in California upon which its great State University has been built,—Samuel W. Wiley. And it is strange that a book on this subject should omit the name of John C. Fremont. A considerable number of well-selected illustrations adorn this entertaining volume. Mr. Lang and In the perpetual running fight about the Homeric Homer, Mr. Andrew Lang has been controvert!/. for gorae years a most prominent champion. In his latest return to the fray, "The World of Homer " (Longmans), he lays about him in a very joyous and triumphant mood. His foemen are all those who hold, in some form or other, that "the Iliad is a mosaic produced by a long series of Ionian additions to an Achaean 'kernel.'" Against them he maintains that "the Iliad is, in the main, the work of a single poet, as is shown by the unity of thought, temper, character and ethos "; that it is "a work of one brief period, because it bears all the notes of one age, and is absolutely free from the most marked traits of religion, rites, society, and superstition that characterise the preceding ^Egean, and the later 'Dipylon,' Ionian, Archaic, and his- toric periods in Greek life and art." Homer is an Achaean poet, composing for Achaean auditors at a time when "the glow of -<35gean (late Minoan, Mycenean) culture still flushed the sky." In support of his contention he writes nearly three hundred pages under such captions as "The Homeric World in War," "Homer and Ionia" "Bronze and Iron," "Burial and the Future Life," and "The Great Discrepancies." It goes without saying that the lit- erary touch is light and the argumentation serious. The present reviewer has long been in accord with Mr. Lang's principal views, while differing from him about many details; but from friend and foe alike the book deserves attention. At the same time it is not to be recommended to any reader who takes little real interest in the protracted controver- sies about the Homeric poem. The volume is well illustrated, well printed, and substantially bound. Reminiscence, of °rne approaches Mr. Joseph Fort Lincoln bv his Newton's volume on "Lincoln and law-partner. Herndon" (The Torch Press) with caution, and something of suspicion, as probably an unnecessary book in an over-worked field; but before long it takes hold of the reader, and he is glad to read it to the end. It is based on a series of letters written by Mr. Herndon to Theodore Parker, whom Herndon worshipped as his own inspirer in religion and his ideal of an orator and a teacher. These letters are very vivid, and describe political conditions in Illinois from 1854 to 1859 in a way to bring them before us as almost nothing else does. Naturally, the letters are full of Lincoln, whose law-partner Herndon was. Mr. Newton has grouped his comment about Lincoln in such a way that the book is really a political biography of him 132 [Feb. 16, THE DIAL for the period named, and a very satisfying one. The work gives us the personality of Lincoln more clearly than most of the formal biographers are able to give it. Interesting also is the acquaintance that we get with Herndon, as in seeing Lincoln through his eyes we come to know Herndon himself; and in spite of the slighting judgments of the biographers, we find him a man well worth knowing, and worthy to be the partner and intimate friend of Lincoln. The book is excellent in its mechanical form, as well as attractive in its contents. Amu,tng foolery A. ire<&ish fancy is given a free in tmaii rein in Mr. Stephen Leacock's traomenu. "Literary Lapses" (Lane), a col- lection of half a hundred amusing trifles, evidently written with rapid pen and well adapted to even more rapid reading. A few of the titles of these mirthful sketches will indicate the nature of them all, — " How to Live to be 200," "How to Avoid Getting Married," "Men Who have Shaved Me," "Hints to Travellers," "Society Chit-Chat," "On Collecting Things," "Borrowing a Match," "A Lesson in Fiction." Here is the author's sage advice to those tormented with fears of disease- germs and noxious bacilli: "If you see a bacilli, walk right up to it, and look it in the eye. If one flies into your room, strike at it with your hat or with a towel. Hit it as hard as you can between the neck and the thorax. It will soon get sick of that." One of the writer's most daring strokes is the creation of a Sherlock Holmes in the person of a Chinese laundry-man, who minutely describes the character and traces the history of a customer from an inspection of his weekly linen —but proves in the end to be totally and ludicrously in error in his deductions. The book is full of smiles to those who approach it in a suitable frame of mind and not with too severe a determination to preserve their centre of gravity. Notes. A new novel by Mr. Owen Wister, his first since "Lady Baltimore " appeared five years ago, is a wel- come Spring announcement of the Macmillan Co. Mr. Robert Hichens's psychical story, " The Dweller on the Threshold," will be issued in book form by the Century Co. upon the conclusion of its serial publication. What is said to be the first adequate history of pub- lishing and bookselling, from earliest times to the present, is promised by Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. in Mr. Frank A. Mumby's "The Romance of Bookselling." A "Standard Handbook of Music," from the com- petent pen of Mr. George P. Upton, is announced by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. The volume will cover all phases of the subject in brief yet comprehensive manner. A volume on "The Newer Spiritualism" by the late Frank Podmore is announced for publication this month by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. The same firm will also issue immediately Dr. Vernon L. Kellogg's "The Animals and Man," a study of the relations (biologic, economic, and hygienic) of the lower animals to man. Mr. Henry Bryan Binns, the author of well-known biographies of Lincoln and Whitman, has written a drama entitled " The Adventure," which is to be pro- duced in London at an early date. It will be published in book form this month by Mr. B. W. Huebscb. A volume of " Narratives of Early Carolina," edited by Mr. A. S. Smalley, Jr., will be added this Spring to the series of "Original Narratives of Early American History," published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. The book will include some fifteen of the most impor- tant early first-hand accounts of the beginning of settlement in the Carolinas. "Criminal Man according to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso," as summarized by his daughter, Gina Lombroso Ferrero, is announced by Messrs. Put- nam. The hook has been in preparation for some time. Before his death Professor Lombroso wrote for it a preface, giving a brief description of the origin and development of criminal anthropology. In addition to Sir Sidney Colvin's definitive edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's correspondence — which will contain a hundred and fifty new letters — to be issued in May, we are to have a collection of Stevenson's essays that have not hitherto appeared in book form, except in the expensive "Edinburgh" and " Pentland" editions. The title of the volume is "Lay Morals, and Other Papers," and among the contents are "The Pentland Rising," "Father Damien," " The Young Chev- alier," "The Great North Road," and "Heathercat" In controlling copyrights of many of the best-known American writers, the Houghton Mifflin Co. are in a position of unusual advantage for preparing a superior set of school readers. This advantage they now intend to utilize, as evidenced by their announcement of the early publication of "The Riverside Readers." The editors of the series are Mr. James H. Van Sickle, Superintendent of Schools in Baltimore, Miss Wilhel- mina Seegmiller, Director of Art in the Indianapolis Public Schools, and Miss Frances Jenkins, Supervisor of Elementary Grades in Deeatur, Illinois. The Letters and Journals of Charles Eliot Norton, a biographical record edited by his daughter, Miss Sara Norton, and Mr. M. A. De Wolfe Howe, is an- nounced as in preparation for publication (it is hoped in 1912) by Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Co. This work, which will comprise two volumes, may confidently be expected to be one of the most important biographical • publications of recent years. Professor Norton's long and rich life and his close friendships with the foremost men of letters of the nineteenth century in both England and America promise that the work will be one of rare interest. The Oxford University Press will celebrate the Ter- centenary of the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible by issuing shortly a photographic reproduction of the Black Letter edition of 1611. Mr. Alfred W. Pollard will contribute a bibliographical introduction of upwards of fifty pages. The Press also announces a cheaper reprint in Roman type, page for page, of the editio prineeps, similar to that published by the Oxford Uni- versity Press in 1833, the extraordinary accuracy of which, Mr. Pollard says, has been everywhere acknowl- edged. This volume will also contain Mr. Pollard's | introduction. 1911.] 133 THE DIAL JjisT of New Books. [The following list, containing 60 titles, includes books received by The Dial since its last issue.] BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. The Life of Oliver Goldsmith. By Frank Frankfort Moore. Illustrated in photogravure, etc.. large 8vo, 492 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $8.60 net. The Fate of Henry of Navarre. By John Bloundelle-Burton. Illustrated in photogravure, etc., large 8vo, 350 pages. John Lane Co. 14. net. The Life of Friedrloh Nietzsche. By Daniel Halevy; trans- lated by J. M. Hone; with introduction by T. M. Kettle. With portrait, large 8vo, 868 pages. Macmillan Co. 12.60 net. Cecil Rhodes: His Private Lite. By his private secretary, Philip Jourdan. Illustrated, large 8vo, 293 pages John Lane Co. (2.50 net. The Household of the Lafayettes. By Edith Sichel. With photogravure portrait, large 8vo, 354 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $2. net. A Senator of the Fifties: David C. Broderick of California. By Jeremiah Lynch. With portrait, 12mo, 246 pages. San Francisco: A. M. Robertson. $1.50. HISTORY. The Interpretation of History. By Max Nordau; trans- lated by M. A. Hamilton. 8vo, 419 pages. Moffat, Yard A Co. (2. net. The Political Development of Japan, 1867-1909. By George Etsnjiro Uyehara. Large 8vo, 296 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $3. net. GENERAL LITERATURE. Essays on Busslan Novelists. By William Lyon Phelps. With portrait, 12mo, 322 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.25 net. Interpreters of Life. By Archibald Henderson. With pho- togravure frontispiece. 8vo, 331 pages. Mitchell Kennerley. $1.50 net. Historical Manual of English Prosody. By George Saints- bury. 18mo, 337 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.60 net. The Influence of Moliere on Restoration Comedy. By Dudley Howe Miles. 12mo, 272 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.50 net. The Complete Orations and Speeches of Henry W. Grady. Edited by Edwin Du Bois Shurter. 12mo. 233 pages. Austin, Texas: South-West Publishing Co. Amerioan Oratory of To-Day. Edited by Edwin Du Bois Shurter. 12mo, 406 pages. Austin, Texas: South-West Pub- lishing Co. BOOKS OF VERSE. Sonnets. By Ferdinand Earle. 12mo, 87 pages. Mitchell Kennerley. $1.25 net. Poetical Favorites. Yours and Mine. Edited by Warren Snyder. 12mo, 454 pages. Wessels & Bissell Co. $1.26 net. Poems. By Muriel Rice. 12mo, 70 pages. Mitchell Kennerley. $1. net. Brandywlne Days: or. The Shepherd's Hour-Glass. By John Russell Hayes. Illustrated, 12mo, 228 pages. Philadelphia: Biddle Press. $1.60 net. California Sunshine, and Other Verses. By Grace Hibbard. With frontispiece in color, 16mo, 49 pages. San Francisco: A. M. Robertson. 75 cts. net. The Soul's Rubaiyat. By Amelia Woodward Truesdell. Illus- trated. 16mo. 31 pages. San Francisco: A. M. Robertson. 76 cts. FICTION. The New Machlavelll. By H. G. Wells. 12mo. 490 pages. Duffield & Co. $1.35 net. The Broad Highway. By Jeffery Farnol. 12mo, 618 pages. Little, Brown, & Co. $1.35 net. Basset: A Village Chronicle. By S. G. Tallentyre. 12mo, 298 pages. Moffat. Yard & Co. $1.25 net. When God Laughs. By Jack London. 12mo, 319 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.50. The Bolted Door. By George Gibbs. Illustrated in color, etc., 12mo, 84 pages. D. Appleton & Co. $1.26 net. The Andersons. By S. Macnaughtan. 12mo, 372 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.25 net. The Trail of a Tenderfoot. By Stephen Chalmers. Illus- trated. 12mo. 234 pages. Outing Publishing Co. $1.25 net. The Fire Opal. By Robert Fraser. 12mo. 311 pages. Edward J. Clode. $1.50. Paying the Piper. By Margaret Holmes Bates. With frontis- piece, 8vo, 344 pages. Broadway Publishing Co. $1.50. TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION. Behind the Screens in Japan: An Englishwoman's Impres- sions of Japan. By Evelyn Adam. 12mo. 277 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net. We of the Never-Never. By Mrs. .j 10 subjects. $6.00 to $25.00 each. Ideal for the Home or School Library Arrangements for private plates may be made by mail. 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(35c.): handbook of Pronunciation for advanced grade; concise and com- prehensive. *Seni to teachert for examination, with a view to introduction. THE STUDY-GUIDE SERIES FOB USE IN HIGH SCHOOLS THE STUDY OF IVANHOE. Maps, plans, topics for study, references. Special price for use in classes. 26 cents net: single copies, 60 oents. Also. The Study of Henry Etmond. THE STUDY OF FOUR IDYLLS. College entrance require- ments, notes and topics for high school students. Price, for use in classes, 16 cents net; single copies, 26 cents. List for college classes tent on request. Address H. A. DAVIDSON, THE STUDY-GUIDE SERIES, CAMBRIDGE, MASS AUTHORS wishing manuscripts placed without reading fee, address La TOUCHE HANCOCK, 134 W. 37th St., New York City €>f Snteteat to iUbrartan* The books advertised and reviewed in this magazine can be purchased from us at advantageous prices by public Sabrarfea, &ct)ool$, Colleger, anti Bntterartrte* In addition to these books we have an excep- tionally large stock of the books of all pub- lishers— a more complete assortment than can be found on the shelves of any other bookstore in the United States. We solicit orders and correspondence from libraries. LIBRARY DEPARTMENT A. C. McClurg & Co. CHICAGO THE DIAL a j&nni» jlflontfjlg Journal of UttEtarg Crtttctam, ©facusaton, ano Enfarmatton. Entored as Second-Clua Hatter October 8,1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. \o. 593. MARCH 1, 1911. Vol. L. Contents, PAGE STAGE CHILDREN 145 CASUAL, COMMENT 147 The lure of an uncrowded calling.— A delightful bit of autobiographical audacity.—Quantity and quality in play-writing.—Emerson's undemonstrative gener- osity.— Literary favorites of the blind. — Carlyle on some of his contemporaries.—Culture in Mankato.— Humor in government documents. — Why there is yet no American literature.— A belated genius. — A poet laureate's autobiography. — The Huth bequest to the British Museum.—The "Spectator's" bicen- tenary.— A French epic of heroic proportions. THE MODERN NOVEL AND ITS PUBLIC. (Special Correspondence.) E. H. Lacon Watson .... 150 COMMUNICATIONS 152 The Thirty-six Original Dramatic Situations. F. H. Hodder and David Lloyd. The Cosmography of Plato and of Dante. William Fairfield Warren. Misguided Poets and the Publio Library. Louis I. Bredvold. Another Mourner of " Mizzeled." Lelia M. Richards. The Newly-Discovered "Byron MS." Samuel A. Tannenbaum. A PUBLISHER OK THE OLD SCHOOL. Percy F. Bicknell 154 ENGLISH LITERATURE IN SHAKESPEARE'S LIFETIME. James W. Tupper 156 THE STEPHENS PRISON DIARY. W. H. Johnson 158 THE EARLIEST LORDS OF THE OCEAN. Josiah Reniclc Smith 15!) THE MEMOIRS OF HEINE. James Toft Uaifield . 160 RECENT POETRY. William Morton Payne . . .162 Phillpotts's Wild Fruit. — Scott's The Voice of the Ancient.— Flecker's Thirty-six Poems. — Verses by "V." —Mackereth's A Son of Cain. —Scollard's Chords of the Zither. — Ford's Songs and Sonnets.— Taylor's Lavender and Other Verse. — Robinson's The Town down the River.—Robertson's Beauty's Lady, and Other Verses. — Mrs. Whitney's Herbs and Apples.—Mrs. Crew's -Egean Echoes, and Other Verses.— Mrs. Garrison's The Earth Cry, and Other Poems.— Miss Porter's Lips of Music. — Miss Hall's Cactus and Pine. BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 168 Progress of the French Republic. — The evolution of styles in architecture. — Rural essays and other disquisitions. — Through the Harz in Heine's foot- prints.— "The American Commonwealth" twenty- two years after.— Across the Isle of Erin in a canoe. — Municipal administration in America. NOTES 170 TOPICS IN MARCH PERIODICALS 171 LIST OF NEW BOOKS 171 STAGE CHILDREN. A great deal of mischief is done in the world by well-intentioned people who strike blindly at the abuses that excite them to indignation. They nearly always let the heart get the better of the head, and in their eagerness to do away with a particular evil, pay small heed to the collateral effects of the remedies which they seek to apply. Even roast pig may come too high when it costs the destruction of a house, and the wrong done by zealous reformers in other directions than that in which their own goal is set often outweighs the good they ac- complish. It is a pretty serious thing to invade the domain of personal liberty in the cause of any reform, and the reasons for so doing must be overwhelming to justify the reformer's aim. It is easier to use "blanket" measures and "dragnet" precautions than it is to study an evil closely and devise the exact cure it needs, but it always means undeserved and wanton injury to some of the persons affected. A good illustration of what we are saying may be found in the laws made by certain states for the purpose of keeping children off the stage. Now we hold that child labor is one of the greatest of present-day social evils, and we do not believe that the rights of parents are unduly invaded when they are required to keep their children at school. It is a clear case of organized society intervening to protect the rights of the young against the denial of those rights by their unscrupulous elders. Laws regulating child labor, by which we mean prohibiting it in many cases, are in our opinion wise laws and in no need of defence. But when it comes to a law forbidding children to take part in theatrical performances, a law so drastic as to make it practically impossible for a child, no matter how carefully its interests may be safeguarded, to appear upon the stage at all, we think that there is something to be said upon the other side. Certainly a strong case for the opposition is made in "The Stage Chil- dren of America," a pamphlet which comes from the National Alliance for the Protection of Stage Children. The members of this organi- zation are men and women of the highest char- acter, many of whom have no connection with the stage, and no one could fairly charge them 146 [March 1, THE DIAL with other than disinterested motives, in making their protest against such prohibitive laws as have just been mentioned. If the sponsors for this document have any bias, it is on the side of the children rather than of the theatre. The substance of their argument is that stage children have a truly enviable lot in comparison with children employed in most other places, and the substance of their plea is that a rational law would regulate the conditions under which the child actor should work, but would not prohibit all such work by one sweeping enact- ment. The statute now in force in New York is recommended as a model, and is urged for adoption in all the other states. It prohibits absolutely the employment of any child under sixteen as an acrobat or gymnast, in any im- moral exhibition, and in any practice dangerous or injurious "to the life, limb, health, or morals of the child." It also prohibits the appearance of children as singers, dancers, performers upon musical instruments, or actors in theatri- cal exhibitions, but qualifies this prohibition by permitting them to be thus employed if the consent of the local authorities be obtained, and no objection be made by the local organization devoted to the welfare of children. A law framed upon these lines would seem to provide every reasonable safeguard, and would clearly be more rational than a law which places trapeze tricks and Shakespearean fairies under the same ban. As the pamphlet now under consideration says, "child labor legislation should not only be directed toward protecting but also toward better equipping the child, and no legislation can serve either truly to protect or benefit a child, where such legislation denies to it any opportunity to develop its talents, or where the chUd is forbidden education or training in any art for which it displays special aptitude, or, as is often the case, actual genius." The stage is, after all, a profession, and one of those that contribute most to civilization. Not many are fit to enter it, but those who are endowed by nature with the necessary qualifications must be discovered at an early age, and their special education begun. The testimony offered upon this point is convincing. Nearly all the men and women who have won distinction as actors have begun their training in their tender years, and are agreed in claiming that this has been an essential factor in their success. John Drew says: "My own mother was a child actress and commended me to the stage, and I in turn have commended my daughter to it. I am convinced now that it is of absolute importance to the child genius that it should have every oppor- tunity in its pre-self-conscious period to learn the art of the stage." And Mr. Forbes- Robertson, speaking of the effort to keep chil- dren off the stage, says that " later the oppor- tunity may never come to the child, and it is robbing the drama of a possible genius, with the hope of making an excellent mechanic/' On the other hand, Mr. Sothern has recently made the following confession: "Every day of my life I feel the lack of very early stage training. It would have been invaluable to me, for I was a peculiarly timid, self-conscious boy, and that training would have spared me then and advanced me now." Such testimony as this, which might easily be multiplied indefinitely, is worth more than any amount of doctrinaire abstract argument. When we think, moreover, of the normal conditions of child labor in almost all other occupations, even when the law exercises its humane control, and contrast them with the conditions under which the child of the stage does his work, we see that the theatre is about the last workshop in the world to provide ob- jects for our pity. In this light, the special efforts put forth to protect these children sug- gest the sort of benevolence that establishes homes for cats and dogs while suffering hu- manity is left to fend for itself. The stage child, as compared with the factory child, has comparatively little work to do, and even that is of a distinctly educational character. The stage child may have late hours (which is, we admit, a serious consideration), but on the other hand, the closest attention is paid to its comfort in the matters of food, clothing, and bodily care. It is usually under the direct supervision of parents or relatives, and is given education of the ordinary school sort in addition to the special education that is provided by its professional task. We are by no means to be taken as advocating the stage life for children, but we believe that it should not be denied to the right kind of children under the right con- ditions, and that whatever laws are made upon the subject should not raise barriers beyond which no child may be permitted to pass. The drama, as a whole, simply cannot dis- pense with child characters, and for these neither midgets nor grown-ups dressed as juven- iles can provide satisfactory substitutes. Cer- tain types of stage children we might readily spare, the child, for example, whose opportune introduction saves its parents from divorce, or 1911.] 147 THE DIAL the child who rescues the drunken father from the bar-room and restores him to the weeping wife. But even mawkish sentiment has its rights upon the stage, which we would not deny, although ourselves carefully avoiding the exhib- ition. We are now, however, urging the claims of such dramatic art as is exemplified in the creations of Shakespeare's fancy — "TheTem- pest " and "A Midsummer Night's Dream "— such as we find in "Peter Pan" and "The Piper" and "The Blue Bird." These plays must have child actors if they are to be prop- erly performed. To forbid children to take part in them (always under suitable restric- tions) is to wrong the children themselves, to wrong the dramatist, who is justified in pro- testing against so arbitrary a limitation upon his art, and to wrong the public, which has a right to insist upon seeing such masterpieces, ancient and modern, as those we have mentioned. On the whole, then, we approve of the contention made by the organization which has issued "The Stage Children of America," and are glad to say so in our State of Illinois, which is one of the chief sufferers under misguided legislation affecting this, as well as many other educational interests. CASUAL COMMENT. The lure of an uncrowded calling, a calling rich in intellectual satisfactions and not requiring special abilities of a rare nature, should find many easy victims in these times when most professions are already congested and are yearly receiving an influx of poorly-equipped would-be practitioners, as the Carnegie Foundation investigators are making plain to the world. A brief pamphlet entitled "Librarianship an Uncrowded Calling," issued by the New York State Library School, and made up of papers prepared at various times and for various purposes by noted library workers, sets forth in glowing colors some of the altruistic delights of the profession, and describes in general outline the requisite qualifications and ordinary duties of the modern librarian. In especially appealing accents does Miss Elva L. Bascom, known as Editor of the "A. L. A. Booklist," address the college woman and invite her to enter upon library work, the personal qualities necessary for which are briefly defined. "The two most important," she says, "are effici- ency and enthusiasm. To these should be added, for the ideal library worker, accuracy, order, ex- ecutive ability, initiative, and a good personality. An 'efficient' librarian must have a good general education and a thorough library training, plus the ability to think clearly and quickly, to judge fairly, to work effectively: perhaps there are other qualities that should be included under this most comprehen- sive word, but these are the ones that come first to my mind. Enthusiasm needs no comment — or would not if librarians in this country were not justifiably proud of what they call 'library spirit.' I despair of defining just what it implies—perhaps enthusiasm coupled with optimism, tempered with experience, and strengthened by a fine sense of the privilege of service. . . . The work is distinctly that of social service, and the qualities that will bring the worker into closest contact with the peo- ple are those that are most desirable, next to those that make for a good foundation in education and special training." Perhaps, after this enumeration of qualities that must conjoin, in due proportion, to make the "efficient" librarian, our foregoing re- ference to librarianship as a calling "not requiring special abilities of a rare nature" will tend to elicit protest. A DELIGHTFUL BIT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AU- DACITY was offered to a not sufficiently appreciative public some years ago in Mr. Arnold Bennett's anonymous book entitled "The Truth about an Author." Since he has come into his own with the deserved success of "The Old Wives' Tale," "Helen with the High Hand," "Clayhanger," and other products of his lively imagination and literary skill, the little-known essay in self-revelation has been eagerly turned to for information concerning the brilliant and versatile author. Among other items of interest gathered from its ingenuous pages, it is noted that the boy Arnold was early attracted to literature; wrote verses, in the form of a hymn, at eleven j entered the field of prose romance with a story written for his teacher; forsook literature for art, and indulged in paint for a protracted period, rarely opening a book, and remaining ignorant of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, and other classic authors, until manhood, not even "David Copperfield" being known to him until he was thirty. But one author, not exactly a classic, he did devour in his adolescence, and that was " Ouida." It was she, he confesses, who gave him "that taste for liaisons under pink lampshades which I shall always have, but which, owing to a Puritanical upbringing, I shall never be able to satisfy." The account of his steady and rather rapid rise in the London world of letters, where he seems to have turned his hand to 'almost every sort of honorable and decently-paid literary work, of his later migration to the quiet of the country, and (but this is not in the book ) of his latest move to the French capital, where his indus- try appears to continue unabated, cannot but interest the large number who desire his writings as the hart panteth after the water-brooks. Quantity and quality in play-writing, as in other departments of literature, are often in- versely proportional to each other, but not always. That very successful dramatist, Sir Arthur Pinero, is credited with the recent assertion that one play 148 [March 1, THE DIAL, a year is enough for any man, and another popular playwright is warned by his friends that he is writ- ing too rapidly when he announces four plays as his season's product. This invites a backward glance at the great dramatists of the past. Surely there were giants of productivity in those days. iEschylus is believed to have written between seventy-two and ninety tragedies, more than half of which were first-prize-winners, though only seven have survived. Sophocles, with the same number of extant plays, is said to have produced one hundred and twenty- three, or even one hundred and thirty. Euripides is credited with a total of one hundred and twenty, of which eighteen have come down to us. Aristo- phanes, known to us by his eleven extant comedies, is thought to have written nearly four times that num- ber. Plautus had as many as one hundred and thirty comedies ascribed to him (though on doubtful authority), and twenty have survived, more or less complete. Shakespeare in twenty years wrote some thirty-five plays without beginning to apply himself strenuously or exclusively to authorship. His Span- ish contemporary, Lope de Vega, is held to have written the incredible number of fifteen hundred (some say eighteen hundred) regular dramas, besides several hundred autos or religious pieces and en- tremeses or interludes. Calderon has the credit of about one hundred and twenty plays. Goldoni left nearly one hundred and fifty comedies to attest the varying excellence of his workmanship. Tom Taylor wrote or adapted more than one hundred pieces for the stage, and other recent prolific play- wrights are the younger Dumas, Boucicault, BjiSrn- son, and Clyde Fitch. That some or all of these might have written better if they had written less is of course possible, but the fact remains that the greatest dramatists of the past have as a rule not stinted themselves in their output. A noteworthy contrasting instance in the present is the author of "Chantecler." • • • Emerson's undemonstrative generosity to those less fortunate than he in the matter of tangi- ble returns for literary work, was as fine as it was little known. In a privately-printed volume, "Rec- ords of a Lifelong Friendship," just put forth by Dr. Horace Howard Furness and composed of the correspondence from 1837 to 1877 of Emerson and his schoolmate, the editor's father, the late Dr. William Henry Furness, there appears a character- istic instance of this generosity. Ellery Channing had been proposed by his friend Emerson as a con- tributor to "The Gift," an elegant annual of the period, published by Carey & Hart of Philadelphia, and edited by Dr. Furness. Emerson himself had been asked to contribute, and he searched his port- folios, " but without a clear and satisfactory result," as he writes to Furness. "Here, however," he adds, "are some verses from my friend C. — new virgin poems. If you like his poetry half as well as I do, you will think me honorably represented by such a proxy. But I do not mean to decline a personal appearance in such good company, and if you will give me as long a day as last year, namely, to 15 March, I will send you some prose or verse, the best that I can, by that day. The bargain shall be the same as last year, — that whatever fee Mr. Carey judges suitable to Channing's and mine united, shall be forwarded to Channing as the price of his alone." This recalls the same benefactor's goodness to Alcott, of which one among many not too well-known instances may here be given. At a conversazione held for Alcott's benefit at Emerson's house the sum of thirty dollars was collected and handed to the beneficiary. "I dare say," was his daughter Louisa's shrewd comment, "Mr. Emerson gave twenty dollars himself." Literary favorites of the blind might by some be thought to be limited chiefly to works of a contemplative, introspective character, treating of that inner life with which the sightless are perforce so familiar. What, one might ask, have they to do with light and color, with visible shapes and out- lines, with stir and movement, as noted by the sense of seeing? And yet the blind, even those born blind, habitually use the vocabulary of their more fortunate neighbors, and the verb "to see " is by no means excluded from their phraseology. Thus it results that their taste in books is rather for the ob- jective, the pages that glow with color and are alive with action, than for the intensely subjective. The works circulated among the blind of New York State by the State Library at Albany form an instructive list in this regard. From the current report of Director Wyer we learn that Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" is the best-read book of the lot; Mrs. Wiggin's "Rebecca" stories are almost equally popular; Mr. Owen Wister's "The Virginian" is a prime favorite; and so is Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford," as might not have been expected. The very last on the list of twenty-one is "David Copperfield," which is far outdistanced by certain works of the non-fiction class. In the list of periodicals printed for the blind, it is to be noted with regret that no fewer than four styles of typography are used,— New York point, American Braille, English Braille, and Moon, — while a fifth, line letter, is used in many of their books. Why could not the blind, sufficiently handicapped already, have been spared this Babel of tongues in their reading? ■ • a Carlylf. on some of his contemporaries is interestingly reported in the February issue of "The English Review" by Mr. Frank Harris, who had a number of intimate interviews with the Chelsea celebrity near the close of the latter's life. All the world knows how slightingly Carlyle was wont to speak of Darwin's theory of evolution. Conse- quently it is a satisfaction for the Darwin-admirer to find his scornful critic according him some credit after all. "I saw in him then qualities I had hardly- done justice to before," he says in recounting a chance interview, — "a patient clear-mindedness, 1911.] 149 THE DIAL fairness, too, and above all, an allegiance to facts, just as facts, which was most pathetic to me; it was so instinctive, determined, even desperate, a sort of belief in its way, an English belief, that the facts must lead you right if you only followed them hon- estly, a poor groping blind faith — all that seems possible to us in these days of flatulent unbelief and piggish unconcern for everything except swill and straw." But a little later he breaks out: "The theory, man! the theory is as old as the everlasting hills." (Impatient contempt in his voice as he spoke.) "There's nothing in it—nothing; it leads no whither —all sound and noise signifying naething, naething." Asked to name the greatest of all the great men he had met in his long lifetime, he replied at once: "Emerson! Emerson by far, and the noblest"; and he nodded his head, adds Mr. Harris, and re- peated the name with a sort of reminiscent emotion. ■ • ■ Culture in Mankato is high and still rising, as any one may convince himself by consulting the latest annual report of the Mankato Free Public Library. "Mankatonians have as good taste as the proverbial Bostonians," asserts, with justifiable pride, the Mankato librarian; "and we have proven by experience that our patrons will read good liter- ature when good literature is put within their reach; when books of real merit rather than books of an ephemeral nature are placed to catch the eye of everyone approaching the desk — fiction that is sound and wholesome, and non-fiction to appeal to the student, the professional man, the artisan, the tradesman; to the mother, the society woman, the housemaid, the child; books to refine the mind and elevate the taste; nor does this bar out light read- ing— reading for the tired mother requiring recrea- tion, for the sentimental miss in high school or fac- tory, reading for the man or woman getting his or her first introduction to literature." Another paragraph that catches the eye states that "the library takes a part in all campaigns: tuberculosis, the commission plan of government, good roads, food-inspection, politics, etc., thereby standing for the practical as well as the cultural.'' As evidence of the sober and substantial quality of Mankato culture, let it be noted that under the regime of the present librarian the circulation of non-fiction has been raised since 1905 from twenty-four to forty-five per cent of the total circulation, "and the fiction called for is a much better grade now than formerly." This, we infer, has been effected in no small part by the judicious ex- posure of the best books of the day and of the ages. Humor in government documents, those for- midable and rapidly-accumulating volumes that con- stitute one of the unsolved problems of librarianship, is not often looked for and is still more seldom found. A bill introduced Feb. 14, though not ostensibly as a comic valentine, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has more of this rare legislative humor than is often embodied in such proposed enactments. The bill is one of those many proposals to tax bachelors which never get beyond the initial stage; and of course it makes the customary disposal of the prospective revenue in favor of the unmar- ried women, whose spinsterhood is a standing re- proach to celibate men. But it further specifies that said spinsters must be "deserving" and must be "those who have passed, or are believed to have passed, the marriageable age." What woman with the smallest remnant of woman-nature in her make- up would ever submit to being classed among the unmarriageables? Another curious clause exempts from taxation the bachelor who can prove "that he is not of good moral character, or that he is otherwise unfit for matrimony." The amount of the yearly mulct (five dollars) is not sufficient to inspire any vehement desire to prove one's moral worthlessness, or one's undesirability as a husband in other respects. But there is no likelihood that these gems of humor will be preserved in statute form. The more will- ingly, therefore, do we here rescue them from oblivion. . . . Why there is yet no American literature is explained by Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson in the February "Atlantic Monthly." Writing in his customary frank and agreeable style on "The American Spirit," he pleasantly though firmly refuses to grant that we have anything worthy of being called a literature of our own, and adds the usual and the obvious explanation that we are still too young and too busy with our material develop- ment. But, he adds, "one of the most hopeful signs of promise is the rich, racy, vigorous knack of conversational expression Americans possess." And this, he opines, may be the seed of a great literature, because it is the sign that thought is taking its own shape and crystallizing itself, even though it be in bizarre forms." In this connection it is an interesting fact, not noted by Mr. Benson, that some of our raciest so-called Americanisms are nothing but survivals of old idioms that have died out in the home of their origin. Thus the crystal- lization referred to by him took place, in part at least, ages ago in his own country. A belated genius, a man or woman who has arrived at maturity or even passed beyond it with no suspicion of extraordinary latent powers, now and then comes into public notice and serves to remind the inconspicuous plodder that there may yet be fame or fortune, or both, awaiting him in some fold of the mantle that muffles the mysterious future. The late Owen Kildare, author of "Mamie Rose," "The Good of the Wicked," "The Wisdom of the Simple," and "My Old Bailiwick," as also of the unsuccessful dramatization of the first-named book, which made its appearance at Wallack's Theatre as "The Regeneration," could neither read nor write at thirty years of age. The romantic story of his rescue from illiteracy and vagabondage by a school-teacher of New York's lower East Side, 150 THE DIAL [March 1, where he was born of an Irish father and a French mother, and where he grew up in haphazard fashion, contains many curious details. The final accumu- lation of troubles and misfortunes, after he had so surprisingly made his literary mark, forms a sad sequel to this hopeful beginning of better things. • • • A poet laureate's autobiography, a thing not so common in our literature as buttercups in June, is promised soon. Mr. Alfred Austin has written his reminiscences, and the house of Mac- millan is to publish them, as we hear from London. The graceful prose of the present poet laureate has probably won him more readers than his verse — or at least than that particular portion of his verse which has come from him by virtue of his high office. It is remarkable, by the way, how little he has impressed himself upon the world's attention as Poet Laureate of England. Probably there are hundreds of cultured and well-informed persons in this country who would be at a loss if asked sud- denly to name Tennyson's successor. Only a few weeks ago there appeared in a Boston paper of high standing an editorial reference to Mr. William Watson as poet laureate. And why this delay in knighting Mr. Austin? Even English newspapers occasionally refer to him as Sir Alfred Austin, as if a laureate must by reason of his office have a right to a title. Let us hope that when honors are dis- tributed at the coming coronation he will be re- membered— that is, if he cares for that sort of thing. • • • The Huth bequest to the British Museum forms an important clause in that part of Mr. Huth's will which relates to the famous library soon to be dispersed (unless a sufficient offer is made for it as a whole) and already referred to by us. The be- quest is made in these terms: "If at any time it should be found necessary to sell the collection, before such sale the authorities of the British Museum are to have the first selection of a gift of fifty items therefrom, which shall be marked by them and always known as the Huth Bequest. In making this selection the authorities shall not be allowed to take a second or more perfect copy of an item already in the National Collection, unless they shall exchange such item for the one already in their possession, the exchange of any item being counted as one of the fifty for their selection." The half-hundred choicest items in a private library estimated as now worth a quarter of a million pounds will form a collection of no little value, in terms of dollars and cents, and of exceeding interest to book-lovers. ... The " Spectator's" bicentenary ought not to pass unnoted. Two hundred years ago to-day (March 1) appeared the first number of what was destined to be the most famous periodical of its kind; and though it ran for less than two years — from March 1, 1711 to Dec. 6, 1712 — it nevertheless, as has been said of it, "fixed new standards of man- ners, morals, and taste, whose influence lasted many years." Even now it is read, not only as prescribed reading in school and college, but for the pure pleasure of its graceful and correct style, its old- fashioned allusions and quotations, and the agreeable picture it affords of a bygone age. Of the essays which formed its contents, Addison wrote two hun- dred and seventy-four, and Steele two hundred and forty. Its early extinction was due to the imposi- tion of a government tax on periodicals — a half- penny, or some such trifling amount, which was enough to make the difference between profit and loss to the publishers of Addison's venture. A French epic op heroic proportions follows close on the heels of M. Romain Rolland's indeter- minate serial, "Jean Christophe," which has now attained its tenth volume. The very name of the poem in question, "L'Epopee dela Grande Nation," is a guaranty of good measure; and though at present only the first part, covering the period from May 5, 1789, to May 5, 1821, has appeared in print, we are assured that the entire work will extend to more than twenty-five thousand lines — two-thirds longer than the "Iliad," and nearly thrice the length of "Paradise Lost." The author, one Abel des Trois- Arches, began this great national epic of his forty- two years ago, so that it may be considered his life- work. In the face of this robust performance will any man now dare to assert that poetry is on the decline? THE MODERN NOVEL AND ITS PUBLIC. (Special Correspondence of The Dial.) London, Feb. 18, 1911. When there is nothing of great importance hap- pening, from the journalistic point of view, our enterprising press has the pleasant habit now and again of starting a discussion and inviting corre- spondence on the subject from interested readers. With a little judicious fostering, and a certain num- ber of letters written in the office to indicate the best methods of treating the topic, these arguments sometimes reach truly formidable proportions, es- pecially if they deal with a religious or moral sub- ject. With literature, the general public is justly supposed to be less concerned; and it is rare to find a paper "opening its columns" (as the phrase runs) to any discussion about the making of books. But a few months ago the unexpected happened: the "Westminster Gazette" did actually invite the opinions of its readers on the momentous question of the Length of Modern Novels; and, curiously enough, this departure from the old tradition met with considerable success. For some weeks the novelists of England entrusted their opinions on this fascinating topic to the correspondence columns of our premier evening paper, commonly at a length 1911.] 151 THE DIAL inversely proportioned to the importance of the writer. The diversity of opinion registered was re- markable; until at last one sensible man propounded the theory that a novel, like a pair of trousers, should be cut to the measure of the material it was meant to contain. The correspondence closed shortly afterwards. Generally speaking, the public prefers a good long novel to a good short one, as is only natural. The more the buyer gets for his money, assuming the quality to be equal, the better he is pleased. But it is also true that the modern reader does not want his attention taken off the main theme by any irrelevant matter. I do not think the ordinary consumer of novels to-day spends much time in read- ing the old masters. Most houses in London that have any library at all no doubt possess editions of Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens; but they are rarely taken down from the shelves. If " Quentin Dur- ward," or "Vanity Fair," or "Martin Chuzzlewit" were offered to the London trade to-day as new books by unknown authors I am confident they would be refused, not because of their mere length but because their authors had not learned the art of excluding matter not germane to the story. Scott's prefatory and introductory remarks alone would often fill as many pages as a modern novelist re- quires for his whole book. Thackeray, they would say, was always introducing long apostrophic reflec- tions on things in general. Dickens invented so many subsidiary characters and side-issues that he was forced, as it were, to strike a balance-sheet at the end of the book, telling his anxious readers in a few words what had become of all the secondary personages who had flitted across his pages. I dare not imagine what the modern publisher would say of his other habit of interpolating whole stories, such as "The Stroller's Tale" in the third chapter of "The Pickwick Papers." The fact is that, so far as construction goes, the technique of the novel has been improved out of all recognition during the last thirty years. A great number of very poor novels are published year by year; but, bad as they are, they do not generally err in the direction of technique. The plot may be thin, the characters wooden, the writing undistinguished or even ungrammatical; but the author has gener- ally the merit of keeping the story well in view from start to finish. He has discovered that the one thing he must not do is to allow the reader's attention to wander. It is far more likely to wander than it was in the old days; and this is not entirely due to inferiority in the artist of the twentieth century,— it is due rather to the rise of a new and half-educated public, who have been fed on papers like " Answers" and "Tit-bits"—the babies' food of the young reader. It remains to be seen whether this public will ever be educated up to anything better; but at present they are incapable of absorbing any para- graph of more than five or six lines in length. They require a series of shocks to keep them awake, and consequently the modern novelist has learned the imprudence of indulging in prolixity. The page of a new novel must not even present a physical appear- ance of solidity; if a publisher sees the proofs come from the printer with more than ten inches of un- broken matter he is quite capable (as has happened more than once in my own case) of breaking up the paragraphs himself. Only a few of the old guard, such as Mr. Henry James, are permitted some lati- tude in this respect — probably because they were found to be incorrigible. It is easy to theorize about the production of books, but it is still extraordinarily difficult to predict with any approach to accuracy how the public will receive any given specimen. Yet one can generally tell what sort of reception it will meet with from the reviewers. Some years ago this would have been sufficient; there was a time when a few enthusiastic acclamations in the more important papers sent a new book gaily forward on the road to success. In these days the criticisms of the press seem to have lost their effect upon readers; the reviewers may praise until they have exhausted every adjective in their vocabulary, yet the buyers will refuse to come in. Sometimes I am almost inclined to think that a chorus of commendation damps the ardor of the public; they suspect all sorts of things — an organized attempt to boom the work of a personal friend, or perhaps even bribery. They have lost their child-like faith in the infallibility of the critic that our forefathers possessed. It is a curious and instructive fact that the most popular writers of the present day in the world of fiction — Hall Caine, Marie Corelli, and the author who is probably sell- ing more sixpenny editions than anyone else just now, Charles Garvice—are the three novelists for whom the reviewers never have a good word to say. The people are not only uneducated, then, but obstinate; they hear the voice of their master, but deliberately stuff their ears with cotton-wool; they do not wish to learn. And the critic can only sigh and point out for their own satisfaction that in all branches of art the public has ever admired, with a curious consistency, the worst that is put before it. What does sell a novel? The irresponsible chatter of women at afternoon tea, say some of my friends. I think it a fact that women have a great deal to say in the matter. They read far more novels than the men; they take their reading more seriously; and are more likely to discuss their favorites afterwards. Thus some of the literary agents now lay it down as a cardinal rule that, in a successful story, the feminine interest should be dominant. Women, they argue, like to read about themselves, and especially to learn how they should behave in moments of emotional stress. There is thus a formula for the construction of the "big seller," if anyone could ever work to a formula, and if the literary agents are correct. Personally, I fear that the great secret eludes analysis. Like many so-called games of chance, the art of success- ful novel-writing is a matter of fortune, with a re- servation in favor of the better player. The good 152 [March 1, THE DIAL man will commonly achieve a modest independence in time, if he goes on trying. For the rest, it is well for him not to be too much concerned with the commercial side of his work. The artist, we used to say, is seldom a good man of business. The reproach, or encomium (for it will bear either interpretation), is probably as true now as then, but the artist of to-day has a host of helpers anxious to take the business side of his profession off his shoulders. Some half-dozen lit- erary agents of repute have followed the lead given them by Mr. A. P. Watt, the doyen of the profes- sion; and it is now the exception for an author of any popularity to conduct negotiations personally for the sale of his work. And in addition to the agents, there is also the Society of Authors — that eminently useful institution founded by the late Sir Walter Besant for the protection of the writer against his natural foes, the editor and the publisher. With these two forces working on his side, I cannot help thinking that the balance of power has now shifted. The writer who has anything worth selling is so well protected that no year passes without one or more publishers going through the bankruptcy court or retiring unostentatiously from business. The days are gone by when he could recoup himself for a series of losses by an occasional bargain. In order to keep himself afloat he is compelled to seek every possible means of adding to his slender profits; and no sooner does he discover a new avenue to wealth than the Society erects a toll-bar across the highway and demands additional royalities for its fortunate clients. The committee has its collective eye now upon the use that some publishers are making of cheap books as advertising media. The printing of publishers' lists at the end of a book has been the custom for ages, though even here there may be a doubt as to the strict legality of the pro- cess. But when the publisher of a cheap shilling or sixpenny novel proceeds to pad out the book with advertisements of pills and soap and face-powders and safety razors, not only on the covers and end pages but sometimes interleaved with the body of the story, it is felt that he is seriously interfering with the Dignity of Letters. And no man, says the Society of Authors, shall dare to interfere with that dignity without paying heavily for the privilege. The February number of "The Author," the official organ of the Society, has dealt with this topic. I foresee a very pretty quarrel. The publishers will no doubt point to the magazines in justification of their action. If you can advertise in a collection of stories by various hands, why should you not do the same in a single story published at the same price? For my own part, I am divided in my sympathies: I am anxious that the novelist should make a decent living, — but this steady procession of publishers wending their way to the court of bankruptcy is not without its serious side. A cer- tain amount of healthy competition is good for all trades, and I do not want to see the publishers of London reduced to a few big houses. But certainly an author has a right to grumble when he sees his most impassioned love-scene faced with a page in praise of corsets, cosmetics, and specifics for the reduction of obesity. E H Lacclv Watson. COMMUNICA TIONS. THE THIRTY-SIX ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SITUATIONS. (To the Editor of The Dial.) The inquiry of your correspondent respecting the number of possible dramatic situations will probably call out numerous answers. It was Goethe who, in his Conversations with Eckermann, under date of February 14, 1830, attributed to Gozzi the statement that there could be but thirty-six "tragic situations," and added that Schiller thought that there were more but could never find as many. There is a little book by Georges Polti, entitled "Les trente-six situations drainatiques," published in Paris in 1895 by " Le Mercure de France," which undertakes to set forth in detail these situations as they occur in ancient and modern drama. „ _ F. H. HODDKR. Lawrence, Kant., Feb. 18, 1911. (To the Editor of The Dial.) As Professor Schelling has started Mr. Kennedy in quest of the original dramatic situations, it may be inter- esting to recall that Polti says that Goethe said that Gozzi said there could be only thirty-six, and that this set Schiller off, who took much pains to find more but could not even find so many. Apparently the results were not formulated. The omission was too much for Georges Polti. In the fulness of time, in 1895, he published in Paris his "Thirty-six Dramatic Situations," wherein with a thoroughness all Teutonic he digested the con- tent not of drama simply but of literature and history. To set down the brief headings under which each group is analyzed by its numerous subdivisions does scant justice, of course, to his ingenuity and skill. They run as follows: 1, Supplication; 2, The Savior; 3, Vengeance pur- suing crime; 4, To avenge kinsman upon kinsman; 5, The Fugitive hunted; 0, Disaster; 7, A Prey; 8, Re- volt; 9, Daring effort; 10, Carrying off; 11, The riddle; 12, To obtain; 13, Hatred of kinsmen; 14, Rivalry of kinsmen or friends; 15, Murderous adulterer; 16, Madness; 17, Fatal imprudence; 18, Involuutary crime of love; 19, To kill a kinsman before recognition; 20, To sacrifice to the ideal; 21, To sacrifice for kins- men; 22, To sacrifice all to passion; 23, To be obliged to sacrifice one's kinsmen; 24, Rivalry of unequals; 25, Adultery; 26, Crimes of love; 27, To learn the dis- honor of one who is loved; 28, Loves obstructed; 29, To love an enemy; 30, Ambition; 31, Struggle against God; 32, Mistaken jealousy; 33, Judicial error; 34, Remorse; 35, Recovery; 36, To lose one's kinsmen. The searcli for the indivisible elements out of which the interaction of impulse and circumstance produces its myriad compounds must be a pastime of scholars born without a taste for chess. Some new result emerges periodically to start an epidemic among the laity. One tendency seems worth noting: the number of elements, against analogy, is diminishing. It is no answer to say that the whole affair is one of classifica- tion; as well say that chess is