dg. COLLEGE STATE SYLVANIA PENN ZHL 1855 THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE COLLEGE LIBRARY Igal 23 2308 THE DIAL A Semi-Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information VOLUME LVI. JANUARY 1 TO JUNE 16, 1914 CHICAGO THE HENRY O. SHEPARD CO. 1914 3D 051 D=4 v.56 • . . . . . . 20 . . . . . . . INDEX TO VOLUME LVI. PAGE A. L. A., THE, AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL Aksel G. S. Josephson . 485 ACTIVE LIFE, THE STORY OF AN Norman Foerster 414 AMERICAN AND FRENCH IDEALS 89 AMERICAN ARCHITECT, A GREAT Sidney Fiske Kimball 384 AMERICAN HISTORIES, THE CONCLUSION OF Two IMPORTANT David Y. Thomas 179 AMERICAN HISTORY, IDEALISTIC FORCES IN Carl Becker 140 AMERICAN POET, A NEGLECTED Charles Leonard Moore . 7 “ AMERICANS, THE CHARM OF 165 ART, THE MEANING OF Louis I. Bredvold Louis 343 BEASTS OF BURDEN 327 CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH LITERATURE, NEw VOLUMES OF THE Lane Cooper 456 CANADA OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW Lawrence J. Burpee CHILDREN WHAT THEY SHOULD KNOW 483 CHINA'S “ GRAND OLD MAN" 0. D. Wannamaker 142 CINEMATOGRAPH CRAZE, THE 129 CIVIL WAR, NE LIGHT ON THE Ephraim Douglass Adams . 291 CONSECRATED LIFE, THE 403 “ CYMBELINE," THE VARIORUM Samuel A. Tannenbaum 181 DANE, A GREAT 447 DEARBORN, FORT, AND THE OLD NORTHWEST William V. Pooley 341 DOGBERRY'S LATEST 369 DRAMA, CONTEMPORARY, GUIDES TO THE James W. Tupper 56 EDUCATION, TRAGEDY AND TREASON IN Thomas Percival Beyer 338 EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, THE T. G. Allen . 382 ENGLAND, A New HISTORY OF L. E. Robinson 106 ENGLISH LIBERALISM, AN ACCOUNT OF Carl Becker . 18 FICTION, RECENT Lucian Cary 504 FICTION, RECENT William Morton Payne 21, 247, 421 FOLK-BALLADS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE Martha Hale Shackford 419 FRIENDSHIP, RECORDS OF A HAPPY W. E. Simonds . 13 GIFTED FAMILY, GLIMPSES OF A Percy F. Bicknell 289 GRAIL, THE, IN A New Light Winifred Smith 385 GREECE, ANCIENT, RECORDS OF Josiah Renick Smith . 176 HISTORY, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MUSE OF Carl Becker . 336 HOUSEHOLD DECORATION, EVOLUTION OF Anna Benneson McMahan . 298 IDEALIST, AN, IN PRACTICAL AFFAIRS Percy F. Bicknell 174 INDIA, THE FUTURE OF F. B. R. Hellems 379 INSURANCE, SOCIAL . Alvin S. Johnson . 57 ITALY, A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN Percy F. Bicknell 108 ITALY'S FOREMOST COMIC DRAMATIST W. W. Comfort 138 KAISER, THE, POLICIES AND ASSOCIATES OF I'rederic Austin Ogg . 181 KEY, ELLEN - IDEALIST Amalie K. Boguslawsky 47 LABOUCHERE OF TRUTH Laurence M. Larson . 244 LANGUAGE OF THE UNLETTERED, THE Percy F. Bicknell 405 LONDON, THE LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS OF Clark S. Northup. 293 MEXICAN SITUATION, THE Wallace Rice 501 MEXICAN WAR, NEW INVESTIGATIONS OF THE Frederic Austin Ogg 240 MIDDLE AGES, THE LIFE AND ART OF THE Sidney Fiske Kimball 246 MIDDLETON, RICHARD, ESSAYS OF Norman Foerster 339 MIRABEAU, BARTHOU'S LIFE OF Fred Morrow Fling 499 MISTRAL, FREDERIC 283 MITCHELL, SILAS WEIR MONROE DOCTRINE, NEW STUDIES OF THE James W. Garner 110 NATURAL HISTORY EAST AND WEST T. D. A. Cockerell 137 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 56990 iv. INDEX Percy F. Bicknell . Percy F. Bicknell W. R. B. . . NATURALIST, THE HUMAN NATURE OF A NEW LAMPS FOR OLD NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE NOVEL, A GREAT CONTEMPORARY NOVELIST ON HIS ART, A NOVELISTS, THE JUPITER OF OLD SALEM IN ITS HABIT As It LIVED PHILIPPINES, THE PROBLEM OF THE POET, AN AGED, IN His DAILY TALK POETIC EXPRESSION PUBLISHER'S EARLY MEMORIES, A POETRY, RECENT . POLITICS AND HISTORY, AN ENGLISH STATESMAN'S REFLEC- PAGE 335 231 54 167 5 329 104 463 493 131 378 63 Charles Leonard Moore . Mary Augusta Scott Wallace Rice Percy F. Bicknell Charles Leonard Moore Percy F. Bicknell William Morton Payne . . TIONS ON . . . . L. E. Robinson . Martha Hale Shackford Henry E. Bourne . Payson J. Treat George Roy Elliott Raymond Pearl Samuel A. Tannenbaum Samuel A. Tannenbaum George Roy Elliott P. A. Martin Aksel G. S. Josephson PRECIOUS STONES, THE LORE OF PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR, THE RACIAL RELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST RESTORATION COMEDY, THE REAL Sex, THE BIOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE, COMMENTING ON SHAKESPEARE'S MYSTERY, THE HEART OF SHAKESPEARE'S STAGECRAFT, THE STUDY OF: A CLIMAX SOUTH AMERICAN WILDS, IN STRINDBERG IN ENGLISH SWORDS - WHEN THEY BECOME PLOUGHSHARES SYNGE AND THE IRISH THEATRE THOMPSON, FRANCIS — His LIFE AND HIS WORK To-MORROW, TOWARD A BROADER UNKNOWABLE, MORE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WOMAN AND THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE WORDS, THE SYMBOLISM OF YACHTSMAN, THE CRUISE OF A PIONEER . 459 242 461 418 415 145 16 494 62 102 300 281 177 98 454 61 296 143 239 James W. Tupper. Herbert Ellsworth Cory F. B. R. Hellems Thomas Percival Beyer T. D. A. Cockerell Thomas Percival Beyer Percy F. Bicknell . . 1914 . . ANNOUNCEMENTS OF SPRING BOOKS CASUAL COMMENT BRIEFS ON New BOOKS BRIEFER MENTION NOTES TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS LIST OF NEW BOOKS 257 9, 49, 91, 133, 169, 233, 283, 331, 371, 407,449, 487 27, 69, 111, 146, 188, 252, 303, 345, 387, 425, 467, 506 30,73, 115, 150, 192, 255, 307, 349, 391,431, 472, 511 31, 74, 116, 150, 193, 256, 308, 350, 391, 432, 472, 511 31, 117, 194, 309, 392, 473 32, 75, 117, 151, 195, 310, 351, 393, 433, 474, 512 CASUAL COMMMENT Acrostic, A Japanese.. Allusions, Literary and Other. “ American History, The Father of ". “ American Spirit," Literary Expression of the. Arkansas, Literature in... Author-names, Troublesome Author's Helpmate, An.... Author's Strength, The Secret of an. Ballads, Disappearing, The Rescue of. Bibliographical Institute, A... Bibliothecal News, Bits of. Blacksmith, A Book-loving. Book, The Most Widely Translated, in the World. Book Tariff, The Shame of the.. Book-rescue Work, A Story of. Book-scorner, The Sad Fate of a. Bookbinding, Durability in... Bookless, A Missionary to the... Bookless, How to Get Books to the.. Books, Cheaper Carriage of.... Booksellers' Catalogues, Tantalizing Delights of. PAGE 333 408 50 489 374 374 234 333 93 411 135 371 452 449 452 411 93 134 285 11 10 Boston Publisher, A, of Honored Antecedents. Brontë Sisters, Recovered Portraits of the. Carlyle of Myth, The, and the Carlyle of Reality. Carnegie, Mr., Library Gifts of, for 1913... Cartoonist, A Great, of the Victorian Age. Cinematographed Novel, The.. Claretie, Jules, The Versatile and Charming. Commencement Season, A Thought for the. Confusion Worse Confounded... Cooper versus Scott. Culture, Cosmopolitan, The Encouragement of. “ Daily of Dailies," A.. Dickens's Death, The True Cause of.. Drama for the Rural Districts. Editorial, The Reason of an.... Editorial Fallibility, Instances of. Emerson, A Passing Glimpse of.. English, Slipshod English Language, The Anglicity of the. Fairy Tale, The Function of the.. Feminism, The Literature of. PAGE 133 332 171 52 233 410 49 451 451 374 94 49 234 490 49 334 331 283 91 332 52 INDEX V. PAGE First Aid to the Inquiring Reader..... 450 Foreign Literature, Accessible, of Our Time... 171 Foreign Literature, Painless Preliminaries to the Enjoy- ment of a. 450 French Academician, The Latest. 170 Gaskell, Mrs., Manchester Home of. 135 Gath," The Prolific Pen of.... 408 Genius, The Inscrutability of. 93 Genius in Embryo, The Detection of. 133 Greek Scholar, The Death of an Accomplished. 286 Harvard Library, A Proposed Gift to the.. 287 Hellenists, A Word of Cheer to.. 374 Home Reading for the High-school Pupil.. 10 Houghton, Stanley 11 “Human Interest,” Universal Appeal of the Story of. 410 Immigrant, Literary Aid to the. 92 Innkeepers, A Reader's Hint to... 285 Inquiring Mind, Cultivation of the. 452 “ Intellectual Exercises, The Least of All” 10 Inter-library Loans, A Fresh Impetus to. 372 James, Henry, Senior, The Humor of.. 284 Japanese Literary Likings.... 172 Johns Hopkins President, The Writings of the New 233 Juvenile Fiction, A Noticeable Fact about.. 236 Language-teaching, A Topsy-turvy Method of. 51 Latin, A Fairy Tale in.. 371 Latin Pronunciation, Latitude in. 170 Laureate's First Official Poem, The. 51 Leaving Off, The Art of..... 373 Librarian's Wit, The Soul of a. 332 Libraries, Public, Public Appreciation of. 235 Library, Local Talent in the... 286 Library, The Most-used, in the World. 372 Library Activities, Antipodean. 286 Library Conference, This Year's... 334 Library School, A New State.... 50 Library School's Quarter-century Record, A. 373 Library Schools, The Beginnings of. 284 Library Service, A Novelty in. 410 Library's Usefulness, Mathematical Determination of a.. 333 Lincoln Literary Relics..... 52 Literary Artist, The Joys of the.. 449 Literary Criticism, New Ideals of. 92 Literary Magic 52 Literary Style, The Secret of. 170 Literature, Medicated 91 Literature and Farming, The Comparative Delights of... 234 Logician, a Great, Literary Activities of. 407 Lorna Doone's Narrow Escape.. 490 McMaster, Professor John Bach, A New Honor for...... 135 PAGE Magazine Covers 51 Man of the Pen and of the Sword, A. 134 Manuscripts, A Mine of... 331 Mayor, A, with no Fondness for Literature. 171 Men and Women of the Pen. 9 Mexican Literature, Tendencies and Achievements in Contemporary 284 Misquotation, Temptations to... 488 Moving-picture Screen, Literary Classics on the. 334 National Language and Literature, Reviving a. 134 Nearness, Disenchantment of.. 408 Nepenthe, An Unappreciated. 93 Newspaper, a Great, The Bid for Popularity of.. 333 Novel-writing Habit, The... 374 Opinions That One Would Like to Have Expressed Dif- ferently 489 Orderliness in the Library, The Price of.. 51 Pioneer, A Hardy.. 11 Platitude, Function of the. 409 Poet, One Way to Praise a. 286 Poet's Personality, A..... 372 Poets, Potential, Encouragement to... 169 Pseudonyms, A Strange Taste in.... 235 Public Library System, The Geographical Centre of Our. 94 Publishers, Governmental Unfairness to... 235 Puzzles, Polyglot 490 Quarterly Review, A, with the Courage of Its Title.. 9 Questionnaire, A Plea for the.. 133 Reader, Baiting the Hook to Catch the. 135 Reading, Intelligent 411 Reading, Surreptitious 488 Reading-time, Stolen 91 Reviewing a Book, Eight Ways of. 136 Rhetoric, The Luxury of.. 285 Riis, Jacob - How He Became an Author. 487 Sacred Literature, Unsanctified Uses of. 171 Scholars, Oddities and Obstinacies of. 92 Schoolboys : What They Should Know. 30 Sesqui-centennial Celebration, A... 371 Shakespeare Presented by Amateurs. 51 Singing Birds, A Nest of.... 409 Spelling and Sound. 373 Stage Realism, Triumphs of. 451 Standard Writers, The Authority of the. 373 Sutro Library, The... 11 Typography, An Artist in. 169 University Library, Strengthening of One. 452 Unpublished Books, A Library of... 10 Vanishing Art, The Revival of a. 233 Virginia, A Voice from... 49 AUTHORS AND TITLES OF BOOKS REVIEWED 2011 73 Acheson, Arthur. Mistress Davenant. 494 Adams, Charles Francis. Trans-Atlantic Historical Soli- darity 291 Adams, Ephraim D. Power of Ideals in American His. tory 140 Adams, Henry. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres. 246 Adcock, A. St. John. The Booklover's London.. 293 Albee, Helen R. A Kingdom of Two. Allinson, Anne C. E. Roads from Rome. 115 Andrews, Charlton. The Drama of To-day. 56 Antin, Mary. They Who Knock at Our Gates. 470 Apthorp, William F. Forty Songs by Adolph Jensen 115 Ashmun, Margaret. Modern Short-stories.... 346 Avebury, Lord. Prehistoric Times, seventh, edition. 192 Backhouse, J. 0. P., and Bland, Edmund. Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking.. 425 Baker, Ernest A. A Guide to Historical Fiction. 511 Baldwin, James M. History of Psychology.. 113 Baring, Maurice. Lost Diaries. 430 Barrus, Clara. Our Friend John Burroughs. 335 Bartholomew, J. G. Literary and Historical Atlas of Africa and Australia.. 307 Barthou, Louis. Mirabeau. 499 Bartram, George. England's Garland. 65 Bassett, John. Short History of the United States. 27 Bayley, Harold. Lost Language of Symbolism.. 143 Behr, Herman. Perlen Englischer Dichtung in Deutscher Fassung 106 Benét, William Rose. Merchants from Cathay. 67 Bennett, Arnold. The Price of Love. 505 Bergson, Henri. Dreams. 510 Bickersteth, G. L. Carducci. 30 Bingham, Hiram. The Monroe Doctrine. 110 Birmingham, G. A. General John Regan.. 22 Björnson, Björnstjerne. Plays, trans. by Edwin Björk- man, second series.. 507 Blake, William. Poetical Works, Oxford edition. 74 Blease, W. Lyon. Short History of English Liberalism.. 18 Bond, Francis. English Church Architecture..... 304 Bostwick, Arthur E. Earmarks of Literature. 191 Bourgeois, Maurice. John Millington Synge and the Irish Theatre 178 Boynton, Percy H. London in English Literature....... 293 Bridger, A. E. Minds in Distress. 390 Brooke, Stopford A. Ten More Plays of Shakespeare... 16 Brooks, Alfred M. Architecture and the Allied Arts... 427 Brown, Mary Elizabeth. Dedications.... 193 Browne, Belmore. Conquest of Mount McKinley. 29 Bruce, H. Addington. Adventurings in the Psychical. 471 Bruce, H. Addington. Education of Karl Witte.. 508 Bryce, James. The Ancient Roman Empire and the Brit- ish Empire in India.. 510 Budge, E. A. Wallis. The Book of the Dead. 382 Burroughs, John. The Summit of the Years. 27 Burton, Richard. Little Essays in Literature and Life.. 390 Burton, Richard. The New American Drama. 56 Cabot, Richard C. What Men Live By.... 304 Cambridge Medieval History," Vol. II.. 467 vi. INDEX • 424 99 PAGE Campbell, Oscar J. Comedies of Holberg... 468 Campbell, Wilfred. Oxford Book of Canadian Veree.... 189 Cannan, Gilbert. Old Mole. 248 Carlyle, Thomas. The Diamond Necklace, Riverside Press edition 73 Carson, W. E. Mexico, revised edition. 307 Cartwright, Julia. Christina of Denmark. 253 Carus, Paul. Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Indi- vidualism 188 Catlin, George. Indians, new edition. 391 Cawein, Madison. Minions of the Moon. 68 Cescinsky, Herbert, and Webster, Malcolm R. English Domestic Clocks 511 Chamberlin, Frederick. The Philippine Problem. 464 Chambrun, Countess de. Sonnets of William Shake- speare 497 Chase, Lewis N. Poe and His Poetry. 509 Chatfield-Taylor, H. C. Goldoni. 138 Clodd, Edward. The Childhood of the World, revised edition 507 Coit, Stanton. Social Worship. 305 Collyer, Robert. Clear Grit. 254 Comfort, Will Levington. Down among Men. 24 Commons, J. R. Labor and Administration. 192 Connelley, William E. Life of Preston B. Plumb. 148 Conway, Adaline M. A Silent Peal from the Liberty Bell 431 Cook, Edward. Life of Florence Nightingale. 54 Cooper, Homer H. Right Living... 431 Cooper, Lane. Aristotle's “Poetics 252 Cornish, Francis W. Jane Austen. 73 Cotterill, H. B. Ancient Greece. 176 Country Life Press, Garden City, New York 192 Cowles, Julia D. Art of Story-telling.. 391 Crow, Carl. America and the Philippines. 465 Crowninshield, Francis B. Story of George Crownin- shield's Yacht 039 Dalrymple, Leona. Diane of the Green Van. 42 Dana, John C., and McKnight, Elizabeth B. The High School Branch of the Public Library... 192 Davies, Randall. Greatest House at Chelsey. 347 Dawson, Coningsby. The Garden without Walls. 21 De Lara, L. Gutierrez, and Pinchon, Edgcumb. The Mexican People 502 Dell, Ethel M. Rocks of Valpré.. 424 De Morgan, William. When Ghost Meets Ghost. 247 Dodd, William G. Courtly Love in Chaucer and Gower. 345 Douglas, James. New England and New France. 348 Dreiser, Theodore. The Titan.... 504 Dugmore, A. Radclyffe. Romance of the Newfoundland Caribou 113 Dunn, Samuel O. Government Ownership of Railways.. 70 Dunoyer, Alphonse. Public Prosecutor of the Terror.. 461 Edwards, Agnes. Our Common Road.. 113 England, George A. Darkness and Dawn.. 425 “Essays for College Men", 30 Faguet, Emile. Initiation into Literature, trans. by Gor- don Home 467 Fielding-Hall, H. The Passing of Empire.. 379 Fillebrown, C. B. Taxation.. 308 Fonseka, Lionel de. On the Truth of Decorative Art, new edition 193 Fox, Charles D. The Psycho-pathology of Hysteria. 29 Fraser, Mrs. Hugh. Italian Yesterdays. ... 108 Fuller, Loie. Fifteen Years of a Dancer's Life. 115 Furness, Horace H. Shakespeare's Tragedies of Cym- beline 184 Fyfe, Hamilton. The Real Mexico.. 503 Galsworthy, John. The Dark Flower.. 23 Gardner, Percy. Principles of Greek Art, revised edition 348 Garneau, François-Xavier. Histoire du Canada, Vol. I., fifth edition 115 Gaultier, Paul. The Meaning of Art. 344 Gayley, Charles M. Beaumont, the Dramatist. 428 Gephart, W. F. Insurance and the State... 114 Gilbreth, L. M. Psychology of Management.. 507 Gillette, John M. The Family and Society. 308 Gissing, George. Books and the Quiet Life. 349 Goodrich, Joseph King. Our Neighbors the Chinese. 30 Goodrich, Joseph King. The Coming Canada. 20 Gowen, Herbert H. Outline History of China, Part II.. 150 Granger, Alfred Hoyt. Charles Follen McKim.. 384 Grant, Arthur. In the Old Paths. 255 Grant, Francis J. Manual of Heraldry, revised edition. 510 Grant, Lady Sybil. Samphire.. 149 Green, Samuel S. The Public Library Movement in the United States 150 PAGS Gregory, Lady. Our Irish Theatre.... 177 Grey, Zane. The Light of Western Stars. Griffis, William E. Hepburn of Japan. 149 Griggs, Edward H. The Philosophy of Art. 343 Gulick, Sidney L. American Japanese Problem.. 418 Haines, Charles G. American Doctrine of Judicial Su- premacy 348 Hall, Bolton. Mastery of Grief. 390 Hamilton, Clayton. Studies in Stagecraft.. 388 Hanson, Willis T., Jr. Early Life of John Howard Payne 193 Hardy, Thomas. A Changed Man. 74 Harper, Henry H. The Story of a Manuscript.. 511 Haultain, Arnold. Goldwin Smith. 146 Heape, Walter, Sex Antagonism. 191 Heath, Roger. Beginnings... 66 Heaton, John L. The Story of a Page. 30 Helston, John. Aphrodite..... 65 Henderson, Archibald. European Dramatists. 253 Hernici, Lois 0. Representative Women. 307 “Heroes of the Nations" 431 Hewlett, Maurice. Bendish. 23 Hewlett, Maurice. Helen Redeemed. 64 Hichens, Robert. The Way of Ambition. 249 Higginson, Mary T. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 414 Hinckley, G. W. Roughing it with Boys.... 308 Hissey, James J. A Leisurely Tour in England. 254 History of Lexington, Massachusetts 471 Holder, Charles F. Quakers in Great Britain and Amer- ica 189 Holl, Karl. Gerhart Hauptmann. 307 Holland, W. J. To the River Plate and Back. 138 Holmes, Edmond. Tragedy of Education..... 338 “Home” 251 Hopkins, Tighe. Wards of the State.. 21 Howells, William D. The Seen and the Unseen at Strat- ford-on-Avon 470 Hughes, C. E. Early English Water Colour. 30 Humphrey, Zephine. The Edge of the Woods. 255 Hunter, George Leland. Home Furnishing. 298 Hurd, Archibald, and Castle, Henry. German Sea-power. 182 Hutchinson, J. R. The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore... 190 Hutton, Edward. Cities of Romagna and the Marches.. 114 Hyslop, James H. Psychical Research and Survival. 190 Innes, A. D. A History of England... 106 Irvine, Margaret. A Pepys of Mogul India. 389 Jackson, Holbrook. The Eighteen Nineties. 303 James, Henry. Notes of a Son and Brother. 289 James, James A. Readings in American History. 307 Jerrold, Clare. Married Life of Queen Victoria. 346 Jerrold, Walter, and Leonard, R. M. A Century of Parody and Imitation, Oxford edition.... 74 Jessen, Franz de. Katya... 421 Jewett, Sophie. Folk-ballads of Southern Europe. 419 Johnson, Owen. The Salamander. 505 Johnston, Reginald F. Buddhist China. 305 Jordan, Humfrey. Carmen and Mr. Dryasdust. 423 Kaufman, Reginald Wright. The Spider's Web. 26 Kawakami, Kiyoshi K. Asia at the Door... 418 King, Georgiana G. Street's Gothic Architecture in Spain, revised edition.... 43 Kirkup, Thomas. History of Socialism, fifth edition. 255 Knapp, Oswald G. Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington Knowles, Joseph. Alone in the Wilderness. 346 Kraus, Herbert. Die Monroedoktrin... 111 Kunz, George F. Curious Lore of Precious Stones. 242 Lancaster, G. B. The Law-bringers... 25 Landor, A. Henry Savage. Across Unknown South America 102 Lea, Hermann. Thomas Hardy's Wessex. 191 Lee, Vernon.". The Beautiful.. 306 Lee, Vernon." Tower of the Mirrors. 430 Le Gallienne, Richard. The Lonely Dancer. 66 Legge, Arthur E. J. A Symphony... 64 Legge, Edward. More about King Edward. 429 Leopold, Lewis. Prestige... 112 Le Roy, James A. Americans in the Philippines. 463 Lind-af-Hageby, L. August Strindberg. 302 Littlewood, S. R. The Fairies Here and Now. 510 Locke, William J. The Fortunate Youth.. 423 Loeb, Jacques. Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertiliza- tion, revised edition 391 London, Jack. The Valley of the Moon. 25 Long, William J. American Literature.. 70 Low, Benjamin R. C. A Wand and Strings. 67 ... 387 INDEX vii. PAGE Low, Sidney. The Governance of England, revised edition 506 Lowell, Abbott L. Public Opinion and Popular Govern- ment 188 Lucas, E. V. Loiterer's Harvest. 28 Lukach, Harry C. Fringe of the East. 388 Lynde, Francis. The Honorable Senator Sage-brush. 26 MacCracken, Henry N. The College Chaucer. 255 MacGill, Patrick. Children of the Dead End. 504 MacHugh, R. J. Modern Mexico... 501 Mackenzie, Compton. Youth's Encounter. 24 McMaster, John B. History of the People of the United States, Vol. VIII.. 179 McVey, Frank L. National Social Science Series. 307 Maeterlinck, Maurice. Our Eternity.... 61 Mannix, William F. Memoirs of Li Hung Chang. 142 Mariett, Paul. Poems... 69 Masefield, John. Salt-water Ballads. 65 Mason, A. E. W. The Witness for the Defence. 248 Maspero, Gaston. Egyptian Art. 114 Matthews, Brander. Shakespeare as a Playwright.. 62 Medwin, Thomas. Life of Shelley, edited by H. Buxton Forman 147 Melville, Lewis. Life and Writings of Philip, Duke of Wharton 71 Meynell, Everard. Life of Francis Thompson. 98 Middleton, Richard. Works... 339 Milner, Lord. The Nation and the Empire.. 72 Mims, Stewart L. Moreau's Voyage aux Etats-Unis de l'Amérique 255 Minot, Charles S. Modern Problems of Biology. 469 Moore, George. Hail and Farewell : Vale. 471 Morgan, Thomas H. Heredity and Sex... 145 Morley, Viscount. Notes on Politics and History.. 459 Morris, William. Poems and Prose Tales, Oxford edition. 74 Morris, William. Works, pocket edition.. 431 Moskowski, Moritz. Anthology of German Piano Music, Vol. I. 472 Mozans, H. J. Woman in Science.. 296 Münsterberg, Hugo. Psychology and Social Sanity 426 Muirhead, John Spencer. The Quiet Spirit.. 66 Mundy, Talbot. Rung Ho!.. 423 Nelson, Andrew W. Yankee Swanson. 73 Nichols, Martha. George Nichols.. 104 Nicoll, W. Robertson. A Bookman's Letters. 111 Notestein, Lucy L., and Dunn, Waldo H. The Modern Short-story 346 O'Connor, Mrs. T. P. My Beloved South. 347 Oppenheim, James. Idle Wives... 505 Ordway, Edith B. Dictionary of Synonyms and Anto- nyms 192 Ordway, Edith B. Handbook of Quotations.. 192 Orsi, Pietro. Cavour and the Making of Modern Italy.. 431 Palgrave's “ Golden Treasury 472 Palmer, John. Comedy of Manners. 415 Pearson, Edmund Lester. The Secret Book. 429 Pearson, Peter H. Study of Literature. 149 “People of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Sepa- rated Churches of the East, and Other Slavs " 247 Phillips, Stephen. Lyrics and Dramas. 63 Phillpotts, Eden. The Joy of Youth. 248 Pillsbury, H. G. Figures Famed in Fiction. 349 Poley, Arthur T. Federal Systems of the United States and the British Empire... 112 Pope, A. Winthrop. Theatrical Bookplates. 192 Porter, Maud Thornhill. Billy.. 349 Putnam, George H. Memories of My Youth. 378 Pycraft, W. P. Courtship of Animals.. 509 Quaife, Milo Milton. Chicago and the Old Northwest.. 341 Rae, Walter C. Public Library Administration... 193 Rawnsley, Canon. Chapters at the English Lakes. 115 Reed, C. B. Masters of the Wilderness.. 509 Reed, Chester, Allwyn. The Theban Eagle. 69 Reed, Verner Z. The Soul of Paris.... 115 Reid, Whitelaw. American and English Studies. 146 Richardson, Ernest C. The Beginnings of Libraries. 307 Ritchie, Anne I. From the Porch.. 72 Rives, George L, The United States and Mexico. 240 Robertson, C. Du Fay. Down the Year.. 430 Roe, F. W., and Elliott, G. R. English Prose. 74 Roget's Thesaurus, revised, large type edition. 308 Rolland, Romain, Jean-Christophe.... 167 Rooses, Max. Art in Flanders. 431 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Poems and Translations, Ox- ford edition 74 Rowland, Eleanor. Significance of Art. 344 Rubinow, I. M. Social Insurance.. 57 PAGE Ruhl, Arthur. Second Nights.... 506 Russell, Charles E. These Shifting Scenes. 428 St. John Hope, W. H. Grammar of Heraldry. 510 Salzmann, L. F. English Industries of the Middle Ages. 28 Salzmann, L. F. Mediæval Byways.... 254 Schouler, James. History of the United States of Amer- ica, Vol. VII. 180 Scott, Robert F. The Voyage of the “ Discovery," popu- lar edition 150 Scott, Temple. The Use of Leisure... 74 Scott, W. B. History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere 69 Scott, William A. Money. 308 Seashore, C. E. Psychology in Daily Life. 348 Shackford, Martha H. Legends and Satires from Me- diæval Literature 147 Shackleton, Robert. Unvisited Places of Old Europe... 306 Shaw, Stanley. William of Germany.. 181 Shore, W. Teignmouth. John Woolman. 303 Shores, Robert J. New Brooms. 29 Siegfried, André. Democracy in New Zealand. 508 Slater, J. Herbert. A Stevenson Bibliography. 431 Stacpoole, H. De Vere. Children of the Sea. 422 Stallard, Mrs. Arthur. The House as Home. 299 Stead, Estelle W. My Father.. 71 Stillman, W. J. Billy and Hans. 349 Stokes, Hugh. Francisco Goya.. 469 Stopes, M. C. Plays of Old Japan. 72 Strindberg, August. By the Open Sea. 302 Strindberg, August. In Midsummer Days. 302 Strindberg, August. Married.. 300 Strindberg, August. On the Seaboard. 302 Strindberg, August. Plays, translated by Edith and War- ner Oland 303 Strindberg, August. Plays, trans. by Edwin Björkman, Vol. III. 27 Strindberg, August. The Confession of a Fool. 301 Strindberg, August. The Inferno.. 302 Strindberg, August. The Red Room. 300 Strindberg, August. The Son of a Servant.. 301 Strindberg, August. Zones of the Spirit. 302 Strunsky, Simeon. Post Impressions.. 389 Strong, Theron G. Landmarks of a Lawyer's Lifetime.. 304 Stuck, Hudson. Ascent of Denali.... 427 Sumner, William G. Earth Hunger, and Other Essays.. 349 Sumner, William G. War, and Other Essays.. 349 Swedenborg, Emanuel. The Path of Life. 431 Symons, Arthur. Knave of Hearts.. 66 Taft, William H. Popular Government. 253 Taylor, Graham. Religion in Social Action. 192 Taylor, J. H. Joe Taylor, Barnstormer. 349 Tearle, Christian. The Pilgrim from Chicago. 148 “ The Empress Frederick". 428 Thomas, Allen C. History of England.. 73 Thompson, Francis, Works of. 98 Thorold, Algar L. Life of Henry Labouchere. 244 Ticknor, Caroline. Hawthorne and His Publisher. 13 Traubel, Horace. With Walt Whitman in Camden, Vol. III. 493 Tressall, Robert. The Ragged-trousered Philanthropists, 504 Trevelyan, George M. Clio, a Muse. 336 Treves, Frederick. The Country of The Ring and the Book" 189 Tweedie, Mrs. Alec. America as I Saw It. 112 Vance, Louis Joseph. Joan Thursday.. 24 Van Gogh, Elizabeth Du Quesne. Personal Recollections of Vincent Van Gogh.... 149 Vedder, Henry C. The Reformation in Germany. 252 Verworn, Max. Irritability.. 389 Wallace, Alfred Russel. Revolt of Democracy. 190 Waller, Mary E. From an Island Outpost... 390 Walsh, William S. A Handy-book of Curious Informa- tion 30 Ward, A. W., and Waller A. R. Cambridge History of English Literature, Vols. VIII., IX., and X. ...... 456 Ward, Mrs. Humphry. The Coryston Family.... 249 Washington, George. Farewell Address, Riverside Press edition 73 Watt, Francis. R. L. S. 148 Watts, Mary S. Van Cleve. Webster, Henry K. The Butterfly. 251 Weekley, Ernest. Romance of Names. 349 Weller, Charles H. Athens and Its Monuments. 177 Wells, H. G. Social Forces in England and America. 454 Wells, H. G. The Passionate Friends. West, Julius. Atlantis... 67 Weston, Jessie L. Quest of the Holy Grail. 385 250 23 viii. INDEX PAGE Weston, Jessie L. The Chief Middle English Poets..... 255 Wharton, Edith. The Custom of the Country. 250 Whitlock, Brand. Forty Years of It.. 174 Wile, Frederic W. Men around the Kaiser.. 183 Williams, D, R. Odyssey of Philippine Commission. 465 Willson, Beckles. Quebec: The Lauretian Province... 111 Wilson, Ernest H. A Naturalist in Western China..... 137 PAGE Winthrop, Theodore. The Canoe and the Saddle, new edition 114 Wolfe, Elsie de. The House in Good Taste. 299 Worcester, Dean C. The Philippines.. 464 Worsfold, W. Basil. Reconstruction of the New Col- onies 387 Zeitlin, Jacob. Hazlitt on English Literature. 73 MISCELLANEOUS . 60 "American Oxonian, The 512 American Poets and English Traditions. Robert J. Shores 492 Anti-Babel. Edgar Mayhew Bacon.. 237 “Anti-Babel Again. Lewin Hill. 377 Arizona, Catalogue of Books on, in the University of Ari- zona Library 31 Association Volume, A Rare. John Thomas Lee. 376 Authorship, A Case of Wrongly-ascribed. William B. Cairns 238 Auxiliary Language, An, for Intercommunication. Eugene F. McPike... 95 Auxiliary Language, Another. A. L. Guerard. 173 “ Bird-witted " or High-brow " ? 1. R. P... 377 Book-classification in the Library of the University of Illinois 473 Book Reviews, Tainted.” Book-buyer.. 97 Browning Letters, Plans for Preservation of the. 392 “Candid Review, The" 151 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Eighth Annual Report of the.. 512 Chamberlain, Joshua L., Death of. 256 Claretie, Jules Arsène Arnaud, Death of.. 31 Classic Languages, Revivifying the. Nathan Haskell Dole 94 Classics, Devouring the. Robert Shafer. 12 Cotterill, Mr., and his “Ancient Greece." H. B Cotterill. 288 Crockett, S. R., Death of.. 392 DeVinne, Theodore Low. George French. 236 Driver, Samuel Rolles, Death of. 256 Duncan, Robert Kennedy, Death of... 194 Fairy Tale, Function of the Anne Mack.. 411 Fairy Tales and the Trained Imagination. Charles Welsh 412 Foss, Sam Walter, Proposed Memorial to... 391 “ G. B. Lancaster." William Nelson.. 238 Ginn, Edwin, Death of. 117 Hamlet's “Soliloquy and Claudius. C. M. Street...... 172 Heroine, Present-day, Precursors of the. Floyd Adams Noble 238 “ High-brow." R. S.. 287 Hutchinson, Anne, Proposed Statue to.. 392 Iowa Library Commission, Publication of... 350 Lamar, Mirabeau Buonaparte, Purchase of Papers of.... 392 Language of the Unlettered. Mrs. I. S. Heidt. 490 Library Legislation, Pioneer, in Illinois. Sarah W. Hiestand 288 Literary Resemblance, An Interesting. G. H. Maynadier. 491 Luther's Use of the Pre-Lutheran Versions of the Bible. Edward H. Lauer. 413 Merriam, George Spring, Death of. 116 Milton's “Starre-Ypointed Pyramid." Edwin Durning- Lawrence 53 Mississippi Valley Historical Review". 256 Morton, Edward Payson, Death of. 350 Neilson, Professor, and Grimm's Fairy Tales. W. A. • Neilson 453 New Numbers 309 Norway and an International Language. James F. Morton, Jr. 453 Pater, Walter, and Bishop Berkeley. Wm. Chislett, Jr.. 453 Peck, Harry Thurston, Death of.. 309 “ Pilgrim's Progress, The," in Moving Pictures. E. W. Clement 491 Poetry, Mr. Yeats and. Henry Barrett Hinckley. 376 Poetry, The Old and the New. Edith Wyatt. 375 “ Political Poetry," Appeal of. Helen M. Seymour. 11 Protest, A. Charles Francis Saunders...... 97 Riis, Jacob A., Death of.. 472 Sales of Books, Increasing the. George French.. 377 “Scottish Review, The". 343 Smith, Josiah Renick... 172 Stevenson, Mrs. Robert Louis, Death of. 193 Syndicate Service and “ Tainted Book Reviews." W. E. Woodward 173 Translation, A Difficulty in. Hyder E. Rollins.. 136 Translations, A Word about. Julian Park. Wallace, Alfred Russel, Memorial Fund to.. 257 Whitman, Walt, and Lincoln's Assassination. Harold Hersey 136 " Worth While." Wm. Chislett, Jr.... 136 Wright, William Aldis, Death of... 472 Ye and “Ampersand." Arthur Howard Noll. 53 Ye" and "Ampersand.” Nelson Antrim Crawford. 12 11 10 52 THE DIAL A Semi Monthly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information. PAGE THE DIAL (founded in 1880) is published on the 1st and 16th of each month. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 82. a year in advance, postage A NOVELIST ON HIS ART. prepaid in the United States, and Mexico; Foreign and Canadian postage 50 cents per year extra. REMITTANCES should be by check, or “An author always talks badly about his by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL COMPANY. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current work, and positively the best thing he can do, number. When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub- scription is received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription once his creation has been accomplished and is desired. ADVERTISING Rates furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to given to the public, is to keep quiet.” Quoting THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. these words from the younger Dumas, Mr. Entered as Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. Robert Herrick, in “The Yale Review,” disre- garding the quoted counsel just as Dumas him- No. 661. JANUARY 1, 1914. Vol. LVI. self disregarded it, proceeds to discuss the CONTENTS. problem of the novelist, as it presents itself to the American practitioner of the art of fiction. A NOVELIST ON HIS ART .. 5 The essay is entitled "The Background of the A NEGLECTED AMERICAN POET. Charles American Novel," and discusses, as the title Leonard Moore 7 suggests, “not technique nor literary faiths, but CASUAL COMMENT A quarterly review with the courage of its title. the larger phenomena of our common social life, To men and women of the pen. -A library of un which must irresistibly determine the product published books. — “The least of all intellectual of any serious American novelist.” It is with exercises." Home reading for the high-school pupil.–The tantalizing delights of booksellers' cata- the "outer sphere of the novelist's experience, logues. -Stanley Houghton. - The Sutro library. – rather than his inner spiritual reactions” that A hardy pioneer.— Cheaper carriage of books. Mr. Herrick is concerned, for he conceives of COMMUNICATIONS 11 his function as being “not to entertain, not to The Appeal of “Political Poetry.” Helen Minturn Seymour. preach a moral, but to realize our world for us, A Word about Translations. Julian Park. to make us see and feel what we are too dull or Devouring the Classics. Robert Shafer. too preoccupied to realize for ourselves, in order RECORDS OF A HAPPY FRIENDSHIP. W. E. that we may live vicariously in that larger life Simonds 13 that we know exists, albeit beyond our feeble COMMENTING ON SHAKESPEARE, Samuel A. sight.” Tannenbaum 16 In thus restricting himself to the secondary AN ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH LIBERALISM. Carl aspects of his work, and in refraining from an Becker 18 exhibition of the very pulse of the machine," CANADA OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. Lawrence J. Burpee Mr. Herrick takes the ground that the novelist's 20 RECENT FICTION. William Morton Payne “inner spiritual reactions” are better set forth 21 Dawson's The Garden without Walls. –“G. A. in the works themselves than by any labored Birmingham's" General John Regan.- Hewlett's experiment in self-analysis. “The deepest Bendish.-Galsworthy's The Dark Flower.-Wells's The Passionate Friends. – Mackenzie's Youth's En- quality of a work of art,” says Mr. Henry counter.-Vance's Joan Thursday.-Comfort's Down James, “will always be the quality of the mind among Men. - London's The Valley of the Moon.- of the producer,” and the novelist who speaks Lancaster's The Law-Bringers. - Lynde's The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush. – Kaufman's The only of his “ background" leaves the most vital Spider's Web. characteristics of his art undisclosed. • After BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS. 27 all," says Mr. Bliss Perry, “the use of the Reflections of a veteran naturalist. - A new series materials of any art depends upon the man who of Strindberg's translated plays. — Outlines of United States history.- Gleanings in lighter vein.- employs them.” And Brunetière, to similar The industries of mediæval England. - Conquering effect, says: soit la formule, il n'y the greatest of American peaks. - The nature of a jamais au fond des œuvres que ce que les hysteria. - Little studies in humorous satire. — English water-color artists of a century ago. hommes y mettent.” But the novelist, writing Joseph Pulitzer and his “World." about his art, may hardly be held to the demand BRIEFER MENTION 30 that he exhibit his soul in the discussion; he is NOTES 31 quite justified in leaving the body of his artistic TOPICS IN JANUARY PERIODICALS 31 production to make that showing for him, and LIST OF NEW BOOKS 32 to discourse chiefly upon the external influences . “Quelle que 6 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL ; that condition his work, as Mr. Herrick does in water courses, above all in the kind of hous- this highly thoughtful and suggestive essay, ing men have made for themselves on their soil. The principal difficulty of the American Here is a mother earth that has been lived novelist, seeking to present the body of the upon by her children for generations; and time in his country, its form and pressure, is through the forces of human contact after cen- that of not being able to see the woods for the turies of war and peace, birth and death and trees. The foreign observer, superficial after change, she has come to have an individual the manner of the vacation tourist, or sourly expression of her own, subtly reflecting the flippant after the superior manner of the Satur character of her human children. There is day Reviewer, knows nothing of the trees, but little of this sort of thing in the United States. thinks that he has descried the contour of the The face of nature, no longer, alas, virginal, woods clearly enough for characterization. But even in our far western states, has not yet this is sheer delusion, for no one can know the achieved a distinguished maturity, although the real nature of the woods unless, like Mr. John soil may have been ploughed for a number of Muir, he has lived in them long enough to make generations.” It is all the difference between the individual trees his familiars. And, abandon the English hedge and the barbed wire fencing ing the metaphor, no novelist can deal typically of Texas, between the mellow thatched cottage with American life unless he has observed it at of the German village and the crude structure close range at so many points that no essential of clapboards and shingles that strikes so dis- element is missing from his synthesis. Now to cordant a note in our rural landscape. These qualify in this way means a task of appalling things are of immense consequence to the nove- magnitude, well calculated to fill with despair list, for "landscape is an important element in the most enterprising explorer. To coördinate every deeply imaginative picture of life. It is the physical, social, and spiritual facts of our much more than mere setting for certain char- complex civilization is a task so gigantic that it acters; it is that outer physical world in which would baffle the powers of a Tourguénieff or a they move, penetrating and interpreting them, Balzac. No wonder that many of our best part of their subconscious being. So Hardy novelists have given up the attempt, and con rendered his background, - also Tolstoi, - to fine themselves to studies in genre and local take but two notable modern instances.” peculiarity. Failing inspiration from landscape, the Mr. Herrick makes us see this difficulty very American novelist perforce directs his attention clearly, and yet he feels also, as most of us do, to those disfigurements of nature which most of that there is a “permanent Americanism in the our cities are, and what he sees there is anything more or less marked provincialism of our peo. but encouraging. For “our intensely modern ple, not merely in character but in ideas, occu cities are, at least externally and in mass, un- pation, blood relationships, even in speech.” deniably ugly--sprawling, uncomposed, dirty, He has a great deal to say about the physical and noisy. With their slovenly approaches, background of our life, and emphasizes its wide their needless crowding, they express the indus- diversities. “A New Englander, emerging trial greed and uncoördinated social necessities from his Pullman in Louisiana or Arizona or of a rapidly multiplying and heterogeneous peo- Montana, to take a few scattered instances, ple.” It is the city which provides the dreadful cannot recognize anything in these strange land- annual spectacle of " moving day,” “with its scapes in common with his own rocky pastures horrors of crumbling possessions and decaying and thin meadows. An Englishman or a French self-respect.” This national institution tends to even an Italian under similar circum obliterate the more intimate individualities that stances could never be totally at a loss in any are the result of slow growth in a settled environ- corner of his own land.” If our landscape is ment, and that have always offered the imagi- thus lacking in a distinctive individuality, still native creator his finest human material.” The more is it lacking in the sort of human quality suburb does not alleviate matters very much, for, which the novelist needs for his inspiration. It although it “may well be the social salvation of is because of this poverty that the appeal to America, it is surely its æsthetic purgatory.” “See America First” will always sound hollow As the scene of super-luxurious life, the city has to the ears of anyone who has seen anything of supplied the commercial novelist with a theme Europe. “ As one passes over the surface of " which is quite foreign to the experience of the Europe, no matter how hastily, one is aware of majority of readers and, we may suspect, to that a human quality in the fields, the roads, the of the writers themselves." of the writers themselves." From these, and man 1914] 7 THE DIAL “Ours Browning. other facts, Mr. Herrick draws the sweeping In one of his strongest and most beautiful lyrics, conclusion that “never has an American city “The Singer,” he seems to speak of himself with got itself expressed imaginatively as have Lon- proud bitterness, recounting what he had done for don and Paris and Rome." his country and his return for the service: Having thus exhibited the poverty of the “His war songs fired the battle host, His mottoes on their banners burned ; American background of fiction in its threefold And when the foe had fled the coast, aspect of the physical scene, the city of tradi- Wild with his songs the troops returned. Then at the feast's triumphal board, tion, the developed external civilization of a His thrilling music cheered the wine ; unified people” Mr. Herrick comes to the core But when the singer asked reward, of the matter,” which is that our real back- They pointed to the herds and swine." ground is “human society in a larger freer Read served on the staff of General Lew Wallace, sense than the world has ever known." Here under Rosecrans; so that the blare of cannon and at last is a gleam of light, and our writer's flash of sabre, which sound and glitter through so message is to urge that the novelist seize this much of his verse, were more than a poet's dream. “ unique rich field of our opportunity.” Our He made his living by painting, ranging from signs fiction should become primarily psychological, He painted the portraits of many distinguished men, in the beginning up to battle scenes and ideal pieces. and give up the futile effort to follow in the foot including President Harrison, Thackeray, and steps of Dickens and Thomas Hardy. “Ours is the most complex human ferment the world Read was born in Chester County, near Phila- has ever seen. Strong peoples are still fighting delphia. It is remarkable how many champions within as for the mastery of a great, enormously of poetry and art this corner of our country, domi- rich country, which thus far remains no man's nated by Quaker influence, has sent forth. Charles land and every man's, where ideas are being re- Brockden Brown, our first great romance writer; formed with a bewildering rapidity that seems James Fenimore Cooper, our greatest creator of to the more archaic American a sure indication character; Bayard Taylor, our first all-round man, of decay. But it is just this ferment, this -explorer, poet, novelist, scholar, and diplomatist; Charles Godfrey Leland, the creator of “Hans Breit- capacity for absorbing and re-making ideas and man,” the best translator of Heine, the father of ideals that constitutes our hope and incidentally manual training in this country; Benjamin West, furnishes the imagination with fruitful matter who at least achieved a great place in art; Joseph to work upon. Ours should be a literature of Pennell, the master-etcher of our age, — all these ideas and ideals — a literature of the mind as were born in or near Philadelphia. With the excep- well as of the primary emotions.” Here is an tion of Read and Leland, they were all of Quaker inspiring motive, and we must add that Mr. blood; but it is needless to state that this efflorescence Herrick, albeit with too little patience and too of genius, inside or outside their fold, has always much bitterness, has placed himself in the front been without the will or consent of the Quakers themselves. rank of those who practice what he here preaches against any intrusion of literary or artistic fame They have set their faces like flints with so much force and insight. within their precincts. We have not a word to say against the Quaker doctrine, which is a high and beautiful mysticism; but, working on ordinary human nature, it seems capable of creating more A NEGLECTED AMERICAN POET. whited sepulchres than any other creed ever known. All American poets are neglected, but “the Buchanan Read sang the praises of wine perhaps iniquity of oblivion” that “blindly scattereth her more liberally than any modern poet. We do not poppy” has been perhaps busier over the grave of in the least know whether this was a mere poetic Thomas Buchanan Read than over those of most of instinct, or a reflex from his own life; but it has his mates and rivals. Yet during the Civil War his been made a reproach against him. In this connec- patriotic lyrics thrilled the country; and Murdoch, tion we are reminded of a story told us by an old the elocutionist, toured the land reciting them and gentleman, himself of Quaker blood. He was visit- reading “The Wagoner of the Alleghanies.” As ing a relation in Kennett Square, where at that time Read wistfully put it in the preface to this poem: Bayard Taylor also lived. The first morning, after “The gratifying fact remains with the writer, that it breakfast, his Quaker host drew him mysteriously has been instrumental, in the hands of Mr. Murdoch, aside and unlocking a cupboard brought out a bottle of putting no inconsiderable sums of money into the of whiskey, with the remark: “Of course I don't let treasuries of sanitary committees, thereby benefiting the boys know I keep this stuff, but men like you the sick and wounded who have suffered in our and I need it occasionally.” His guest drank and country's cause.” He himself, apparently, received went outdoors, where one of the sons beckoned him neither profit or advancement for his literary work. into the barn, and from some recess produced another 8 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL bottle of whiskey, saying: “Father doesn't approve find out how good it is. Among the rest, Read's of this sort of a thing, but a young fellow must have “ New Pastoral” will certainly have a high place. it once in a while.” Strolling about the place, my To-day, when even poetic readers decline to look informant met the other son, who took him into the into Wordsworth’s “Prelude” or “ Excursion,” a wood, and, out of a hollow tree, produced a third blank verse poem of five thousand lines of somewhat similar bottle, with a third similar speech. So my similar type is hardly likely to attract. Read in his polite friend had to accept three drinks of whiskey fidelity to somewhat prosaic circumstance is often as in one morning, from a family which was probably dull as Wordsworth dared to be, and his poem lacks among those who hounded Bayard Taylor out of the passages of solid grandeur and sublime revela- Kennett Square because he had wine and beer tion which the recorder of the English Lakes was served at his table. capable of giving. But Read's material is more novel Read's poetry secured many verdicts of the high- and interesting, and there is much freshness, beauty, est note during his lifetime. President Lincoln and charm in his verse. The poem was published kept “The Patriot's Oath” in his pocket-book. in 1854; and, at a time when Chicago hardly existed The Brownings appreciated and encouraged him. and Lincoln was unheard of, Read made a daring Coventry Patmore called him “the only real poet prophecy of both. The passage is too long for com- America has had.” Longfellow said of “The New plete quotation, but we condense it: Pastoral”: “It is full of beauty and people will “ Here shall the city spread its noisy streets, turn to it as to pure spring water.” Leigh Hunt And groaning steamers chafe along its wharves : wrote in the “ North British Review”; “We know While hourly o'er the plain, with streaming plumes, of no other American poet, with the doubtful excep- Like a swift herald bringing news of peace, The rattling train shall Ay; and from the East - tion of Edgar Poe, having so much real feeling as Even from the Atlantic to the new found shores is shown in some of Mr. Read's verses.” And of the Where far Pacific rolls, in storm or rest, poem, " The Closing Scene,” Hunt wrote: Washing his sands of gold — the arrowy track “This is unquestionably the best American poem we have Shall stretch its iron band through all the land. Here in the middle of the nation's arms met with ; indeed, it is with one or two exceptions, the only American poem we have read, or could read, over again. Perchance the mightiest inland mart shall spring. It is an addition to the permanent stock of poetry in the Here the great statesman from the ranks of toil English language, and is worth the whole album of Excel- May rise, with judgment clear, as strong as wise; siors' and 'Psalms of Life,' and other such attempted And with a well-directed patriot blow Reclench the rivets in our union bands moralities, which are abundantly supplied to an applauding public on this and the other side of the Atlantic. Tennyson Which tinkering knaves have striven to set ajar." himself, the great modern master of that kind of description Surely that is hard to beat in vision and prescience. which employs the objects of outward nature as a language The story of the “New Pastoral” begins in a small of human feeling, has scarcely surpassed, in its way, this poem, which, in our opinion, merits the fame that Gray's agricultural community of Eastern Pennsylvania, celebrated elegy has obtained without deserving it near so and follows the fortunes of a group of families which well." migrate westward. We do not believe that the life Read wrote of his poem, “The New Pastoral”: of the backwoodsman and pioneer settler has ever “I know that I have attempted a great theme — in been more convincingly and admirably described. fact the greatest theme left for an American to do. “The Wagoner of the Alleghanies” is all fire and My plot sweeps the face of the country from Penn- spirit and action. The scene is laid in and about sylvania to the prairies.” It is a fact that our early Philadelphia just before and at the time of the Rev- American writers came into a great inheritance.olution. "It sweeps into its swift march the battles of They lived on the edge of civilization; the forest the Brandywine and Germantown, the Meschianza, was at their doors, the prairies and the mountains the life in the stately manor houses and in the taverns beyond. The Indian and the backwoodsman, two and streets of the time. One reads it at a dash for of the most picturesque figures of modern life, wan the interest of the stories and characters, and then dered still into the cities. Every cigar-store had lingers again over it to enjoy its rich paintings of before it the wooden effigy of a child of the forest. interiors and landscapes and to muse over its cadences Our beautiful clipper ships bore musical Indian and imagery. As a matter of fact, Read is always names, and Indian warriors or maidens furnished too profuse in fancy. He needed to have pondered the models for their figure-heads. And our first over Corinna's advice to Pindar, to sow with the men of letters thoroughly appreciated this material. hand and not the sack. The poem, too, written in Prescott and Parkman in history, Irving and Cooper Scott's metre and with something of his manner; in the tale and novel, Bryant and Longfellow in has undoubtedly a touch of the rococo in some of poetry, all realized the past and passing life in the scenes and incidents,- a hint of Ann Radcliffe. America. A multitude of lesser writers all dealt But it is thoroughly enjoyable, and we scarcely with American origins and primitives. We name hesitate to say that it is the best narrative poem in as the first that come to our mind the records of our literature. Clark's expedition, Abbot's “Hoaryhead and To a world which does not love long poems, McDonough,” and Frank Forester's hunting Read's lyrical pieces will probably make the most sketches and tales. Some day all this literature instant and enduring appeal. We do not at all agree will be revived, and the world will be surprised to with Leigh Hunt that “The Closing Scene" ought 1914] 9 THE DIAL to displace Gray's “ Elegy” in literature ; but it is enterprise. But there is no reason to infer the same a poem of grave and tranquil beauty and deep emo oversight in respect to the present undertaking. Its tion. The enchanting lyric, “Drifting,” has been purpose is announced in a brief prospectus as “ the the most famous of Read's works, except perhaps dissemination of some disagreeable truths,” which “Sheridan's Ride” and one or two other of the war will, it is expected, make the Review “unpopular poems. “ The Brave at Home," one of the inter among that large majority of the public which is spersed lyrics of “The Wagoner,” was at one time fond of the agreeable fallacies.” Appealing thus to famous, and ought to be so again. “The Appian the wisely discerning minority (and who of us would Way” is a stately and noble piece. “My Her not claim membership in this company of the elect?), mitage” is one of the most perfectly and poignantly the new quarterly will pay especial attention to worded of his poems, and “The Deserted Road” “economic and political matters, • . . but all good has a touch of reality which brings the past before interests are more or less directly allied, and when- us in vision. “The Celestial Army ” does not fall ever its way touches general philosophy, rational far short of greatness. religion, science, literature, and the arts, the Review In view of the high praise Read has received, and will not be slow to gain from them variety as well the almost utter neglect which has befallen him, we as illumination, especially on the too frequent occa- feel some hesitation in essaying a verdict as to his sions when disagreeable truths should be told regard- final place in American literature. While every ing them.” Constructive, however, rather than de- critic's opinion must be more or less subjective, the structive, the new publication will strive to be; "and comparative method is the only one which yields as, despite much that is false and ugly and evil, the any hope of certainty. On the whole, then, we world on the whole is true and beautiful and good, cannot place him with our great triumvirate, Poe, the general attitude will be optimistic — spontane- Emerson, and Bryant. They have a concentration ously, though cautiously, optimististic. Among which he lacks. Theirs is the imaginative word, other novel features, “the names of the contributors the flashing phrase, which “discovers continents yet will not be printed before the number next after unknown." But we think he is certainly the peer that in which their contributions appear.” Here is a of any of the others, so much more widely known chance for writers who have hitherto failed to achieve and accepted as some of them are. Pressed more popularity to make a bold bid for a place among the closely to define his position, we should say that he Unpopular. is the spiritual and perhaps superior twin of Long- TO MEN AND WOMEN OF THE PEN certain words fellow. He has an equal affluence of fancy and grace spoken recently at Amherst College by Dr. Talcott of expression. He has more sensuousness in music Williams, head of the Pulitzer school of journalism and picture, a closer touch of reality. In originality of theme and treatment he is perhaps superior, at Columbia University, will be of interest. Natu- rally the speaker's remarks had especial reference the wings of Europe did not brood so closely over him. Rossetti, who disliked Longfellow's poetry, to journalism, but they were often capable of broader clipped Read's pieces from the newspapers, and said, delight to do. Men do not practice law or visit application. “Writing,” he affirmed, “all men “They are as fine as any I know." He has a note of his own in lyrical poetry, a pervading purity, for nothing. This competition, the constant desire patients for nothing. Many men are glad to write beauty, and emotional ring; and in long narrative of men to affect their fellow-men in the interest of poems, in which, in fact, we in America have not the work itself — leads many men toward journal- too much to be proud of, he is unsurpassed. ism and affects its material reward. This is, on CHARLES LEONARD MOORE. the whole, lower than that of any other calling requiring the same ability, industry and effort.” Although the writer's real reward comes to him or CASUAL COMMENT. her in some other form than that of money, as Dr. Williams recognizes, it may be interesting to note A QUARTERLY REVIEW WITH THE COURAGE OF the place he assigns to journalism in the scale of ITS TITLE, as well as that of its convictions, starts material compensation for the principal learned pro- with the opening year under the name of “The fessions. “In our American civilization,” he says, Unpopular Review” (absit omen) and bearing the “the law is the best trade; the doctor is the next imprint of Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. The peculiar best trade, taking in all cases the highest ranks of title recalls the projected enterprise of a company the calling; the engineering manager comes next; of unsuccessful writers for unsympathetic periodicals the rewards of the clergy are about those of the who determined to endure no longer the repeated journalist. No man can enter the calling with the indignity of rejection slips, but to snap their fingers expectation that his pay will be large, that his work in the faces of unappreciative editors and start a will be as well rewarded as that of other men, or magazine of their own; and the plan would doubt that he will find himself increasing in his returns as less have worked to admiration had it not been for he grows older.” The possibility that journalism the omission of one not quite negligible item, a suffi may prove to be the gateway to a larger field of cient working capital to launch and maintain the literary activity, or to one on a higher plane, forms 10 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL with many eager aspirants no small part of its demnation. Lecturers do often present matter unob- lure; and it has indeed served as training school tainable from other sources; and if they entertain for a host of notable writers. as well as edify, where is the harm? Did not New England, the most intellectual section of our coun. A LIBRARY OF UNPUBLISHED BOOKS that is, try, originate the lyceum and its improving and books printed privately and never offered in open stimulating course of lectures? Was not Emerson market to the vulgar — passes, for a consideration, a lecturer, and did he not win hundreds, perhaps from the possession of Mr. Bertram Dobell, who thousands, of disciples through his lectures ? And has been forty years in collecting it, to the appre wherein is it worse to listen to the apt and cogent ciative custody of the Library of Congress. That expression of thought, and to think one is thinking there should be in the world of print so large a meanwhile, than to read the same thing in print, collection as fifteen hundred works, still-born and with the same accompanying illusion of intellectual yet deemed worthy of a distinguished and discrimi- activity? No, the least of all intellectual exercises nating bibliophile's cherishing care, is cause for is not listening to lectures; else how could we have some surprise; but Mr. Dobell is certainly not one lent so ready an ear to our Minnesota friend quoted to accumulate rubbish, even in unique editions, and above? this curious library of his gathering will repay HOME READING FOR THE HIGH-SCHOOL PUPIL is examination when it is once on view in its new the subject of a pamphlet issued by the National quarters. Too well known to need rehearsing here Council of Teachers of English. It is, as the title- are his services to the world of letters, in researches concerning his favorite, Charles Lamb; in his be. page announces, a “Report of the Committee upon friending of the ill-fated author of “The City of Home Reading,” and it is inclusive enough to meet the needs of almost any boy or girl who has the Dreadful Night,” whose poems he published in usual number of high-school studies to master. The worthy form after their writer's death; and in his compilers announce that “the list excludes books discovery of the seventeenth-century Parson-poet, Thomas Traherne, whose manuscript writings his valuable only for the information conveyed. Books that merely give information, however needful, are discerning eye saw to be literary treasures and his timely action saved from impending destruction. not, in the opinion of the committee, books for home Traherne's publisher, as well as Thomson's, he thus reading.” Hence it is not surprising that “fiction became, to the great indebtedness of at least a few constitutes approximately half the list. This has seemed advisable, since it is through good fiction connoisseurs. In the collection of books just trans- that most pupils are led to appreciate other forms. ferred to this country's ownership, Mr. Dobell had The number of suitable books outside fiction is, a library unmatched in the whole world, moreover, relatively small. In other departments assemblage of literary aristocrats that had held themselves so proudly aloof from the masses as to the question is, “What can we put in?' In the de- be for the most part unknown to librarians and partment of fiction, we find ourselves asking, What dealers, and to rejoice in immunity from the vulgar fiction come shorter lists of drama, poetry, biog; shall we leave out?"" After the long list of good advertisement of the catalogue and the trade-list. raphy, history and mythology, speeches, travel and Whether this peculiar distinction was one worth striving for, may be debatable; but that is another adventure, and, finally, essays and works not other- wise classified. Explanatory symbols follow the matter. titles, indicating the general character of each book “THE LEAST OF ALL INTELLECTUAL EXERCISES, and sometimes the relative maturity requisite in the says Professor Hardin Craig, of the University of reader for its best enjoyment. “The list should not Minnesota, in a paper recently delivered before the be put without comment into the hands of the pupils,” Minnesota Library Association, and now printed in is the warning accompanying it. “From this list, “Library Notes and News,” the quarterly publica as from a pharmacop[@]ia where the cure for one tion of the Public Library Commission of that would be poison to another, the teacher must pre- State, is “to sit and listen — whether we take notes scribe the right medicine." Quadrennial revision of upon it or not— to another's speech. If it is well the list is recommended by its makers. It is obtain- done, it gives the flattering illusion of thought to able, as announced on the cover, at Sixty-eighth the hearers. They think they are thinking. Some- Street and Stewart Ave., Chicago. body else's phrases delight them; they make none of their own. What deeply permanent value beyond THE TANTALIZING DELIGHTS OF BOOKSELLERS' recreation can there be in hearing lectures on liter. | CATALOGUES, to one whose fondeet hopes extend not ature, in a mere listening while somebody else says beyond the anxiously-considered purchase of one or pleasant things about the English writers?” two coveted and not too expensive books a year, Johnson long ago avowed that a lecture gave the resemble those vain stimulations of the salivary listener nothing that he could not find in better glands which the starving gutter-snipe experiences form, and at less expense of time, in a book. Still, in gazing through the plate-glass window of a bake- it is likely that most will agree in considering both shop at the custard pies and frosted cakes and jelly Dr. Johnson and Dr. Craig too severe in their con tarts there so temptingly displayed. From the - an 1914] 11 THE DIAL a London house of Ellis (a name that is now but a among other treasures, the four Shakespeare folios, survival, the present proprietors being Messrs. early editions of Chaucer and Ben Jonson, illumi- Holdsworth and Smith) there comes a richly illus- nated manuscripts of great worth, a large collection trated and beautifully printed "Catalogue of Choice of works on the history and life of Mexico and the and Valuable Books and Manuscripts, with a Short Pacific coast, many volumes of Spanish literature History of the Bookselling Business Carried on since in all its departments, and a considerable selection 1728 at 29 New Bond Street, London, W.” The of Chinese and Japanese books and manuscripts. most costly item enumerated is an illuminated manu The library, now numbering about one hundred uscript missal ("Missale Bononiense”) of about 1600, thousand volumes in all, was not long ago removed and now, three centuries later, offered at £1,750. from its place of storage to the second floor of the But probably more than one discerning reader of Lane Medical Library Building, San Francisco, and the catalogue will be more attracted by the last title with the new year will be unpacked and subjected in the list, that of the book so dear to Charles to the processes of cataloguing, classifying, shelving, Lamb,-“Wither (George). A Collection of Em etc. Thus it will be several months before any part blemes, Ancient and Moderne: Quickened with of it is available for public use. By the conditions Metricall Illustrations, both Morall and Divine: of the gift, the collection must have its home in San and disposed into Lotteries, that instruction, and Francisco, and there it will be operated by the State Good Counsell, may bee furthered by an Honest Library as a branch, accessible to a much greater and Pleasant Recreation.” This is a first edition, number of persons than if it were at Sacramento. folio, London, 1635, a "fine tall copy," far superior to the one Lamb was delighted to pick up "in A HARDY PIONEER makes monthly appeal to most detestable state of preservation,” and is to be our notice. “The Pioneer of Simplified Speling" had for one guinea. certainly has the courage of its convictions: it STANLEY HOUGHTON, the English playwright who carries the principle of phonetic orthography (we died recently at Manchester, where he was born acknowledge the contradiction in terms) to its thirty-three years ago, probably needed only a few remorseless limit. Without going beyond the table more years of life to attain a celebrity comparable of contents printed on the cover of the latest issue, with that of his fellow-countryman, Mr. Galsworthy, we note such headings as “Mr. Sexton'z Sceem," if indeed he might not have won a renown of Sha- “Voisez from acros the Chanel,” “A Hed Mistres'z vian proportions. A certain originality and daring Apoloejia,” “Noetz and Nyuz,” “Pres Cutings of the characterized his plays and sometimes, as in the Munth.” Who can fail to admire the unabashed case of “Hindle Wakes,” aroused considerable criti- insistence on forms like “woz” for unreformed cism that did not confine itself to dramatic or “ was," "poot” for “put,” “mistaicen” for “mis- technical questions. Other notable plays of his taken," and "chainj” for “change"? Bravo! Beter “The Younger Generation,” “Fancy Free,” a lie wel stuc tu than the tryuth waivering. “Phipps,” “Independent Means," and "The Dear Departed,” all of which have been seen in this coun- CHEAPER CARRIAGE OF Books is inevitably com- try, on the professional or the amateur stage, or both. ing. The Postmaster-General's proposal to admit Houghton's conquest of success at the first assault them to parcel-post privileges, with other notable is the subject of certain humorous autobiographic modifications of the existing parcel-post rules, has reminiscences. Well aware in advance that a pre- been approved by the Interstate Commerce Com. liminary series of heartbreaking failures is the mission. When this reform has been fully effected, usual price of fame in the dramatic world, he dili- it will be possible not only to deliver to local patrons, gently set about accomplishing his required number at small expense, books from the public library and of unsuccesses as the first step to ultimate triumph. the bookshop, but also to send this class of freight But Miss Horniman and her repertory company of in considerable packages, under Uncle Sam's kindly Manchester thwarted his well-meant endeavors in care, to any part of the country. It ought to be this direction, producing play after play from his astonishing, but is not, that under a government of pen until his success was assured. His skill seems the people, by the people, for the people, measures to have lain in the realm of very modern realism, of so manifest popular berefit should be so late in rather than in that of idealism or romance. getting themselves adopted. are THE SUTRO LIBRARY, presented to the California State Library by the heirs of the late Adolph Sutro, COMMUNICATIONS. is a little-known but a very valuable collection of THE APPEAL OF "POLITICAL POETRY.” books even in its present sadly depleted condition. (To the Editor of The DIAL.) The quarter-million of volumes brought together by the California millionaire came throngh the great time of Hesitation,” Mr. Charles Leonard Moore con- In your issue of December 1, apropos of “An Ode in San Francisco fire with a loss of more than one-half. signs all “ political poems” to limbo. Now by political But the remaining fraction, like the three unburnt poems he evidently means any verse which is concerned Sibylline Books, is of inestimable value, containing, with politics, in war or in peace, no matter how great the 12 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL 66 his question involved or how far the ideal has removed that present-day translators like Lafcadio Hearn, Mrs. Gar- question from a mere party.catchword. nett, Miss K. P. Wormeley, E. A. Vizetelly, Alexander To rule out all poems which are political in this wide Teixeira de Mattos, G. B. Ives, Miss H. W. Preston sense would be to ban the Jacobite ballads, “ The Lost (the first, if I mistake not, to introduce Mistral's Leader," the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Well “Mireio” to America), and many others, prëeminent ington, ," « My Dark Rosaleen,” “ The Concord Hymn," in their transfusion of the spirit of the author from one “ Peschiera," Rossetti's sonnet “On the Refusal of Aid language to another, but combining it with a gratifying between Nations,” Wordsworth's sonnet “On the Ex- fidelity to the language of the original? Theirs is a tinction of the Venetian Republic,” many fine passages double fame: they are not only scholars, but are them- in Byron and Mrs. Browning, much of Lowell's best selves authors of the first rank. No literary hacks they, satire, several of Milton's sonnets, Kipling's “The grinding out their sentences with lexicon and phrase- Recessional,” Whitman's “O Captain! My Captain !” book ! It has always seemed to me not quite fair that Longfellow's “Cumberland” and “A Nameless Grave," they should be—for the most part unwittingly—denied and “ Punch's " apology on the death of Lincoln, any of the credit which is rightly theirs for creating poems that are all very much alive for members of a a work of art in another language and for broadening blighted ” race. the mental range of thousands of those readers who, As a matter of fact, a fine political poem has an without them, would know nothing of a foreign litera- especial hold on immortality. The event wbich it com ture. memorates recedes; but like events occur, demanding Accompanying this feeling, however, is one of regret like expression. Webster and Whittier pass, but Ichabods that, for some reason or other, so many foreign authors still fall and writers still leave the better part for the should be represented in English by works which are handful of silver and the riband to stick in their coats. assuredly not their masterpieces. Within the year, Nothing could be further from the truth than to say three of the books of Henry Bordeaux, the flower of that because a particular struggle is over its voice must the younger school of French fiction, have been pub- die. Rather it takes a wider meaning with time, and lished in this country; and, according to the publishers, from being an incident born of an idea becomes an idea the response to this introduction has been gratifying. embodied in an incident. So certain place-names stand It is generally agreed that the masterpieces of this de- less for localities than for conditions of the soul. fender of traditionalism are “La Peur de vivre,” « Les Zutphen, Smithfield, and Balaclava become chivalry, Roquevillard,” and “Les Yeux qui s'ouvrent." But conscience, and obedience. only tbe first of this trio is as yet numbered among If a great political poem is to lose its force, then why English translations. A New York publisher recently not any poem dealing with a moral question? What issued Georges Ohnet’s “ La Serre de l'aigle," a novel are the Vaudois to us that a sonnet written nearly two which is the second in a historical trilogy, either one hundred and fifty years ago should stir our blood ? of the other two being superior to the second. This may Surely it is because we know that, though martyrs be damning with faint praise, but it is a case in point. perish, martyrdom is never ending. Space prevents citing many other instances. Is it fair When politics rises above the morass which we asso to the author that, whatever be the cause — copyright, ciate with the name, it may produce prose and poetry expense, or what,- his reputation among English readers equal to that of religion or love or war. After all, what should rest on, or be introduced by, what are generally is the Gettysburg Address but political prose? The considered his second-rate books? courage which enabled a single ship to fight off the If I am right, what may be the cause ? Spanish fleet is no more enduring stuff than the enthu- JULIAN PARK. siasm which led Robert Shaw to place his life at the The University of Buffalo, Dec. 19, 1913. service of an unfortunate race. The reproach of “ig- noble battle overseas applies not alone to the Philip- DEVOURING THE CLASSICS. pines. Italy wins her freedom, but the agony is only (To the Editor of THE DIAL.) transferred to some other people. The Inquisition is It is refreshing to have one of your correspondents over, but the charge of Ritual Murder is a present fact tell us that “a man of even mediocre ability could read in Russia. We read our own struggle into the politics all of Greek literature in a few months' time, and his of the past, just as we read our own love affair into acquisition would be a treasure of enormous pleasure another man's love lyrics. These live because our ideals and profit.” He adds: “Even more is this true of and our sorrows endure. Latin "; one is not told whether "time" is meant, or HELEN MINTURN SEYMOUR. “pleasure and profit,” or all three — but one hopes, Troy, N. Y., Dec. 20, 1913. with misgivings, that it is only “time." This is really very wonderful. I am acquainted with A WORD ABOUT TRANSLATIONS. several persons who have spent a number of years (To the Editor of THE DIAL.) reading Greek and Latin. I would have supposed that, Your interesting comment on translations in the if anything, their ability was above mediocre; and yet current number suggests the thought that most trans I am sure that no one of them would claim knowledge, lators have never had their due. FitzGerald (as you or even acquaintance, with the whole body of extant point out), Pope, Bryant, Longfellow, Parsons, Lang, classical literature. They all acknowledge, however, Symonds, and a few others are, of course, notable ex the “pleasure and profit” derived from what they ceptions, but they were great authors in their own right; have accomplished. One friend, it is true, has confided and their fame has foundation not so much on their to me his opinion that the longer time be gave to mat- adaptations from other languages (great as FitzGerald's ters of this kind the more "pleasure and profit” he got was) as on their own genius, which made of their trans out of them. I suppose he must be very old-fashioned. lations works peculiarly and as much their own as the ROBERT SHAFER. original was the author's. But what shall we say of Indianapolis, Ind., Dec. 22, 1913. 1914] 13 THE DIAL The New Books. tion of issuing the first edition of De Quincey's collected works, antedating by two or three years the appearance of the first British edition, which RECORDS OF A HAPPY FRIENDSHIP.* was supervised by the author himself. The task The friendship of Hawthorne and his pub- of collecting and arranging the scattered mate- lisher, William Davis Ticknor, is memorable in rial was performed by Mr. Fields, and we are its bearing on American literary history; and told that De Quincey relied largely on this col- the story of that friendship, as set forth in the lection in preparing his own edition. If we are volume by Miss Caroline Ticknor, is thoroughly not mistaken, it was this same firm that first worth the reading, for more reasons than one. published in book form the earlier works of In the first place, the life-long service to the Carlyle. advancement of literature in America rendered The first two chapters of Miss Ticknor's by this famous Boston publisher, while less con- work contain many interesting facts of this char- spicuous than that of his literary partner, Fields, acter, and include some vivid glimpses of the is in itself worthy of recognition. The early am- inner sanctum of the old book-store: the green- bition of Ticknor, says his granddaughter,- curtained corner of the office where Fields had “ Differed materially from that of many other enterpris- his desk and entertained the sociable spirits ing youths who came to Boston far back in the twenties invariably gathered there; the counting-room, to seek their fortunes; some longed for wealth, others elevated two or three steps above the level sought fame, but this young man, whose heritage was a of the store, where the alert senior partner, great love of books, desired that his “imprint on a title sitting at his desk, could command the field. page should be the guarantee of a good book.' This was the corner-stone of a notable literary edifice which Here, in the little counting-room, was Haw- he was destined to rear; a structure unique in the his- thorne's chair, in a secluded niche, close beside tory of book-publishing." his faithful friend, where he could see and yet It was in 1832 that Mr. Ticknor, then in his be out of sight. twenty-second year, entered the book business, “In this one chair it was for many years Nathaniel Hawthorne's custom to ensconce himself whenever he forming a partnership with Mr. John Allen under the firm name of Allen & Ticknor, at resting his head upon his hand apparently in happy and visited the corner’; he often spent whole hours here, the corner of School and Washington streets in satisfying sympathy with his environment ... watch- Boston. In 1845 James T. Fields, a clerk in ing in the shadow, motionless physically, yet mentally the employ of Mr. Ticknor, was taken into the alert, and following with an inward intentness the fan- tastic trains of thought evoked sometimes by what was firm, and the imprint became Ticknor, Reed & passing in the outward world, and again by that which Fields, John Reed, Jr., contributing capital. was merely passing within his active brain. ... If any Upon Mr. Reed's subsequent withdrawal, the acquaintance, knowing him to be there, came to claim firm name was compressed to the familiar style his attention, his face seemed to cast off an intangible of Ticknor & Fields. It was not many years but perceptible veil, and he roused himself to a genial and conversational mood, though still with a suggestion before the “Old Corner Bookstore" had become of having come rather unwillingly from a haunt of his a sort of literary shrine,— it was the “Hub” of predilection, to which he would fain return as soon as literary New England. What memories cluster he might do so without impoliteness." about that historic spot in the recollection of the For the general reader, however, the chief passing generation! Hawthorne, Longfellow, interest of the volume lies in the letters of Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne to Ticknor, covering the years and many others were its habitués. Dickens and 1852-64, in which the personality of the writer Thackeray enjoyed its hospitality, as did many is revealed with the frankness of intimacy. another celebrity from the old world, drawn “The Scarlet Letter" had been published in thither to pay visits of courtesy to the proprietors 1850, “The House of the Seven Gables" in of this truly literary book-shop whose motto was 1851; 66 The Wonder Book” and “ The Blithe- "fair play,”—for Mr. Ticknor had been the first dale Romance” had followed ; Hawthorne had American publisher to make unsolicited payment removed from Lenox to Concord, and was at this to foreign authors for “copyright” and to pur time completing the campaign biography of his chase “advance sheets” of books coming from class-mate, Franklin Pierce. The probable ap- the English press. The enterprise of this pub- pointment to a position in the consular service lishing house was shown in notable ways. To was in the wind, and the assistance of Ticknor the firm of Ticknor & Fields belongs the distinc as counsellor, guardian, and friend was invoked. * HAWTHORNE AND HIS PUBLISHER. By Caroline Tick- Until one reads this correspondence one can nor. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. scarcely be aware to how great an extent Haw- 14 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL thorne leaned upon the ready assistance of his said farewell to the Hawthornes and departed publisher in all these practical matters. He on his journey home. refused to travel without Ticknor's companion Hawthorne's experiences while abroad are ship. It was like the first adventure of a shy pretty well known through his “ Notebooks” and unsophisticated boy into the outside world; and the sketches in “Our Old Home ”; Miss he demanded a comrade whom he trusted. In Ticknor draws from these sources to fill the gaps April, 1853, the two friends made the trip to in the correspondence and to round out the Washington to see the president and to promote record of which the letters in this volume form the interests of his biographer. Ticknor, in this a part. The letters are characterized by utter instance, is the correspondent, and his letters to spontaneity ; rarely do they show traces of a his wife give us the story of the trip. It is formal or "literary” style. Says Miss Ticknor: rather interesting to find him referring to the “ He spoke his mind freely, and with a kind of boyish Progressive” element in the Democratic party: irresponsibility. He indulged in cutting and satirical “I am perfectly surprised,” he says, " to see to remarks about men and things, as well as institutions what extent this spirit is carried here [in Wash- that he truly respected. . . . He ran on' with a care- less disregard of anything beyond his present mood. ington] He adds: “I am convinced that old He talked with the freedom of a man who knows that party lines in every section of the country are he is so well understood that it does not matter what he breaking up and that there is a spirit abroad says. He made daring comments for the fun of making which is to revolutionize the politics of the them, in one paragraph, and took them back or softened country: Whether it will be for the best good them, for truth's sake, in the next.” of the Nation, I think is a question of very great This is an admirable statement of the facts, importance — but the tide is rolling on, and good and only in the spirit of such an understanding men of all parties must control and guide, or we can a proper interpretation be placed upon these shall • suffer loss.'' letters, in which occur frequent outbursts of The two comrades were royally entertained, feeling due to momentary irritation and the and the novelist was rather lionized. “Haw- “ Haw whimsical expression of a passing mood. thorne is quite a lion here," says Tickpor; The duties of his office were conscientiously 6 much attention is shown, and yet it annoys and efficiently discharged, but not unnaturally him very much.” The mission was successful, they įrked Hawthorne, as similar tasks had and Hawthorne's prospective income was largely worn upon his sensitive disposition at Salem increased by combining the duties of the con- and in Boston. Thus, just two months after sulate at Manchester with those of the office at Ticknor's departure from Liverpool, Hawthorne Liverpool. writes: The matter of the appointment having been “I suppose Baring Brothers have already advised you of my depositing £300 to your credit. If it had settled, preparations for the departure were been £3000, I would kick the office to the devil, and rapidly made; and in July, 1853, the party come home again. I am sick of it, and long for my sailed for England on the Cunarder" Niagara, hillside; and what I thought I never should long for – a first-class steamship, 250 feet in length, pro my pen! When once a man is thoroughly imbued with pelled by paddlewheels and carrying about ink, he can never wash out the stain." 150 passengers. Mr. Ticknor accompanied his There was a possibility that Congress might friend; for without the former's protecting com- reduce the emoluments of his office, and we panionship, Hawthorne had resolutely refused find Hawthorne writing in the same strain: to embark. Of course it was not solely for this “Money cannot pay me for the irksomeness of this reason that the publisher made the journey; office, at least only a very large amount can do it; and there were errands connected with the trade, I really think I should be glad to have Congress put the question of my remaining here at rest by breaking authors to be solicited, and books to be pur down the office altogether. This very morning I have chased in London ; yet Ticknor remained with been bored to death by a woman; and every day I am the Hawthornes in Liverpool for three days beset with complainants who I wish were all at the after the arrival, “arranging his business as well Devil together. But I can get along well enough with as I could until he enters upon his duties August In an earlier letter (1854) he had specified some men, if the women would only let me alone.” in an interesting visit to De Quincey, then living of these complainants : with his daughter in the little cottage at Lass- “What with brutal shipmasters, drunken sailors, wade. Hawthorne was included in the invita- vagrant yankees, mad people, sick people, and dead people (for just now I have to attend to the removal of tion, but found it impossible to leave his official the bones of a man who has been dead these twenty duties. By the end of September, Ticknor had years) it is full of damnable annoyances.” 1914] 15 THE DIAL the press. room. And still the climax of these irritations was however, the novelist was again in failing health. a woman! His famous adventure with Miss His sensitive nature was depressed, he became Delia Bacon, whose story is given in these less and less capable of creative effort; his visits pages, cost Hawthorne a pretty penny, — he to the old “Corner” grew more and more infre- having benevolently assumed the financial re quent; yet his letters to Ticknor are not signi- sponsibility of seeing that lady's ponderous ficant of depression or of failing powers. He solution of the “Shakespeare problem” through contributed now and then to the “ Atlantic Monthly,” but his pen flagged when he worked Hawthorne's experiences in unwise charity at the unfinished romance. at the unfinished romance. “His splendid vigor are familiar to most of us; not a few of these paled, his hair grew snowy white, and he began communications to Dear Tick" contain re to express certain wishes in regard to provisions quests to investigate the probability of his to be made after his death and to burn old let- being reimbursed for some injudicious loan, ters, while his efforts to carry on his work proved as, for example, the following: almost futile." His wife became thoroughly “Dear Ticknor, — I have given B an order on alarmed, and the aid of Ticknor was again in- you for $50. Pay it, and I promise you not to trouble voked. It appeared that a change of scene was you again on his account. It is impossible not to assist desirable, and with the beneficial effects of the an old acquaintance in distress for once, at least. Washington trip in mind another was planned “P.S. Do not write me about this; for I do not wish my wife to know how I throw away money." in the same direction. On the 28th of March the two friends left Boston. Hawthorne was It is pleasant to note in the letters the senti- ments expressed regarding America and Amers in a very delicate condition ; Ticknor, who was icans. "The more I see of the rest of the world, all the details of the journey. The weather not in the best of health, as usual looked after the better I think of my own country,” he exclaims in one of his characteristic outbursts, was stormy, and they remained in New York for almost a week, Hawthorne scarcely leaving his qualifying the statement directly with the paren- thesis 6 not that I like it very enthusiastically They reached Philadelphia on the 5th either." The latter half of this decade in the of April. Writing to his wife two days later, United States was surcharged with premoni- condition and closes thus: “Excuse this short Ticknor speaks encouragingly of Hawthorne's tions of the approaching crisis ; and Hawthorne viewed the situation with natural uneasiness. note, as I must look after my friend. I have a In 1856 he writes : bad cold and feel disinclined to move at all. Love to all.” It was his last letter. The next “We shall know how to prize a home, if we ever go day the relations of these two men were strangely back to one; but I must confess, I am in no great hurry to return to America. To say the truth, it looks like reversed. Ticknor was stricken with pneumonia an infernally disagreeable country from this side of the and died the day following, almost in Haw- water." thorne's arms. The effect upon Hawthorne of And yet he also wrote at about this same this sudden disaster was overwhelming; he re- time: turned to his home a wreck. Five weeks later Pray do not be so hopeless about our political con he, too, had passed away. cerns. We shall grow and flourish, in spite of the devil. It is obviously a labor of love — the compila- Affairs do not look so very bad, at this distance, what- tion of this work; its tribute to Ticknor as a ever they may seem to you who are in the midst of the confusion. For my part, I keep a steadfast faith in publisher and as an affectionate and loyal friend the destinies of my own country, and will not be stag to one of the most striking personalities in gered, whatever happens.” American literature is deserved and just. More- In June, 1860, the Hawthornes arrived once over, the proportions are consistently maintained; more in Boston, and resumed their residence at Hawthorne, as we naturally expect, holds the “ The Wayside.” But the excitement and con hero's place in the narrative, and the light fusion of war were not conducive to literary effort thrown upon him from this unusual angle is and seriously interfered with plans for projected singularly effective. The extracts quoted in romances. Conditions were depressing; and in this review scarcely give an idea of the variety March, 1862, Hawthorne and Ticknor made a and interest of the letters as a whole. The second trip to Washington, arriving just after author has done her work admirably; one notes, McClellan had removed his force of 60,000 however, a strange preference for the use of men across the Potomac. The trip was full of “penned” rather than the simpler “ wrote” or incident, and decidedly beneficial in its effect on " written” an odd mannerism to be associated Hawthorne's health and spirits. A year later, with an unusually pleasing and attractive style. 66 16 (Jan. 1 THE DIAL With happy appropriateness the volume — itself problems of the relationship between the poet a beautiful example of the book-making art - and his work. A matter into which Mr. Brooke is dedicated to the company from whose house it might very profitably have gone is the rela- issues,—“successors to the literary heritage of tionship between the finished product and the Ticknor and Fields and to the just and honor- so-called "original.” Almost nothing else in able traditions of the earlier house which they Shakespeare study is so suggestive, interesting, to-day so steadfastly uphold." and instructive as this, or more calculated to W. E. SIMONDS. guard the student from indulging in vain and fantastic hypotheses. Shakespeare rejects noth- ing, retains nothing, and introduces nothing, COMMENTING ON SHAKESPEARE.* without a reason. Another fruitful but much There is almost nothing easier for a man of neglected field for commentary is the adaptation any literary ability than to write a book of of sound to sense in Shakespeare's poetry,– commentary on Shakespeare's plays. All that something that Shakespeare, like every great one that way inclined has to do is to read one poet, is very rich in. of these plays scene by scene and jot down his But we should not be understood as condemn- reflections on the incidents or characters or ing Mr. Brooke's book. In Shakespeare com- single speeches as he reads, praising here, fault-mentary, as in the acting of “Hamlet,” no one finding there, explaining, illustrating, comment can fail utterly. Mr. Brooke has such good ing, narrating, etc., as the mood strikes him. literary taste and such genuine appreciation This becomes the more easy when one has a of Shakespeare, and seems to be such a close theory or a philosophy to defend; for then the observer of men, that he is almost always well critic reads everything in the light of what ob- worth listening to. He is interesting even when sesses him, and emphasizes those passages that one does not agree with him,—as when, for ex- apparently confirm his theories and suppresses ample, speaking of Cassius, he says: “[Toward or minimizes whatever militates against them. the end of the play) he becomes that which he The prospective book may also be padded by probably was as a young man. This recurrence interweaving old and well-known comments, – when the end of life draws near to that especially such as seem to lend support to the which a man was before he was spoiled awry by writer's views or appear so good to him that the world, is not infrequent in experience, but he wishes he had written them. few writers have used it as Shakespeare.” Such Another way of handling the subject is first passages -- and the book is full of them — at to state the theory and then bring together least have the merit of stimulating thought, even everything in the particular play under consid if they do not convince and do not help to the eration that seems to corroborate the theory. understanding of the characters. Mr. Brooke Mr. Stopford Brooke is a master of these also possesses a really pleasing and interesting methods. He accumulates a mass of material style, which makes the reading of most of his which is very likely to give the unknowing book distinctly pleasurable, although at times reader a distorted view of Shakespeare as a one is disagreeably conscious of an artificiality man and as an artist, besides vitiating his appre- and straining for fine stylistic effects. The ciation and understanding of the plays. If Mr. latter tendency is frequently responsible for such Brooke's latest book were written for professed peculiar and uncouth phraseology as the fol- Shakespeareans the danger would be reduced lowing: "He dispersed Rosencrantz and Guil- to a minimum; they are accustomed to contend denstern "; "he was spoiled awry”; “I only see with fantastic theories, and are not easily im- in it the cunning almost of a madman”; “when posed upon: But Mr. Brooke seems to have also we read it”; “ baited by a fool who wants written with his eye mainly on beginners in he knows to find him out "'; “Ophelia is drowned Shakespeare study, and he should have been of her pain”; “ that is of feeling quite intense "; cautious in putting forth surmises, guesses, and “she forgets to tell him what to do in her excite- conjectures, as facts. The beginner ought to ment”; “it draws me into the imagination "; be left with an open mind, and ought to be en and much more that is even worse. couraged to enjoy Shakespeare as a poet, a play In his paper on “Twelfth Night,” Mr. Brooke wright, and a revealer of the human soul; there permits himself to be lost in fantasies concern- is time enough for him to go into the intricate ing the sub-title, “ What You Will," instead of TEN MORE Plays of SHAKESPEARE. By Stopford A. accepting Mr. Conrad's plain and sensible ex- Brooke. New York: Henry Holt & Co. planation. It is not true that the dramatis 1914) 17 THE DIAL and on p. persone in this play“ range from the highest on him by his stage. On p. 60 Mr. Brooke to the lowest in rank, from the wisest to the most says that “ Julius Cæsar” was written in 1600, foolish.” He is also guilty of gross exaggera- 64 he says that it was written in 1601. tion when he says that Shakespeare “ took won The error is material only in so far as it involves derful pains to give plenty of attractive work to the question why he mentions the subject at all. all the members of his company, to give to the To the beginner in Shakespeare study, the date smallest acting part points to be made which of composition is of no importance unless he is sbould draw the attention and the praise of the shown its significance in watching the evolution audience.” There are plenty of thankless parts of the poet's mind; and to the professed student in Shakespeare, as any actor will testify. "Nor | Mr. Brooke's unsubstantiated opinion on a dis- does “Twelfth Night deserve the reproach puted question is of no value. In discussing the implied in the statement that “the scenery of failure of most revolutions, Mr. Brooke strangely the play is less defined than it is in other plays.” overlooks the fact that with the death of the On the contrary, considering that the poet wrote “tyrant”- the representative of law and order, for a practically bare stage and for an audience the source of authority the source of authority — the repressed lawless- for whom the play was the thing, “Twelfth ness, the pent-up passions of humanity, are loosed Night” is set in singularly picturesque and and break forth; note the destruction of Cinna. romantic surroundings. In the midst of much In common with many other critics, Mr. Brooke that is commonplace, Mr. Brooke makes some makes too much of the political interest in this statements that are so palpably at variance with play. I do not believe that the struggle between the facts, and so calculated to suggest to the Elizabeth and the Parliament in any way in- reader the author's subsequently developed views fluenced the dramatist in the composition of concerning Shakespeare's tragic mood, that they “ Julius Cæsar." Shakespeare employed the must be singled out for correction and as an political events only as a means of portraying illustration of the worst kind of commenting on the psyche of his dramatis personce, not the Shakespeare. He says (page 51): “ Their ſi.e., “ Their [i.e., characters as vehicles for the expression of his Sir Toby's companions'] conversation is as clean political convictions; his interests were psycho- as the moon, ,” and in a footnote he says : “ It logic, not sociologic. The events, their causes is remarkable that when the darkness fell on and their issues, were supplied by his original. Shakespeare his lower characters sometimes use This is no more a political play than is “Cori- a grossness in thought and speech, which was olanus” or “Antony and Cleopatra.” Mr. not so before." Reading this, one is almost Brooke's failure to understand this is the cause tempted to believe that Mr. Brooke's reading of his condemnation of the last two acts as being of Shakespeare was limited to expurgated school too long drawn out, and as containing needless editions ; or has he forgotten the equivokes in interludes. Brutus, as usual, is described almost dulged in by Sir Toby and Aguecheek in Act I., as the apotheosis of virtue. The blindness of scene 4? And as to the plays preceding this the critics to his failings, all too human, is the one, let us refer him to the conversation of the more amazing because Shakespeare spares no nurse in “ Romeo and Juliet” and to the dia- pains to limn him at full length as a real living logue between Samson and Gregory in that play. human being, not as an abstraction. Mr. Coarse allusions occur in almost all of Shake- Brooke's description of the mighty Julius “ as speare's plays, both before and after his Sturm subject to superstitions, as wavering to and fro, und Drang period. as led by the nose, as vain, as having lost his In the chapter on “Julius Cæsar” there is intellectual powers in self-sufficiency, as one who much interesting matter, such as the comments thinks himself separated altogether from his on the political interest of the play, the reasons fellow men ” is more applicable to “the lofty, why revolutions usually fail, the “pathetic fal dignified, and beautiful" Brutus. The latter is lacy,” and the character of Brutus, and much consumed by vanity and a mighty self-love, fail- with which a Shakespearean and a psychologist ings which blind him to the fatuity of Cassius’s will not agree. It is not true that the poet arguments, make him susceptible to the flattery combined his borrowed material in such a way of the anonymous letters thrown in at his win- as “ to make a greater matter than that which dow, undermine his logical faculty, and which actually happened.” If Shakespeare departs are directly responsible for the obstinacy with from the historical order of events, he does so which he adheres to his ill-considered and fatal because of motives of dramatic and psychologic plans in the last Act as well as throughout the effectiveness as well as the necessities imposed play. He is the geck and gull of Cassius. If 18 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL : sane. Cæsar's speeches are “ almost the speeches of to commit Hamlet to a lunatic asylum. Mr. a fool,” Brutus's actions are much more so. This Brooke is quite certain that he knows Shake- honorable man conspires against the life of his speare's intention in the matter, and that Hamlet friend and benefactor for what he may become; is perfectly sane, that his only trouble is that this honest and upright idealist will not wring he “glides away from the present into a rea- from the hard hands of peasants their vile trash soning in his soul on a question which suddenly by any indirection, but he resents not being per presents itself to him," and that he is as sud- mitted to share the moneys so collected. The denly “shocked out of argumentative thought true critic will not denigrate Cassius and Antony into the actual world.” Notwithstanding this for the purpose of exalting Brutus. That was shocking formula, Mr. Brooke is compelled to not Shakespeare's way. admit (p. 123) that at times Hamlet shows the Mr. Brooke attempts to explain the melodra- cunning almost of a madman,” that his treach- matic action of the conspirators bathing their ery to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is “a blot arms in Cæsar's blood by comparing it with on the play” of which Shakespeare should not Hamlet's “ bursting into fantastic phrases after have been guilty and which is not in Hamlet's he has seen the Ghost.” There is absolutely character.” So, too, according to this critic, no parallelism between the two incidents. The the episode of Hamlet's leaping into Ophelia's conspirators are in a mood of exaltation after grave (with the declaration that he is King of their butchery; for the moment they really Denmark) is unworthy of the poet. Of course believe that their act was prompted by noble, if we omit those occurrences that point to insan- patriotic, heroic motives, and that history will ity and leave out of consideration Hamlet's regard them as the liberators of their country. twice-repeated confession of “melancholy” and It is particularly significant that it is the peace “madness," it is an easy matter to prove Hamlet ful, gentle, philosophic, amiable and book-loving That is Mr. Brooke's way of studying theorist Brutus who makes the proposal that Shakespeare,—a characteristic which makes all they bathe their hands in the sacrificial blood. the difference in the world between him and This mood preserves Brutus from being horri Professor Bradley. fied at the hideous spectacle he had made, from SAMUEL A. TANNENBAUM. realizing that he had committed the stupidest and most reprehensible crime in history. From the modern psychologic point of view, we may AN ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH LIBERALISM.* say that the melodramatic action of the con- spirators is the expression of the regression to It is extremely convenient for the reviewer the infantile play instinct and sado-masochistic when the author of a book begins by a state- complex which so frequently come to the fore ment, in so many words, of what he is about; in moments of great exaltation or depression. for then all the reviewer has to do is to copy it Hamlet, on the other hand, is left dazed and out. Mr. W. Lyon Blease, in his “Short His- stupefied by the Ghost's revelations; he is tory of English Liberalism,” begins with such shocked into cynicism and flippancy by the tale a statement. of horror unfolded to his ears. Suddenly all “ This book attempts to trace the varying but per- the world of evil is bared to his gaze; all his sistent course of Liberalism in British politics during youthful ideals are shattered; there is nothing history of events as a reading of them in the light of a the last hundred and fifty years. It is not so much a serious in mortality. That is why he indulges particular political philosophy. ... The general vic- in wild and whirling words, puts on an antic tory ... has been to Liberalism; and the movement disposition, and speaks so vulgarly to his father's of the race, during the period with which the writer is spirit. concerned, is precisely measured by the degree in which To see Mr. Brooke at his worst one has to the Liberal spirit has succeeded in modifying the estab- lishments of a preceding age. The object of this book turn to his remarks on “ Hamlet.” In discuss- is to investigate the course of that process of modifica- ing the Prince's sanity, he vents his sarcasms tion in politics." on the “mad doctors,” and talks in such a dic A victory usually implies a defeat; and Mr. tatorial and cock-sure way that he makes himself | Blease employs the word Toryism to signify laughable. Reading Mr. Brooke, one would what it is that Liberalism had defeated. How- think that the alienists and psychiatrists know ever, neither Liberalism nor Toryism is to be nothing of insanity, that they never read the identified with a political party, or with any play, that they purposely disregard the perti- * A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIBERALISM. By nent facts, and that they are in a conspiracy W. Lyon Blease. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1914) 19 THE DIAL concrete policy; each is rather a “babit of may lag behind, is as a whole very nearly up to mind." Liberalism is that settled habit of mind the mark; and its policy of social reform - as which induces a man to desire that every other distinguished from Socialism, which the author man may “have equal opportunity with himself rejects — bids fair to put a kind of happy for self-expression and for self-development.” period to “that movement of the race” of This desired end was once thought to be attained which Mr. Blease speaks. I infer this at least, by reducing legal restrictions and the activity because Mr. Blease, although he does distin. of government to a minimum; but it is now guish Liberalism from Socialism as things known that Liberalism has its positive as well fundamentally different, admits frankly that as its negative side. Not only does Liberalism the present Liberal programme “has borrowed concede that "each is to be left to work out his largely from Socialism ”; so that it is difficult own salvation,” but it concedes that “active to see how Liberalism can carry us much steps" must be taken to remove the artificial farther without handing us over as it were to barriers which impede that development.” It the Socialists, which, bowever, he is clear will is possible, therefore, and quite proper indeed, never do. Humanly speaking, therefore, the to speak of the old and the new Liberalism, present Liberal programme is for him a kind the Liberalism of the Manchester school and of final thing,- a test or standard by which to the “collective Liberalism” of Mr. Lloyd evaluate the ideas and events of the past; and, George ; and to speak of them, in spite of their in fact, Mr. Blease has made a survey of marked differences, as pursuing the same end, English politics during the last century, in an as being alike “in the desire to set free the interesting manner and with much knowledge individual from existing social bonds, and to indeed, much less from the point of view of a procure him liberty of growth.” “particular political philosophy” than from the Toryism, like Liberalism, is also a “habit of point of view of a particular political platform. mind," not to be identified with Conservatism From Burke to Mr. Lloyd George, he summons or Unionism. It is the “habit of mind which men and measures to submit to this test, ap- refuses to concede to others that right of free proving them in so far as they are found to expression which it requires for itself, ... the be in accord with the ideas of the extreme left egoistic mind which regards all others as at its wing of the Liberal Party, condemning them in disposal.” The Tory habit of mind, it may be so far as they fall short of these ideas. said at once, is a very bad habit, the Liberal The author's bias being thus in favor of a habit a very good one. Mr. Blease says, and particular party almost as much as in favor of one can well believe it, that the pure Tory or the a particular philosophy, members of another pure Liberal is very rarely found; his enumer party scarcely get due credit even when they ation of the distinguishing characteristics of momentarily fall into a Liberal way of acting. either leaves one inclined to remark, very nearly The Factory Acts of the fourth decade of the in the words of Desdemona, “I do not believe century (true Liberal measures according to Mr. there ever was such a man. And Mr. Blease Blease) were better supported by Conservatives is free to admit that many members of the Tory than by Whigs. But even the best Conserva- or Conservative parties have worked for Liberal tives, in supporting legislation of this kind, measures, and that there have been very few were unfortunately still actuated by the in- members of the Liberal Party who were Liberals grained Tory habit of mind, -"their general without alloy. Fox and Sheridan lacked much readiness to dispose of the affairs of others"; of being complete Liberals; John Bright was so that it may be said even of the excellent not a complete Liberal because he opposed Fac- Shaftesbury that as “he refused to allow a tory Acts; Mr. Asquith is not a complete Liberal Catholic or a Tractarian religious freedom, or because he is opposed to woman's suffrage; Mr. the common people political freedom, so he Lloyd George is under suspicion because, - but refused to allow a cotton-spinner economic free- I cannot now recall just for what. The author dom.” You can't say much for the benighted does not say so, but I suspect that there is only Conservative, even when, by some chance, he one simon-pure Liberal, and that is Mr. Blease does a Liberal deed,— he does it in such a Tory himself. Still, one need not despair, for it is manner! Suppose a fig should be found grow- well known that ten righteous men can save a ing on a thistle! One fig does n't make an city. orchard! Mr. Blease is very far from despair; for the Some Conservatives would doubtless be just Liberal Party, although some of its members perverse enough not to see why it is that when a 20 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL Liberal votes for a Factory Act he does so in order for it; but as a matter of fact one finds in it to make the workman more free, whereas when a very little that is not already contained in such Conservative votes for a Factory Act he does so a recent volume as Griffith's “ Dominion of in order to make the workman less free. And Canada.” It is entertaining and readable, but many an old Tory would probably say that a otherwise scarcely worth while. Moreover, one Factory Act is a Factory Act, that its effects finds in the book errors of fact or judgment are what they are, equally good or bad, whatever which are rather inexcusable in a man of Mr. the motive which inspired men to get it passed Goodrich's standing. To cite but a few: The into law. A discussion of such points might statement that Sebastian Cabot discovered entangle us in the old controversy of grace and Hudson Bay (p. 47) will scarcely be endorsed works, a controversy which I am by no means by historical students familiar with all the docu- competent to determine. This much may be ments. The name Kaministiquia (or Kaminis- said, however: it will be found difficult at this tikwia, as it is now spelled) has not disap- late day to write a satisfactory history of English peared from our modern maps” (p. 61). To Liberalism on the fundamental assumption that describe the Upper Canadian Rebellion as “in certain men, inspired by an innate beneficent the nature of turbulent protest by the French habit of mind, and belonging for the most part Canadians,” etc. (p. 95), is little short of ludi- to one of the great political parties, have been crous. So far from the head of the Department the instruments of God's purpose in the world; of External Affairs of Canada not being a whereas certain other men, inspired by an innate Cabinet officer (p. 100), that portfolio is held malevolent habit of mind, and belonging for the by the Prime Minister. A statement on the most part to the other great political party, have same page reveals a very common misconcep- done the devil's business. It is, however, on tion of the relative responsibilities of members this assumption, quite possible to write a most of the cabinet in Canada and the United States. skilful tract for the times. And that is indeed The Secretary of the Interior of the United what Mr. Blease has done. CARL BECKER. States (to take an example) has no serious re- sponsibilities outside his own department. The Minister of the Interior of Canada, in addition to the work of his department, is a member of CANADA OF TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.* the House of Commons, and for six or eight It is perhaps part of the world-wide craze months of every year he must be in his seat in for standardizing all things, and bringing them Parliament, taking part in debates, introducing within the rigid lines of a system, that modern legislation, defending the administration of which publishers bring out so many of their books in he is a member and especially his own partic- series. Doubtless, also, there is an economic ular department. The former is responsible to side to the question. One volume in a series the President alone; the latter is responsible to helps to sell the others; and both individuals Parliament, and to his constituents. The sug- and public libraries are sometimes subject to gestion (p. 131) of a canoe trip, as a summer's the weakness of subscribing for a set of books, holiday, from Winnipeg to Hudson Bay, and where one or two volumes are all they need, back by way of Hudson Straits, the Labrador merely because of a vague but compelling im. coast, and Newfoundland, leaves one gasping. pulse toward completeness. From the point of Mr. Goodrich says (p. 212), speaking of the view of the reading public, the tendency cannot glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, most of these generally be commended. It has resulted in a It has resulted in a Canadian ice-rivers are small.” He can scarcely multitude of made-to-order books, based on the have heard of the Lyell Glacier, eight miles in utterly false premise that radically different length, exceeding anything in the Alps; or the communities may be measured with the same vast Columbia Ice-field two hundred square foot-rule; and in many cases, too, it has led to miles in extent and thirty miles long, with its the duplication of books covering the same field circle of giant glaciers. Mount Assiniboine from substantially the same point of view. (p. 214) was successfully climbed by James A case in point is Mr. J. K. Goodrich's vol Outram in 1901. Mr. W. D. Wilcox, whose ume on “ The Coming Canada,” in the World « Rockies of Canada” is cited on this same page, To-day Series.” If the promise of the title mentions the fact, and it is of course fully de- were really fulfilled, there would be room enough scribed in Outram’s “ In the Heart of the Cana- *THE COMING CANADA. By Joseph King Goodrich. dian Rockies.” Mr. Goodrich has apparently Illustrated. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. not yet heard that the old fable as to the immense 1914] 21 THE DIAL height of Mounts Brown and Hooker (p. 214) RECENT FICTION.* was exploded by Professor Coleman of Toronto University twenty years ago. The North West The present season is a notable one for novels Company never had offices in Toronto (p. 272); of exceptional quality and interest, and its long Toronto did not exist in 1779. The head list of important works of fiction includes no work quarters of the Company were in Montreal. more appealingly human than “The Garden without A useful Bibliography is appended to the Walls,” by a new writer, Mr. Coningsby Dawson. In form, it is an autobiography, beginning with book, but even here one finds the need of some those memories of early childhood that a few fortu- criticism. The “Remarkable History of the nate mortals are privileged to preserve undimmed Hudson's Bay Company” is by George Bryce, through all the years. It was in a London suburb not by Bryce and Campbell; and it was pub that the narrator first began “to dream of a garden lished in 1900, not 1911. On the other hand, without walls.” He had lost his mother in infancy, “The Scotsman in Canada” is by Bryce and and lived with his father, a scholarly recluse, in Campbell, not by George Bryce. " Stretfield a house with a closed garden. “As I grew older and Collie" should read “Stutfield and Collie"; I became curious, and fretted with the narrowness and there seems no sufficient reason for includ- of my restraint. What happened over there in the ing the two entries, “Champlain Society, great beyond? Rumors came to me; sometimes it was the roar of London to the southward; some- Toronto, Publications” and “Publications of times it was the sing-song of a mower traversing a the Champlain Society, Toronto.” It would neighbor's lawn. I dreamt of an unwalled garden, have added to the value of the Bibliography if through which a child might wander on forever such superficial sketches as Copping's “Canada an Eden, where each step revealed a new beauty To-day and To-morrow” and “The Golden and a fresh surprise, where flowers grew always and Land," Vernede's “The Fair Dominion," and there were no doors to lock.” The life of Dante Talbot's “ New Garden of Canada" had been Cardover, as he grew up, was a quest for this gar- omitted, and a number of books of more lasting den of heart's desire. The quest began by a literal value listed in their place. One notes, for scaling of the home garden wall, and discovering instance, the omission of Bourinot's Parliamen- Ruthita, the little girl who lived next door. Ruthita became annexed to the family when the elder tary Procedure and Government in Canada,” Cardover married her widowed mother, and the and his smaller work “How Canada is Gov- two children grew up joyously together. An esca- erned"; of Tracy's “Tercentenary History of pade with the gypsies was the great adventure of Canada," and the works of the principal French their childhood. Then the boy was sent to school, Canadian historians, Garneau, Ferland, and to be withdrawn when an unfortunate speculation Sulte. One or two of the older books of travel cut down the family resources. But his education are listed, but not Harmon or Paul Kane, is continued somehow, and he wins a fellowship at Franchère or Alexander Ross, or Milton and an Oxford college. Taking his degree, he starts Cheadle's delightful “North West Passage by out on the search for his garden, and meets Vi in a Land.” Masson's “ Bourgeois de la Compagnie seaside village. His heart goes out to her, and he du Nordouest" should have been included even *THE GARDEN WITHOUT Walls. By Coningsby Dawson. in a brief bibliography; also Hornaday’s “Camp- New York: Henry Holt & Co. GENERAL John REGAN. By G. A. Birmingham. New fires in the Canadian Rockies" and Wheeler's York: George H. Doran Co. “The Selkirk Range." Gagnon's “ Chansons BENDISH. A Study in Prodigality. By Maurice Hewlett. Populaires” is the standard work on the sub- New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, ject, and very much more comprehensive than THE DARK FLOWER. By John Galsworthy. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. Robertson's "French Songs by Old Canadians.” The PASSIONATE FRIENDS. By H.G. Wells. New York: LAWRENCE J. BURPEE. Harper & Brothers. Youth's ENCOUNTER. By Compton Mackenzie. New York: D. Appleton & Co. MR. TIGHE HOPKINS, in his book entitled “Wards JOAN THURSDAY. By Louis Joseph Vance. Boston: of the State" (Little, Brown, & Co.), brings into inter- Little, Brown, & Co. esting form of expression the convictions of many DOWN AMONG MEN. By Will Levington Comfort. New York: George H, Doran Co. practical criminologists. He writes from the English THE VALLEY OF THE Moon. By Jack London, New standpoint, but the principles of reformatory treatment York : The Macmillan Co. and individualization of method are familiar in America. THE LAW-BKINGERS. By G. B. Lancaster. New York: The accounts of prison life are vividly presented, and George H. Doran Co. the recent development of methods of detecting crime THE HONORABLE SENATOR SAGE-Brush. By Francis ‘and identifying offenders is clearly described. The Lynde. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. story of the suffragists in durance vile one is tempted to THE SPIDER'S WEB. By Reginald Wright Kaufman. quote; it is interesting but not agreeable. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co. 22 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL falls irrevocably in love before he learns that she Horace P. Billing arrives one day in Ballymoy in is married the child-wife of an American old his motor-car, and gets an impression of the place enough to be her father. The mischief is done, for which he afterwards records in these vigorous terms: his love is returned, and he remains faithful to her “When I first set eyes on this town a month ago I for years, and all but persuades her to set society thought I had bumped up against the most dead-alive, at defiance by deserting her husband for his sake. God-forsaken, one-horse settlement that Europe could But her better nature prevails over her passion, boast.” Thinking to start something, he asks to be and she returns to her Massachusetts home. Then directed to the statue of General John Regan. No Dante becomes a wanderer, and in Florence meets one can gratify his wish, for the excellent reasons Fiesole, a bewitching creature who had tried to that there is no such memorial and that no such flirt with him in his school-days, and who has person ever existed. So he goes on to explain that grown into a creature all air and fire, prodigal of Regan was a famous Irish patriot who had devoted a love which his devotion to the impossible ideal his sword to the liberation of Bolivia, in which coun- which Vi represents forces him to put aside. Then try his name was enshrined in every heart, and he goes to America, sees Vi once more, and parts that Ballymoy, his native place, surely should have from her when they both realize that renunciation paid him some sort of monumental honor. At this is the only course open to them. Returning to En juncture, it was Dr. Lucius O'Grady who gave the gland, Dante becomes a landed proprietor through townspeople their cue. It was clearly a case of “Si the death of his grandfather, but his heart-hunger Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer," and is still unappeased. Journeying to Paris, he redis Dr. O'Grady at once improvised the necessary hero. covers Fiesole, now become a famous actress, and He said, under the stimulus of an offered subscription realizes too late the treasure of the love that might of one hundred pounds from the American visitor, have been his for the taking in the old Florentine that plans for the statue were well under way, and days. A season of delirious companionship follows, that it would soon be ready for unveiling. So much and he thinks he has won her, when she turns her good money should not be allowed to get away back upon him, and disappears from the scene. from Ballymoy, and so all the leading citizens lent This is the inconclusive end of the story, for themselves to the imposture, lying about the affair Ruthita, whom he has always regarded as a sister, with the easy or expert grace of which only Irishmen and who might have brought him the happiness are capable. The house in which Regan was born that has ever eluded his pursuit, has made a mar. is pointed out to the visitor, the site prepared for iage de convenance, and is also lost to him. The the statue is indicated, and Mary Ellen, a drudge at life-story of Dante Cardover is a pathetic record of the town tavern, is trotted out as the famous patriot's failure, and the fruit of the only garden that he nearest living relative. Dr. O'Grady has some diffi- finds turns to ashes in his mouth. This sorry culties in getting all his allies into line, for Major scheme of things entire has proved too mucb for Kent has scruples, the parish priest has fears lest him to cope with, and yet he is not without his Regan may have been an atheist or a Jacobin, Thady compensating memories. He has twice known the Gallagher, the nationalist editor and agitator, has full intoxication of love in its best sense - the sense dark suspicions, and Doyle, the publican, has to be in which Rossetti conceived it when he wrote of one persuaded that there is something in it for him. “Whose speech Truth knows not from her thought, These difficulties are all overcome by Dr. O'Grady's Nor Love her body from her soul ”. glib persuasiveness, and the preparations for the the love in which the spiritual and the sensuous are civic function go merrily on. Doyle's nephew, a blended in perfect harmony. We feel throughout mortuary sculptor in Dublin, has an effigy on hand that this delicately-wrought and exquisite piece of which, with slight alterations, will serve the purpose, fiction is the work of an artist with a conscience and this is secured, to the profit of Doyle and his of a man who does not palter with the ethical verities nephew. The Lord-Lieutenant accepts an invitation or seek to make the worse appear the better reason, to act as master of ceremonies, and all the delicate and yet of one who has the truest sympathy with diplomatic problems of precedence are solved by the the frailties of human nature and the deepest insight inventive O'Grady. When the great day arrives, into human motive. In a word, he never permits having discovered at the last moment that Regan us to forget that life is a thing of stern reality, no is a myth, he sends his aide-de-camp to represent him, matter how beautifully-colored its imagined exterior. and make an indignant demand for explanation of Canon Hannay, having written the play of “Gen the imposture. This official is mere putty in O'Grady's eral John Regan,” which has recently been produced hands, who cajoles him into fulfilling his allotted for the delight of New Yorkers and others, proceeded function, and the ceremony goes off with great éclat. to convert it into a novel with the same title, a pro The question of music for the band to play is a seri- ceeding rarely to be commended, but in this case ous matter, but O'Grady makes the lucky discovery proved by the result to have been entirely justifiable. that the government official does not know one tune The idea underlying both works is that of which Lady from another, and so “The Wearing of the Green” Gregory made effective use in “The Image”- the is performed in place of “Rule Britannia” and “God idea of erecting a statue to the memory of an im Save the King,” thereby soothing the nationalist aginary Irishman. A travelling American named I susceptibilities of the excitable Thady Gallagher, 1914] 23 THE DIAL of who would otherwise have been quite capable of of Solness. This affair ends in the bitterness of an upsetting the whole affair. Billing turns up at the unavoidable renunciation. Besides the three women critical moment, and is much surprised to see what already mentioned, there is Sylvia, whom Mark has has grown out of the seed of his planting. But he married after his recovery from the tragic episode proves a good sport, and more than fulfils his summer.” We mention Sylvia incidentally, promises. This is one of the most joyous stories because she does not count for much in the story that Canon Hannay has given us, and offers the of Mark's emotional life, although she seems to be most delightful entertainment imaginable. a lovely creature, and quite as good a wife as Mark Mr. Maurice Hewlett overworks his vein. The deserves. The whole history is delicately told, with rich ore becomes exhausted, and it is too evident much subtle analysis, vivid exposition, and the that what he gives us afterward are tailings. It charm of style in which few living writers equal was so with the trilogy of Sanchia novels, each of Mr. Galsworthy. This writer never hesitates to which was thinner than the one before, and it is so play fast and loose with any of the conventions or again with “ Bendish,” which continues the story of institutions of ordered society, always finding in the group presented in “Mrs. Lancelot.” It is true the claims of sentiment his ready justification, but, that Bendish is a new figure, but Georgiana and with all his artistry, he does not often succeed in Gervase Poore and the Iron Duke are those upon being morally convincing. which the author wellnigh exhausted his powers of It seems to be almost impossible for our “ad- analysis in the earlier novel. What he has to say vanced” modern novelists to write a love story that of them now is either repetition or finical elaboration is not based upon adultery. The honest love of a of what he said before. Of Bendish, it may be said man for a woman appears to be too tame an affair at once that Byron sat for his portrait a fact suffi- to be deserving of their attention. For example, ciently obvious to all but the literal-minded who may the narrator in “The Passionate Friends,” a novel urge that Byron was dead at the time of the Reform in the first person by Mr. H. G. Wells, speaks thus Bill, and that, anyway, he never fought a duel with of his illicit relation with another man's wife: “I Shelley. As the one original feature of the new wanted to be open and defiant, and she — hesitated. novel, this character-study is all that saves it from She wanted to be secret. She wanted to keep me; futility. It is not wholly fair to the poet, because I sometimes think that she was moved to become it places overmuch emphasis upon his weaknesses. my mistress because she wanted to keep me. But After all, he was more than a poseur, and his vapor she wanted to keep everything else in her life,— her ings were more than the rhetorical exhibitions of an position, her ample freedom and wealth and dignity. inordinate self-conceit. Considered as pure fiction, Our love was to be a secret cavern, Endymion's cave. the characterization might fairly be described as I was ready enough to do what I could to please masterly, but we are not permitted so to consider it her, and for a time I served that secrecy, lied, pre- as clearly a distortion of the features of a real man. tended, agreed to false addresses, assumed names, In this novel, as in its predecessor, the Duke of and tangled myself in a net-work of furtive pro- Devizes is the figure most sympathetically conceived, ceedings. These are things that poison and con- and we are always glad when he appears upon the sume honest love." The italics are ours. He represents the true type of aristocrat, them for the purpose of emphasizing the nauseous as distinguished from the sham type personified by cant by which such situations are defended. A little Bendish. further on, we read that "there is an invincible sense “The Dark Flower,” according to Mr. John of wild rightness about passionate love that no rea- Galsworthy, is the flower of passionate love, which soning and no training will ever altogether repudi- may blossom in the waste spaces of life at almost ate," and this is all the justification for immorality any age. In the life of Mark Lennan, it bursts that the flabby ethics of the fashionable novelist into bloom upon three occasions, the episodes being seems to require. But we are constrained to believe respectively labelled “spring,” “summer,” and that there is a reasoning and a training that will “autumn." This suggests the scheme of Mr. fortify the character against such sophistries; if Thomas Hardy's "The Well-Beloved," although the there were not, we should despair of education and, three women in the present case are not in one line of society. The passionate "friends” of this story of descent. Mark's first affair is with the wife of cannot unite their lives legally because the man is bis Oxford tutor, a woman old enough to be his too poor, and the woman too worldly to make the mother. The second, several years later, is with a sacrifice of becoming his wife. That is the cold young married woman, the wife of a member of fact that underlies all this fine talk about the rights Parliament, and she comes to a tragic end one night of the soul, and all these labored apologies for the on the river, when the jealous husband breaks in sin in which the “friends” afterwards live. When upon their embraces. The third is an Irish girl, they are discovered, the man goes to South Africa, the daughter of an old-time comrade, who comes distinguishes himself in the war, returns, and marries into the middle age of his life, and disturbs its a girl who is much too good for him. But even tranquil flow with the appeal of her fresh youth then he cannot escape from the obsession of his old and beauty very much as Hilde stirred the emotions passion, and the intrigue is ended only by the woman's We use scene. 24 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL suicide. There is a great deal of vaporing about so long have remained latent. It is a real novel, some reorganized society of the future in which un of the kind that Mr. Herrick, for example, writes, restrained individualism shall have the final word, and demands to be judged by exacting critical but the author does not tell us how the integrity of standards. It is a story of the theatre, and Mr. the family and the stability of the social order are Vance brings to its writing a wide and intimate to be protected in that utopia — for the excellent knowledge of the affairs of the stage in New York: reason that he does not know himself. The story is he shows us the typical figures that move in that told in the form of a confession made for the guid-world apart from the rest of life, the theatrical ance of the narrator's son when he shall have grown boarding house keeper, the manager and the pro- to manhood, and is intolerably weighted with analy- | ducer, the ever-hopeful but oft disappointed play- sis and introspective philosophizing. It is a story wright, and the various derelicts of the profession that tingles with life and teems with ideas — of a itself. He gives us their tricks of speech and gesture, kind — expressed in the striking and sometimes and imparts to us their outlook upon life. He does exalted style which the author has at his command. all this much as Mr. Leonard Merrick does it for But we balk at the “ background of high idealism the English setting, and he gives it all the same and prophecy of the future” claimed for it in the surprising freshness of interest. His central figure publishers' advertisements. is a full-length portrait of the girl who is determined Mr. Compton Mackenzie's “ Youth's Encounter" to escape from sordid conditions, and fixes upon the is a book that takes five hundred pages to tell the stage as the means of emancipation. Joan is a story of a boy's life up to the age of twenty or there shop-girl, vulgar and material, not immoral but abouts. It discusses in appalling detail his childhood unmoral, wishing to keep on the side of respecta- and adolescence, taking him through his public school bility as far as outward appearances are concerned, days and finally plumping him upon the world. We but not unwilling to make secret terms with the suppose that later volumes will carry on his story devil. She has youthful freshness and beauty, but upon the same scale. He is an illegitimate child of not genius, and it is through unwavering determi- the Earl of Saxby, a fact that he first learns when nation and shrewdness in grasping opportunity that his mother apprises him of it after his father's death she so makes her way that we leave her in the end at the close of the work. During this boy hood life, a recognized success. She has got what she wanted, he is thrown mainly upon his own resources (although but we feel that she has paid heavily for it, and he is materially well cared for), owing to the fact that her character has steadily deteriorated as her that his mother spends most of her time abroad in professional prospects have brightened. Her love her lover's company. These unfortunate conditions for the playwright who chivalrously came to her aid seem to be carefully concealed from the world, and in her hour of distress might have been the means thus do not inure to his social disadvantage, as it of her salvation if she had only cherished it; instead, might have been supposed that they would. This she chose to cast it aside for the sake of marriage prefatory quotation from Keats supplies a real guide to the cheap vaudeville actor with whom she becomes to Mr. Mackenzie's aim in portraying the boy's char infatuated. When she takes this step, we feel that acter and development: “The imagination of a boy it is all over with her as far as our sympathies are is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man concerned, and she becomes henceforth merely a is healthy ; but there is a space of life between, in curious object of study in the successive phases of which the soul is in ferment; the character unde her evolution. She remains interesting to us, be- cided, the ambition thick-sighted.” This condition cause she is always a little baffling, and because of “soul-ferment” means, among other things, a she is working out her career on the shifty and certain measure of nasty suggestiveness in matters compromising lines which the average man or woman of sex, and the writer is unsparingly frank in deal- follows for lack of the anchor of a strong person- ing with these matters when they come up for men. ality. Mr. Vance's treatment of her does not seem tion, but they are not given an undue proportion of to be ironic as we follow it, yet when we come to consideration, and for this we are thankful, thinking the last words, “She was a success,” we suddenly what might have been made of them. The book realize that his observation must have had the tinge impresses us as an honest piece of artistic workman of irony from the start. Joan's men— the play- ship, aiming at the exact truth of the adolescent wright, the vaudeville actor, the gilded youth about period, and achieving that aim with much success. town, and the professional sensualist - are all pho- It has sustained interest at almost all points, despite tographically pictured and true to type. Such a gift its leisurely course and extreme particularity. for characterization as is here revealed is beyond Mr. Louis Joseph Vance, hitherto known as a anything that we had ever expected of Mr. Vance. concocter of fantastic melodrama and a purveyor of “ It was all too dreamy to put into words yet- breathless excitement, has turned over a new leaf. woman's power, her bounty, her mystic valor, the His previous novels have been almost beneath con tenderness and unconscious high behavior of un- tempt; his “Joan Thursday,” now published, is a known women everywhere, in whose hearts the serious study of life and character which makes sufferings of others find arable ground.” In spite us marvel that the faculty here revealed should of this feeling (or conviction), Mr. Will Levington 1914] 25 THE DIAL arms. Comfort does his best to put it into words, and with we are brave enough to listen, of the women who an ever-increasing power of expression. He has con walk beside us. A tale of the road as we go - stituted himself the prophet of a very different sort many are ahead, many behind but we do not travel of feminism from that which shrieks in the market this stretch again.” “ Down among Men” seems place and engages in a frantic scramble for a share to us the most exalted and appealing story that Mr. of the goods and the functions that the instinct of the Comfort has thus far written. race has allotted to the stronger sex. It is the It is a new Jack London who appeals to us as a feminism which found its loveliest flowering in the preacher of the simple life in “The Valley of the age of chivalry, when it was woman's chief glory to Moon.” He does not appear in the disguise all at win and deserve the worship of man—in the days once, however, and for the first half of the story before she had cheapen's Paradise," and had not he is still familiar as the impassioned advocate of forced poets to say of her regretfully : socialism and the exalter of men with red blood in “How given for nought her priceless gift, their veins. His hero, Billy Roberts, is an Oak- How spoild the bread and spill'd the wine, Which, spent with due respective thrift, land teamster, who does occasional stunts of prize- Had made brutes men, and men divine!” fighting “on the side,” and who is a singular Mr. Comfort's “ Down among Men” is the story of compound of brutality and gentleness. His gentle a man who, through the spiritual ministry of a high- side is displayed toward Saxon Brown, a girì who When souled woman, became almost divine, because he works in a laundry, and it wins her love. became filled with that deep compassion for his fel- hard times come, and he is out of work in conse- lows which Christianity has always exalted as chief quence of a strike, his brutal side is evidenced by among the attributes of divinity. It is only through his slugging "scab” teamsters and breaking their suffering and renunciation that this power may come When his own arms are broken by another to complete fruition, and John Morning achieved it plug-ugly on account of a mistaken identification, it only at the cost of a woman's love — the love of the strikes us as an example of righteous retribution. woman who is all the world to him. The sacrifice We are now midway in the narrative, and at this is forced upon him, in a way, for it is the woman point the pair form a great resolution. They will who conceives the idea that it is her sacred obliga- forsake the city and turn to the soil for a living. tion, and who leaves him to work out his spiritual They start out, all their worldly goods on their salvation in solitary anguish of soul. This is almost backs, in search of a new home. They tramp up too poignant to be bearable, and that Mr. Comfort and down California and Oregon, and are aston- should have deemed it necessary seems to us to de- ished at the opportunities the country offers to a note a strain of morbidity in his conception of life. man who is not afraid to work — and this at the It is the perversion of the Christian spirit which has very time when men are maiming and killing each been responsible for the excesses of puritanism and other in the frantic struggle for jobs in the city. asceticism, and which developed the noble but un- They become so enamored of life in the open air natural ideal of celibacy in the practice of the church. that even the thought of moving pictures does not Mr. Comfort's thought needs a corrective, in the tempt them to seek the old ways of city life. They form of an infusion of hellenistic humanism, and if learn that there is such a thing as intensive cultiva- he does not care to go to the source for this remedy, tion, and that a man may gain wealth from a very we recommend to him a stiff course of Goethe. The few acres if only he will deal with them intelligently. opening of this novel is stirring and vivid, being based Finally, they find a small irrigated fruit farm in upon the author's experience as a correspondent in “The Valley of the Moon,” which exactly fits their he war between Russia and Japan. His picture of needs, and they settle down upon it with every pros- the struggle in the field of Kao liang- the Chinese pect of success and happiness. This seems to us to millet - out of which was born Morning's great be the most wholesome book, as well as the most resolution, has the Tolstoyan handling, and the spirit interesting, that Mr. London has written, and his of Tolstoy informs the subsequent developments of new gospel of “back to nature” is a far more accept- Morning's character. How he gets his story through able one than the sordid and violent socialistic gos- to San Francisco, how he meets the woman in the pel that he has hitherto mainly dinned into our ears. hospital, how he plunges into a debauch when he The Canadian Mounted Police force has often is left without her, how a renewal of her companion figured in works of fiction—in the books of Mr. ship restores his soul, and how, bereft of her by her Bindloss and “Ralph Connor," for example — but supreme act of self-sacrifice, he finds himself com never before quite so effectively as in Mr. G. B. pletely and learns the utmost meaning of consecra Lancaster's “The Law-Bringers." This story of tion, setting down in words that burn the true life in the northern wilderness is marked by great significance of war— these are the things that follow powers of characterization and beauty of style as the dramatic prologue, and are set forth with a sense well as by swift dramatic movement and successful of beauty and a power of conviction that are expres construction. It is the story of two officers of the sive of the author's terrible earnestness and deep force, close friends at heart, yet at odds with one sincerity. “It is a story of the path at our feet, of another in vital matters. A half-breed woman, the Compassionates who draw near to speak, when extraordinarily fascinating and the very incarnation 26 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL of primitive sensuous animality, becomes the object humorous, and human enough to make us almost of a mad infatuation on the part of one of the men, ready to condone his evil practices. whereupon the other lures her away, not in pursuance Mr. Reginald Wright Kaufman prefaces his of his own desires — which are irrevocably fixed new novel, “The Spider's Web," with an “Ex- upon another object of affection — but to open his planation.” In this document he tells us that he friend's eyes and save him from himself. This re planned four years ago a cycle of four novels, "all sults in a series of tense situations, which are master carrying forward a definite view of life.” That view fully handled, and have for their setting the awful appears to be the Tolstoyan opinion that all com- solitudes of the frozen north. The author brings to pulsion is evil, but there is a good deal of question. his task the most intimate knowledge of the scenes begging in the author's use of the word "compul- described and the most deeply human sympathies. sion.” For example, it is the compulsion” of All the way through the book we were conscious of inadequate wages that forces girls into the career so something elusively familiar, and this consciousness realistically described in “The House of Bondage.” eventually crystallized in the thought that it was In “The Sentence of Silence,” it is "compulsion” just such a book as Mr. Conrad might have written that keeps young people in ignorance of the facts of these people and places. To say this is to bestow of sex to their undoing. In “Running Sands,” the high praise indeed, but not higher, we think, than is argument ran against "compulsion by matrimony” deserved. The matter-of-fact stories of Mr. Bindloss -“the forcing of wives to become mothers” be- become mere stage-carpentry in comparison with this cause they have accepted the responsibilities of wed- powerful transcription of life, and even Sir Gilbert lock. One might say something in behalf of duty Parker's work in this field, steeped in poetic feeling in these cases, but this aspect of the subject Mr. though it is, seems artificial melodrama. Kaufman conveniently ignores. In “The Spider's Evan Blount, the only son of Senator Blount of Web,” the author inveighs against “the sin of com- a western state which we may as well call Nevada pulsion exerting itself against humanity in all the as anything else, has been educated at Harvard, powers that conduct modern society; in the owner- and is about to settle down in the East for the ship of men and things; in our entire system of practice of the law when his father sends him a production and distribution, and in the creatures telegram suggesting that he might do worse than and ministers of that system: Government, Politics, come West and grow up with his native state. Law, and what passes by the name of Religion.” When he acts upon this suggestion, he knows little In this novel, the arch-villain, who is the "spider,” of his father, having been away from home nearly is unna named, but designated simply as “a man.” all his life, and upon his return is surprised to find This abstinence from indulgence in personality will that the "Sage-Brush Senator " is not only a man of not deceive any one, for in the character thus styled enormous wealth, but is also the undisputed “boss' there are so many traits taken from the life of the of a huge political machine in his state, a man who late J. Pierpont Morgan that there is no difficulty exacts tribute from the corporations at his feet, and in discovering the portrait to be a caricature of that who dictates the outcome of elections with absolute eminent financier. No more wool is pulled over authority. The young man has an equipment of our eyes than was done in the case of Mr. Hewlett's fairly-seasoned moral ideals, and is startled by what Bendish, who is clearly Byron projected into the he learns about his father's methods and activities. years following his death. The protagonist in this It takes some time to open his eyes to the situation, fiction — the undaunted David who arms himself and for a while he is fooled to the top of his bent, with a sling against this Goliath — is our old friend both by his father's own henchmen, and by the the district attorney, who has done valiant battle officers of the railway corporation with which the against the powers of corruption in so many recent senator is grappling. The struggle between the novels of the muck-raking type. The fact that he corporation and the political machine provides the wages a losing fight, and is broken in the end, is book with its substance, and when Evan discovers the main differentiation in the present case, for Mr. that he is being made a tool of the corrupt agencies Kaufman will have none of the optimism implied at work, he revolts, and starts out to purify the by the happy ending, and preserves a consistently state, although in taking this stand, he expects that dismal outlook. The last words of the dying hero the exposure he plans will disgrace his father and are these: “God damn your system and your poli- send him to the penitentiary. In the end, it does tics! God damn your law and your government! not turn out to be as bad as all that, and the sena- God damn your god!” Mr. Kaufman probably tor even receives a thin coating of whitewash, but thinks that this is strong writing, but it must be the situation is tense with excitement for a while. urged that there is nothing very constructive in “The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush ” is the title such an attitude toward a social organization, which, of this romance of business, politics, and reform, however bad, is doubtless working its way darkly and the story is told by Mr. Francis Lynde with all in the direction of the good. This crude and melo- the crispness and forcefulness that he has taught us dramatic anarchism is too emotional to be impres- to expect. Its greatest success is in the portraiture sive, and too biassed to make any serious appeal to of Senator Blount- shrewd, self-possessed, grimly the rational mind. WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE. 1914) 27 THE DIAL tive, giving what might be called a cross-section of BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS. Strindberg's development as a dramatist from his With the passing of the years Mr. naturalistic revolt in the middle eighties, to his final Reflections of a veteran John Burroughs's contributions to arrival at resigned mysticism and Swedenborgian naturalist. the literature of natural history gain symbolism.” The reader travels from 1888 to 1907, in richness and ripeness, showing in each successive and from Nietzsche to Maeterlinck and Sweden- volume an increased keenness of observation, an borg,-a sufficient journey for anyone to make added literary charm, a wiser philosophy of life in between the two covers of a book. “Swanwhite,” its immeasurable wholeness and wonderfulness. the long fairy tale given the place of honor in this That even now, in his eighth decade, his eye is not volume, is to us the least interesting of all. Strind- dim or his natural force abated, is made strikingly berg was avow owedly inspired by Maeterlinck to dig evident on every page of his latest book, “The for this tale in his own mines; and while the influ- Summit of the Years" (Houghton). The personal, ence of Maeterlinck is everywhere apparent, there autobiographic note that sounds so pleasantly in is not as much allegorical consistency even as in many a paragraph is heard in the preface, in which the Belgian's tales. And there is immeasurably he says: “It seems as if one never could get to the less appeal to children about it. As a fairy-tale, end of all the delightful things there are to know, “Advent” (here described as "a miracle play”) is and to observe, and to speculate about in the world. much better. Despite elements and details of un- Nature is always young, and there is no greater questioned power, the dream-current of sheer fancy felicity than to sbare in her youth. I still find each and the rather ostentatious strain of religious senti- day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, mentalism break up repeatedly both imaginative and all the walks I want to take, all the books I want reflective thought. “Simoon” is a single-act piece to read, and all the friends I want to see.” Again of great power. Its exhibition of the relentless it is heard, and more clearly, in the opening chapter, force of suggestion on a human mind, and the work- which gives its title to the whole collection, and ing of an implacable hatred, is probably unsurpassed which reveals with charming frankness something in literature. As a drama, “Debit and Credit” of the innermost nature of the man. Another bears the palm. This is an attempt to embody the chapter, “A Barn-Door Outlook," combines delight. Nietzschean idea of a super-man. We doubt if a fully both the intimately personal and the natural single act ever before involved and evolved such a historical quality. In certain richly suggestive tangled skein of life. On the whole, the sympathies reflections on “The Hit-and-Miss Methods of Na of the spectator incline to the super-man, but with ture,” the writer makes it clear even to an unsci many a puzzled glance at the other actors in the entific reader that no scheme of evolution, ideally little play. Strindberg's intellectual fairness and perfect though it may be in theory, can claim his almost uncanny power of showing both sides of exemption from an infinity of disconcerting limita the truth are nowhere shown to better advantage. tions and modifications. In other words, the vast, “The Thunder Storm” and “After the Fire" are inexplicable mystery, as well as the beauty and largely autobiographic. The former records the order, of the universe is made more undeniable as pathos of the effort to find peace in old age. The we turn the pages of this clear-eyed and thoughtful hero is of course not strictly a hero, and the curtain student of nature's methods. With the vexed falls amidst a depth of unrelieved gloom. If one question of animal intelligence he promises his were to take “After the Fire" at its face value, one readers that he will never again trouble either them would conclude that Strindberg believed every family or himself. One cannot but query whether the history to be rotten to the core, ,-a heap of putres- whole controversy has not arisen from an imperfect cent lies. Perhaps in reading the whole of Strind- initial agreement on what intelligence really is as berg's work at a stretch one would get the proper distinguished from instinct. A few more chapter- A few more chapter-balance for such a play as this. But an artist can- headings may serve here to whet still further the not make this demand; he must content himself reader's desire. “A Hay-Barn Idyl,” “In the witb an hour of our time. Thus it is that “ After Noon of Science,” “Untaught Wisdom,” “The the Fire" cannot fail to depress beyond words. Round World," "In Field and Wood,” and “The America is a fruitful field for the Bow in the Clouds” might be named as among the historian, and continues to be worked book's best chapters, were it not nearer the truth to and often re-worked. Professor John say that its contents are uniformly excellent. A Spencer Bassett's “Short History of the United good portrait of the author in an environment at States” (Macmillan) is the latest volume to court once appropriate and picturesque appears as fron- the favor of educators and general readers. The tispiece. author's sense of proportion is fairly good, though The third volume of Mr. Edwin A new series there is a slight tendency toward too mnch military of Strindberg's Björkman's translation of Strind- history, especially in dealing with the Civil and translated plays. berg's plays (Scribner) is not the Spanish wars. The newer idea in the writing of least interesting of the series. In the words of Mr. history has become too strong to be ignored, and its Björkman, this collection "is unusually representa influence is seen here in the amount of space devoted Outlines of United States history. 28 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL of mediceval to economic and social conditions. Yet the real bear. Sympathies.” The word “insulence,” Mr. Lucas ing of these conditions is not always made plain. explains, perhaps superfluously, is an invention of For example, the financial and commercial disorders his own, "a blend of 'insular' and 'insolence,' and following the Revolution are briefly described, some it was coined to describe that habit and carriage what after the manner of Fiske; but the real connec of Englishmen abroad which are found so objec- tion of the moneyed and commercial classes with the tionable by Continentals who have not our island movement for a stronger national government is not heritage of security and liberty.” Another notable made unmistakably clear. When the reader learns chapter treats of “ Thackeray at the Punch Table," that many of the most active leaders in the Conven being based on the unpublished "Dinner Diary" of tion of 1787 held securities, he will better appreciate Henry Silver. Still another eminently Elian essay their desire for a government with power to collect describes the form in which the monthly bills of an taxes and pay its debts in none but good money. The exceptionally honest provision-dealer, evidently remark of Gerry, that New England would never gifted with a sense of humor, are made out. Here join the Union unless Congress was clothed with are two items, worded with a strict regard to the power to pass a Navigation Act, makes clear the customer's orders: "1 really tender duckling (the commercial ends of that section. The members of last wasn't), 4s.” “1 pork-pie, 2 lb., not the kind the Society of the Cincinnati, and other holders of with crust like plaster of Paris, but a soft short western lands, wanted to see the value of their lands crust, into which the flavour of the meat has found enhanced, and so they supported the Constitution. its way, 2s. 4d.” Truly, a pork pie fit for the Professor Bassett says that the men of the Rev-' | palate of the author of “A Dissertation upon Roast olution hated nothing more than monarchy and aris Pig”! Drawings by Mr. George Morrow, one of tocracy. But their hatred of these forms was only Mr. Punch’s artists, accompany a short sketch equalled by their fear of democracy, and so they pro- penned in his praise (G. M.'s, that is), and a view ceeded to curb democracy by creating a new form of “The White House at Chelsea ” appears in pho- of aristocracy entrenched with privileges. To break togravure as frontispiece. the force of this, which has retreated from one strong- hold to another, has been the main task of democ- A book of undeniable “ human in- The industries racy ever since. In its treatment of the latest phase terest," and far less technical than England. of this struggle, the book is somewhat disappointing. the title would suggest, is Mr. L. F. It tells briefly of the growth of the trusts, railroad Salzmann's "English Industries of the Middle Ages" building and railroad stealing, the attempts at con- (Houghton). Whether the reader be an antiquarian, servation of natural resources (though little about or a member of the I. W. W., or a mere unclassified their rape), pension graft, etc.; but there is little layman, he will find distinctly absorbing and instruc- about the movements of democracy, beyond a record tive matter in this volume. The chapters discuss of legislative enactments (the connection of which Mining, Quarrying, Metal-Working, Pottery, Cloth- with economic conditions is not always made clear) | Making, Leather-Working, and Brewing, with a final having for their end the recovery of its own. Pos- word on “The Control of Industry.” The author's sibly the limitations of space had something to do method is “to treat the leading mediæval industries with this, as intimated in the Preface; but one is one by one, showing as far as possible their chief not sure that Professor Bassett really understands centres, their chronological development, the condi- the deeper significance of economic and social move- tions and the methods of working." He appeals ments and their relation to that political and con- frankly to “the general reader, equipped with in- stitutional history of which he is still a devotee. terest in the history of his country." The book is However, as historical writing now goes, he has given authoritative, precise, based upon careful study of us a reasonably good book, — indeed, one that is documentary evidence, and is surprisingly compre- better than most of its predecessors of like compass. hensive. There is no lack of specific facts and figures, yet these are all presented in an engagingly lucid “ Loiterer's Harvest” (Macmillan), style, entirely free from any tendency to apotheosize Gleanings in by Mr. E. V. Lucas, presents in statistics. Important questions regarding labor are lighter vein. book-form a considerable variety of discussed ; and little matters of custom, honest and entertaining trifles, chiefly reprinted, with varia dishonest, are revealed. The reader feels that the tions, from “Punch,” “The Pall Mall Gazette,” author has selected and arranged his material with and “The Guardian.” Like Charles Lamb, with great economy, never missing a significant item, or whom Mr. Lucas's name is so inseparably associated failing to perceive the varied appeals that small facts in most readers' minds, the author of "A Little of may make. The account of glass-making, for in- Everything” and “One Day and Another” is at stance, will interest artists, tourists, and students of his best in the short essay of semi-humorous, semi literature, as well as craftsmen. Whether by design serious, and often whimsical character; and to this or by accident, almost no references to the contem- class of writing his latest book distinctly belongs. porary literature of the Middle Ages are included, Especially characteristic is the little paper on “In- although readers familiar with that period will find sulence" not Insolence which might almost this volume an illuminating commentary on many have come from the pen that wrote “Imperfect | passages. There are pages in the book where refer- 1914] 29 THE DIAL Little studies in humorous satire. ences to “Piers Plowman” would have been valu- ready to admit. Dr. Fox's book has the advantage able, — for instance: on page 155, where the ne of incorporating the newer phases of mental disease farious practice of stretching cloth overmuch is in which the psychic factor is more comprehensively described, an apt comparison may be made with recognized than ever before. The importance of “Piers Plowman,” B text, Passus V, lines 212–14. suggestion is paramount; and it becomes clear that It is to be hoped that Mr. Salzmann will continue to many of the symptoms which earlier medical men publish his researches in economic fields, for he has discovered as characteristic of hysteria were really the gift of knowing what is significant. suggested by them. With the present understand- ing of the scope of suggestion, it becomes indeed Conquering the Several years ago that modern difficult to define the symptoms of the disease. The greatest of Munchausen, Dr. F. A. Cook, pub- focus is clear, but the form and range of the orbit American peaks. Jished a circumstantial account of are rather vague. None the less, despite the diffi- his adventures in climbing to the summit of Mount culty of description and the common danger of lay- McKinley. His book, "The Top of Our Conti- | ing too much stress upon extreme, if interesting cases, nent,” even contains some quite impressive pictures there emerges a generic conception of the hysteric of the peak, with Cook's companion Barrill gallantly vagaries definite enough to guide the practitioner waving a flag from the topmost crag. Mr. Belmore in his treatment, and illuminating for the general Browne has been unkind enough to turn Cook's nar student of mind. This double purpose inevitably rative into a fairy tale. In his “Conquest of Mount produces the usual difficulty of serving two masters, McKinley” (Putnam), he proves conclusively, not with a consequent occasional neglect of the interests merely by the dry testimony of facts, but by dupli- of the one or the other. Admitting this drawback, cating Cook's photographs on the spot, that that en the book yet advances the facilities for adequate terprising explorer was twenty miles from the peak acquaintance with one of the most interesting fields he pretended to have climbed, and that the scene of modern research in mental pathology. he describes as “The Top of Our Continent — the Summit of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain Humorous, whimsical, witty, but, per- of North America Altitude 20,390 feet," is in haps more than all, mildly satirical reality an excellent photograph of an outcrop of and gently cynical are the twenty-nine rock in a snow-field, about 5300 feet above sea level. short papers written by Mr. Robert J. Shores and So are the mighty fallen! This, however, is only published under the collective title, “New Brooms" an incident in an exceedingly interesting narrative (Bobbs-Merrill Co.). It is not so much the efficacy of Mr. Browne's attempts to reach the summit of of the new broom that the little essays — in some McKinley,- attempts which were finally crowned instances, at least, not all —- inculcate as the tran- with success, in July, 1912, after a series of adven sitoriness of that efficacy. New brooms sweep tures that must have daunted the heart of any less clean, but their newness is gone when sw sweeping day plucky and determined an explorer. The actual next comes around. As a sad-eyed friend of the summit was not reached, the explorers being driven present reviewer recently expressed it, "everything back by a wild blizzard when within a few hundred peters out.” At the end of the book, a supposed feet of the top; but to all intents and purposes Mr. author of middle age, who signs his name, “Hackett Browne is perfectly justified in claiming the con A. Long," says in reviewing his professional experi- quest of Mount McKinley. The remaining distance ence: "My first novel has left me with a reputation, consisted of a perfectly easy slope; and nothing but a two-years lease of an expensive apartment, a load the extraordinary weather conditions, which made of debts, an angry wife, a scrap-book filled with it suicidal to continue, prevented him and his com favorable reviews, an unsalable manuscript, and a panion, Professor Parker, from pushing on to the prospect of bankruptcy.” And he advises all hack summit. The book is splendidly illustrated with a writers who may cherish an ambition similar to the series of photographs taken by the explorers on their one that has caused his own undoing to remain con- several trips to and from Mount McKinley. tent with their comfortable obscurity. Unlike the contents of Dr. Johnson's short-lived periodical, Dr. Charles D. Fox of Philadelphia these modern essays addressed “to the Editor of has brought together under the title, The Idler”” are delightfully spirited, written each of hysteria. “The Psycho-pathology of Hys- in a single brisk dash of the pen, the frolicsome teria” (Badger), a presentation which, in addition offspring of a nimble fancy, and so not in the least to its direct usefulness to the medical profession, labored or ponderous or wearisome. They are may well influence the views of a larger public. heartily enjoyable in both substance and style. Hysteria has claims to be considered as one of the Ingenious and amusing are the names assigned to most significant terms in the language. It is readily the supposed correspondents of “The Idler.” A abused, both within the medical profession and out letter on poetic license is signed, “P. Rose"; one on side it. The physician is prone to consider too closely certain modern tendencies in poetry is from "Anna the unusual and the morbid; and the layman fights Pest "; one on the abuses of adversity is subscribed, shy of the word for fear of implying more than he is “Edward Easyman"; a protest against the use of The nature 30 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL tobacco is offered by “B. Z. Body”; and a rather from the events and scenes depicted, its style is sour epistle from a spinster is the composition of undoubtedly by so much the gainer in respect to “ Sarah Shelfworn." There is no little “bite" in warmth and color and other qualities that help to the book, and it will bring delight to all but the arrest the reader's attention and hold it to the end. irreclaimable optimist. Sargent's portrait of Mr. Pulitzer is reproduced for the frontispiece. English water- Mr. C. E. Hughes's little book on color artists of “Early English Water Colour a century ago. (McClurg) contains thirty-seven ex- BRIEFER MENTION. cellent reproductions of eighteenth and early nine- teenth century water-colors, the work mainly of the Having resided in China during his youth, and having landscape school which prepared the way for and held for a time a professorship in the Imperial Uni- surrounded Turner. The author, himself a collector, versity in Kyoto, Japan, Mr. Joseph K. Goodrich pos- sesses the sort of first-hand knowledge of the Orient seems especially interested in the passing over of one which is essential to a satisfactory discussion of any kind of technique into another. He attempts, for of the peoples and problems of Asia. This personal instance, to trace the influence of steel and copper acquaintance with the Chinese people renders his little engraving on the first water-colorists,- an influence volume, “Our Neighbors the Chinese” (Browne & which he finds evidenced by a certain hardness of Howell Co.), very readable and informing. For the line and limitation of tone values or dryness of color hasty reader it is one of the best treatises available. in the painting of such men as Francis Towne. The book is, unfortunately, devoid of any charm of Technique, however, is not the only phase of the style, but it is packed with the kind of information one wishes to secure in regard to human beings somewhat subject that interests him. In the old color-prints unlike ourselves. and their originals he discovers social documents of Mr. William S. Walsh's “A Handy-Book of Curious importance, and shows among other things the place Information ” (Lippincott) is a successor to two similar taken by “gentlemen's houses” and the compli-works, and includes much matter that it would be diffi- mentary representation of them in the evolution of cult to find elsewhere. Sometimes the information is landscape art, - a curious side-light, by the way, on misinformation, as when we are told that marble dust the custom of noble patronage in the eighteenth cen and sulphuric acid are the chief ingredients of soda- tury. Supporting these suggestions of the significant water, and that high pressure makes them “wholesome tendencies in his theme, Mr. Hughes brings together and palatable in combination.” The trouble with a great many biographical details concerning the reference-books of this character is that they index men he discusses, thus illuminating the genesis of matters which no one would think of looking for, such as “Twenty-three and Skidoo," and that they do not their masterpieces. The effect of the whole is to often contain the things one wishes to learn about. But give Turner a place merely as one of a group of for reading pure and simple, without the intention of interesting painters rather than, as Ruskin aimed to research, they are both instructive and entertaining. prove, the sole peak in the British art of his time. That Giosuè Carducci was, with the single exception That our country is now enjoying a of Swinburne, the “greatest (poet] alive in Europe at Joseph Pulitzer and his fair degree of prosperity, at peace the opening of the twentieth century" is a fact beyond World." question. It is surprising how little knowledge of witbin her borders and at war with him is available to English readers, and Mr. G. L. no external power, and witnessing the pleasing spec Bickersteth has done us a valuable service by preparing tacle of a national government representing the the volume which has “Carducci” (Longmans) for its popular vote in both executive and legislative depart. simple title. The contents include three essays on his ments, might seem to a reader of “The Story of a life, his poetry, and his metrics; a bibliography and Page" (Harper), by Mr. John L. Heaton, to be some notes, and over two hundred pages of the poems chiefly due to the powerful agency of the New York themselves — the original Italian and the English trans- “World.” After a brief review of Joseph Pulitzer's lation facing each other on opposite pages. We are previous record in newspaper affairs, the book re- extremely grateful for this work, which should do much to make Carducci a reality, rather than a great hearses, in some detail and with frequent quotations name merely, to English readers. from the “World's” editorial page, the policy of We wish that every college student in the country that influential journal from the day when it ceased might read and take to heart the collection of “ Essays to wear, as a contemporary expressed it, “the sar. for College Men” (Holt) which has recently been put donic leer and avaricious grin of Mr. Jay Gould,” together by a committee of instructors in the University to the day when, as Mr. Heaton tells us, “the fruit of Wisconsin. The essays are fourteen in number, of thirty years of fighting since Joseph Pulitzer re among the most notable being classical examples from established “The World' seemed fair upon the tree. Huxley, Tyndall, Newman, Arnold, and Harrison, be- For the first time since the civil war the people had sides more recent papers of American origin. The latter include President Wilson on « The College taken control of their own government.” In other Spirit,” William James on “ The Social Value of the words, the book is a review, a most vivid and read- College-Bred," Professor G. E. Woodberry on “First able review, of American political history from May, Principles," and President Meiklejohn's recent inaug- 1883, to November, 1912; and if its viewpoint is ural address. All these essays are specimens both of not that of one absolutely free from bias and good writing and of good counsel, and no young man separated by centuries of time and oceans of space reading them could fail to be the better for the task. .. 1914] 31 THE DIAL . . Masefield. In France the Grand Prix of the Academy NOTES. has been awarded to M. Romain Rolland for “La It is reported that Mr. G. K. Chesterton is at work Nouvelle Journée," which constitutes the tenth and on a biography of Thomas Hood for the “English final volume of his “ Jean-Christophe.” Men of Letters" series. “ The Cambridge Psychological Library,” under the “Studies in Stagecraft," by Mr. Clayton Hamilton, general editorship of Dr. C. S. Myers, University Lec- author of “ The Theory of the Theatre,” will be published turer in Experimental Psychology, is announced by this month by Messrs. Holt. Messrs. Putnam, in conjunction with the Cambridge Dr. W. Dawson Johnston, for the past four years libra- University Press. The same publishers have also in rian of Columbia University, has resigned that position active preparation “ The Cambridge Technical Series,” to become librarian of the St. Paul Public Library. a series of monographs for use by students in technical institutions. The titles so far announced in both series “ From the Angle of Seventeen,” a new novel by Mr. Eden Phillpotts, to appear immediately, is said to give show a promising list of subjects and authors. a delightfully humorous portrait of a pompous but A fifty-page catalogue of books and other printed engaging English youth. matter on Arizona in the University of Arizona Library The prize of $10,000 for the best novel received in has been prepared by the librarian, Miss Estelle Lutrell. Messrs Reilly & Britton Co.'s much-discussed contest The titles are topically arranged, and an alphabetical has been awarded to Miss Leona Dalrymple for her index follows. Indian tribes and antiquities are con- story entitled “ Diane of the Green Van." spicuous among the subjects treated. That so much has been written and published about Arizona will sur- “ In Freedom's Birthplace," which was announced for autumn publication by Houghton Mifflin Co., will appear prise many persons; and that its university library is so this month. In this book, Mr. John Daniels presents a well equipped in this branch of literature, is cause for congratulation. sketch of the social, economic, moral, and religious de- velopment of the negro in Boston. “ The Continental Drama of To-day: Outlines for TOPICS IN LEADING PERIODICALS. Its Study,” by Professor Barrett H. Clark, is announced January, 1914. hy Messrs. Holt. It will be made up of suggestions, questions, biographies, and bibliographies for use in Actor, The Vanishing. Annie Nathan Meyer. Atlantic connection with the study of the more important con- Air, Yachting in the. Augastus Post · Review of Reviews Alaska: A Future Empire. E. H. Thomas Rev. of Revs. temporary plays. Alaska, Transportation in. J. G. Steese Rev. of Revs. Jules Arsène Arnaud Claretie, director since 1885 Australian Bypaths. Norman Duncan Harper of the Comédie Française and member of the French Beef from South America and Australia. A. W. Academy, died December 23 in Paris, at the age of Dunn Review of Reviews. seventy-three. He was the author of a long list of Benlliure, Mariano : Sculptor. Shane Leslie . Scribner published books in the fields of fiction, drama, history, Bergson: A Prophet of the Soul. John Burroughs Atlantic biography, dramatic criticism, etc. Biologist's Problem, The. T. D. A. Cockerell Pop. Science The first fiction announcements of the new year in- Boxer Year, Memoirs of the. E. Backhouse and J. 0. P. Bland . Atlantic clude the following: “ The Devil's Garden," by Mr. Business Success Secrets-III. E.M. Woolley. World's Work W. B. Maxwell; “The After House,” by Mrs. Mary Cancer Research, Present Status of. Leo Loeb Pop. Science Roberts Rinehart; “A People's Man," by Mr. E. Phillips Caribbean Tropics, The. Julius Muller Century Oppenheim; and “It Happened in Egypt,” by Mr. and Chapaneau: An Early Worker on Platinum. J. L. Mrs. Williamson. All of these are scheduled for Howe Popular Science January issue. Children, Parents and. Wells Hastings Century A volume of recollections of Tolstoy has been written Children, White and Colored, Comparative Intelligence of. Josiah Morse Popular Science by his son, Count Ilya Tolstoy, and a translation by Dr. Currency Bill in the Senate. Horace White No. American Hagberg Wright will be published early next spring. D'Arblay, Madame. Gamaliel Bradford North American Dr. Wright paid several visits to Yasnaya Polyana, and Diplomatic Service, Why We Have a. D.J. Hill Harper had some conversations of an unusually intimate char Education, Popular. Agnes Repplier Atlantic acter with Tolstoy. He has translated some of Tolstoy's Emotions, Physics of the. Fred W. 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Harold Williams No. American of these United States from the Alleghenies to the Heredity, Mechanism of. T. H. Morgan Popular Science Immigrants in Politics. Edward A. Ross Century Pacific." Income Tax, The. Edward S. Mead Lippincott The Academic Committee of the Royal Society of Income Tax Complexities. Benjamin S. Orcutt Rev.of Revs. Literature, whose function it is to award the Polignac Justice, Swift and Cheap - IV. G. W. Alger World's Work Prize (£100), has given it this year to Mr. James Les Baux, The Provencal Village of. Richard Stephens for his book, “ The Crock of Gold,” published Le Gallienne Harper a few months ago. The two previous winners of this Life's Little Ruses. Lucy E. Keeler Atlantic prize were Mr. Walter de la Mare and Mr. John Love, Friends and Foes of. Richard C. Cabot Atlantic McClure, S. S., Autobiography of - II. McClure . . . . 32 [Jan. 1 THE DIAL . . Madero, Tragic Ten Days of. Alice D. McLaren . Scribner Medical Ethics, The New, B. J. 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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, 82. a year in advance, postage SILAS WEIR MITCHELL- prepaid in the United States, and Mexico; Foreign and Canadian postage 50 cents per year extra. REMITTANCES should be by check, or by express or postal order, payable to THE DIAL COMPANY. The last thing that could be said of Dr. Unless otherwise ordered, subscriptions will begin with the current Mitchell was that he lagged superfluous on the number. When no direct request to discontinue at expiration of sub- scription is received, it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription stage. When he came to Chicago year before is desired. ADVERTISING RATES furnished on application. All com- munications should be addressed to last, as the guest of the Twentieth Century THE DIAL, Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Club, he made the impression of a man who, Entered as Second-Class Matter October 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under Act of March 3, 1879. despite some of the physical signs of advanced age, had all the mental alertness of a man in No. 662. JANUARY 16, 1914. Vol. LVI. his prime. His zest in living was certainly CONTENTS. not impaired, and the evident fact that he was SILAS WEIR MITCHELL a sage did not mean for him aloofness from 45 ELLEN KEY: IDEALIST. Amalie K. Boguslawsky 47 human interests, or any dulling of the genial personality which made him one of the most CASUAL COMMENT 49 A voice from Virginia.—The versatile and charming companionable of men. He enjoyed the society Jules Claretie. - The reason of an editorial. - A of his fellows quite as keenly as they enjoyed “Daily of Dailies." — What every schoolboy should their intercourse with him. His vast interest know.-" The father of American history."-A new State Library School. — Shakespeare presented by in humanity kept him mentally alive, and made amateurs. - The price of orderliness in the library. him the central figure of any group which in- – The laureate's first official poem.— A topsy-turvy cluded him in its numbers; although he might method of language teaching.--Magazine covers.--Lit- erary magic.-The literature of feminism.-Lincoln well have rested on his octogenarian laurels, literary relics.-Mr. Carnegie's library gifts for 1913. and been content with the tribute of admiration COMMUNICATIONS 52 which the younger generations were so ready to Concerning Ye" and Ampersand.” Nelson pay him. His novel of last year was perhaps Antrim Crawford and Arthur Howard Noll. Milton's “Starre-Y pointed Pyramid." Edwin the best he ever gave us, firm in its marshalling Durning-Lawrence. of material, incisive in its characterization, and FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. Percy F. Bicknell 54 having about it no suggestion of senility. It GUIDES TO THE CONTEMPORARY DRAMA. might have been the work of a man of forty, James W. Tupper 56 except for the comprehensiveness of its survey SOCIAL INSURANCE. Alvin S. Johnson 57 and the ripeness of its wisdom. MORE KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNKNOWABLE. Lowell once spoke of an acquaintance as Thomas Percival Beyer . 61 “quite literary for a Philadelphian.” This THE STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE- CRAFT: A CLIMAX. George Roy Elliott humorous aspersion upon the culture of the 62 RECENT POETRY. William Morton Payne Quaker City loses its point when we take stock 63 Phillips's Lyrics and Dramas. — Hewlett's Helen of the total contribution of Philadelphians to Redeemed.-Legge's A Symphony.-Bartram's En our literature, and the name of Dr. Mitchell gland's Garland.—Helston's Aphrodite.- Masefield's In Salt-Water Ballads. - Heath's Beginnings. — Muir- alone would suffice to put it out of court. head's The Quiet Spirit. - Symons's Knave of years alone, he was the dean of our letters, and Hearts.-Le Gallienne's The Lonely Dancer.-Low's he might have filled that office in a more sub- A WandandStrings.-West's Atlantis.-Benét’s Mer- chants from Cathay.--Cawein's Minions ofthe Moon.- stantial sense if he had not given half a century Reed's The Theban Eagle.-Poems of Paul Mariett. of life to science before he took up the calling BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS 69 of the literary artist. It is said that when a Beasts of the past. — A new text-book of American young man, his mind was balanced between literature.- The case against state ownership of our railroads. — The founder of “ The Review of Re- choosing medicine (his father's profession) and views.”—The amazing Duke of Wharton.- Miscel literature for his life work, and that he chose lanies by Thackeray's daughter. - Plays of old the former upon the advice of Dr. Holmes, who Japan.-Speeches of a British imperialist.— A sum- mary of Jane Austen's life and work.- A picture of was equally distinguished in both callings. The rural content. - Yarns of a Swedish sailor. Autocrat's advice was for medicine first, with BRIEFER MENTION. 73 letters as an avocation or reserve resource, and NOTES 74 the young student accepted it. He made for LIST OF NEW BOOKS 75 himself a world-wide fame as a physician, and . . . 46 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL . then, past fifty, at an age when most men are fessional career of a medical consultant, or so I was content to rest on their oars, he began the career told by an eminent English physician. I need not say that this is not the American way of looking at life. which is now the reason of our mourning in his If you give your best to medicine and the law, you may death the loss of one of our foremost poets write novels or verse, or play golf or ride the wildest and novelists. It is one of the most extraordi colt of hobbies." nary life-histories in our annals. The creative The first of Mitchell's long list of novels was impulse is usually spent at the age when Dr. “Hepzibah Guiness” (1880), which was fol- Mitchell first yielded himself to its mastery, but lowed by “Roland Blake” (1884), “Far in in his case the new task was taken up with all the Forest”_(1888), and several others not the vigorous delight of youth, and with the mentioned. Then came, in 1898, his great suc- added power that comes from wide experience of cess of “Hugh Wynne," probably the best life, and the ripe wisdom that the years alone can novel of the American Revolution ever written, give. Upwards of a score of novels, and several which placed him in the foremost rank of our collections of poems, all written since 1880, novelists. In 1907 came “The Red City,” a attest the fertility of his genius, and add an- companion piece to “Hugh Wynne," and only other example to the list given in Longfellow's a few weeks ago “Westways," a great novel of - Morituri Salutamus” of those who have shown the Civil War. A few other notable works of “ How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow fiction of the later period are: “Dr. North and Into the arctic regions of our lives, His Friends," "The Adventures of François," Where little else than life itself survives." “Constance Trescot," and “John Sherwood." Mitchell was born in Philadelphia February The two Revolutionary fictions and the one 15, 1829, and when he died, on the fourth of based upon the Civil War represent his hi est this month, he was within six weeks of complet- achievement, and best illustrate what may be ing his eighty-fifth year. His college education called his ecological treatment of character and was cut short by illness, but the degree which he incident. He knew his backgrounds as few thus failed to obtain was made up for him many novelists have ever known them, and he always times over by the professional and honorary kept environment in view as a penetrating and degrees bestowed upon him in after life. For him in after life. For shaping influence upon life. To quote from over a quarter of a century he stifled his literary the New York - the New York “Evening Post": aspirations, and devoted himself assiduously to “ He had almost literally lived in the Philadelphia of the practice of his profession, gaining a world- the days of André's Meschianza and Washington's wide reputation as a specialist in nervous dis- Valley Forge. He knew from delving here and there just what buildings had antedated the prim brick and This period included a term of service marble fronts of his day; how the passers in the streets as an army surgeon in the Civil War. His were dressed, of what they talked, and whither they tributions to the technical literature of his pro- were bound. So he came to his writing. He was per- fession number a hundred or more, and include sonally acquainted with Revolutionary days and doings, research studies of the most important descrip. one might say." tion. A few of the more important titles are: It goes without saying that the specialist in the “Gunshot Wounds and Other Injuries of the pathology of the mind, the physician who was Nerves," "Rest in the Treatment of Disease," the repository of thousands of the most intimate “ Researches on the Venom of Poisonous Ser. personal confessions, was also extraordinarily pents,” “ Relations of Nervous Disorders in well-equipped on the psychological or analytical Women to Pelvic Disease,” and “Rest Treat- side to become a master of fiction, and the power ment and Psychic Medicine.” These profes- and truth of Mitchell's creative work rest upon sional writings were continued far down into the the twin pillars of knowledge above outlined. period of his literary authorship, and he never Mitchell's connection with the stage is illus- wholly abandoned his practice. He once gave trated by “ The Miser," a brief morality which this explanation of his dual life as a writer: was in Wilson Barrett's repertoire, and by a dramatization, made by his son, of “The Adven- “When success in my profession gave me the free- dom of long summer holidays the despotism of my tures of François.” As a poet, Mitchell earned habits of work would have made entire idleness mere high distinction; the collected edition of 1896 ennui. I turned to what except for stern need would included “Francis Drake," "Philip Vernon," have been my life-long work from youth -- literature – “ The Cup of Youth,” and “François Villon,” and bored by idleness wrote my first novel. There is a lesson for you - all of which had previously had separate pub- never to be idle. “In any land but this such an experiment as a suc- lication, and enough other pieces, exhibiting cessful novel would have injuriously affected the pro such variety of form and treatment as to rank eases. con- 1914] 47 THE DIAL their author with such men as Taylor, Gilder, “Those who believe in a humanity perfected by love and Stoddard. A new edition is soon to be pub- must learn to count in thousands of years, not in lished, to include his later work also. His "Ode centuries, much less in decades.” on a Lycian Tomb," a recent lyric, has been Why, then, do we hear all this hue and about cry greatly admired, and may perhaps be taken as Ellen Key's “immoral” precepts? To see danger in her reversal of accepted standards in sexual ethics an example of his fine achievement. is as misleading as was the popular interpretation of “What gracious nunnery of grief is here! the high-handed exit of Ibsen's Nora. It would One woman garbed in sorrow's every mood; be just as absurd to accuse her of suggesting free Each sad presentment celled apart, in fear love as a solution for marital tangles as it was to Lest that herself upon herself intrude, And break some tender dream of sorrow's day. blame Ibsen for the panacea which“ misunderstood Here cloistered lonely, set in marble gray. women” found in his open-door theory. Both these idealists are counting in thousands of years” for “) pale procession of immortal love, the consummation of their hope of social advance Forever married to immortal grief ! through the ennoblement of natural impulses. All of life's childlike sorrow far above, In demanding new forms, Ellen Key asks free- Past help of time's compassionate relief; dom “for the only love worthy the name,” the These changeless stones are treasuries of regret And mock the term by time for sorrow set. sanctified, self-sacrificing love that is life's highest spiritual expression: self-sacrificing only in the - Cold mourners set in stone so long ago, sense of giving and demanding the highest happi- Too much my thoughts have dwelt with thee apart. ness in love. All other love she considers dese- Again my grief is young; full well I know cration, whether in marriage or out of it. “ Her The pang reborn, that mocked my feeble art With that too human wail in pain expressed, greatest victory is that pure-minded young men have The parent cry above the empty nest.” made their own her demands of true morality,” said one admirer on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. The new type of woman which is being evolved ELLEN KEY: IDEALIST. from this supreme test of her theories will be the corner-stone upon which the new creed of a higher Always since the Galilean lived his revolutionary freedom for both man and woman will rest. Fewer message — to reform man and not methods,— every Priscillas, ever ready to bear the marriage yoke, step in the world's ethical and moral progress has will worship man as the lord of creation, and more been inspired by the standard-bearer of a new ideal Brunhildes will defend the fiery wall of newly-won ism. With the wane of each century, the idealism privileges which protects the cherished freedom of which demanded the ascetic renunciation of earthly their personality. joys has been more sternly challenged, until a higher On the other hand, Ellen Key proves the possi- conception of true life-values is leading us back to bility of making practical ideals fit to-day's needs the Greek ideal of beauty and happiness as the basis in her plea for the rights of the child. What a of a life-giving harmony. neglected factor the child has been in our demand Ellen Key's credo, “the enhancement of life for the right to develop our own individuality! We through love, joy, and beauty in things small and are only beginning to concede his right to be well great,” implies much more than the joy of living. born and well equipped, physically and morally, for To her, happiness means “to love, work, think, suffer, the task of finding his true place in the great scheme and enjoy on an ever higher plane.” She expounds of existence. her gospel in a glowingly picturesque and even start What the dreamer Rousseau began, the centuries ling way, and those who read coming events in to-day's are slowly bringing to a splendid fruition. With idealistic tendencies believe that she has established two inspired women like Maria Montessori, who is the three truths on which our moral future will be freeing children's souls, and Ellen Key, fighting based : 1, The futility of legislation and economic against our effete conception of the moral law, in readjustments for bringing about the regeneration the vanguard, we are slowly realizing our possibilities of the race; 2, The wisdom of courageous truth in making the most perfect development of the indi- telling as regards vital issues; 3, A truer recognition vidual the basis of social advancement. of the sacredness of human relations. In “The Century of the Child,”a powerful leaven As a forerunner in urging the vital reforms for in the great social upheaval now going on, Ellen Key which we are fighting to-day, Ellen Key has always bases her plea for less training and more opportunity insisted on freedom for the new type of beings who for free action on the premise that mankind can are developing as a result of the transvaluation of rise to its highest fulfillment only through the most moral standards that must eventually bring about a perfect development of human impulses and the betterment of the species. The closing sentence in best training of the faculties. To this end she her most indignantly contested book, "Love and would change Froebel's dictum, “Let us live for the Marriage,” proves her intent to let her theories be children,” to the admonition, “Give the children a a stepping-stone to changed and bettered marriage chance to live.” “Aim to leave your child in peace, conditions, and not a plan for immediate action : interfere as little as possible, try to remove all ima 48 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL pure impressions, but above all else perfect yourself interests in order to make herself more efficient for and let your personality, aided by reality in all its her most important duties, and she urges reform rude simplicity, become a factor in the child's de measures to so aid the working mother that she velopment.” Nietzsche expresses this essence of may devote more attention to her children. Another the educational wisdom of the ages more tersely: suggestion, to make a course in caring for children, “See that through thee the race progresses, not in health culture and nursing, obligatory for girls, continues only. Let a true marriage help thee to is a more rational demand than the European law this end." for compulsory military duty, and would surely be Ellen Key's arraignment of our present method productive of better results. The ethical as well as of predigested instruction, of artificial spurs to en the practical value of efficiency is being recognized deavor, and of over-vigilance and protective pam in the business world, in professional and educa- pering is a strong negative plea for more natural tional life. Why not in the highest of all vocations methods of training children. She thinks an adult - parenthood? person would lose his reason if some Titan should “ The Woman Movement” challenges those of try to train him by the methods ordinarily employed Ellen Key's adversaries who claim that she opposes with children.“ Like all right-minded people, she woman's emancipation : for her the most important considers corporal punishment detrimental to the woman question is the highest development of the development of courage, energy, and self-reliance. individual woman. “Motherhood,” she assares us, She quotes the opinion of an educator who claims " will exact all the legal rights without which woman that many nervous little liars simply need good cannot, in the full sense of the word, be either child nourishment and outdoor life; and she holds the mother or community worker.” Her glowing faith “good” school, with its over-insistence on versatility, in the perfectibility of human nature, her courage responsible for the nervousness of our day. in braving false interpretations of her creed, and The child should be trained to exercise his own her prophetic understanding of our most urgent powers: trained, — not allowed to exercise them as spiritual needs give her the right to shed a blinding he wills. Herein lies the misconception that leads light on matters tabooed by those who fear the many ultra-modern parents to give the reins into truth. She is not a disillusionist for courageous the child's own hands. We are in danger now of souls. Anyone who reads “Life Lines” under- passing the Scylla of restrictive methods only to standingly is impressed by the author's tremendous founder on the Charybdis of unrestricted liberty. sense of righteousness, and by the optimism of her Even the radical Ellen Key advises strict discipline prophecies. for young children “as a pre-condition to a higher In her biographies of noted women the forward- training.” During the first and most important seeking vision in their lives and in their work is formative period she insists upon absolute obedience. a typically. modern note. Rabel Varnbagen has Our present system of training often limits the never before been drawn with the ultra-modern natural capacities of the child and shields him from touch that reveals her aspiring soul as a strong life's real experiences. In answer to the assertion influence in spurring on great men to unusual deeds that splendid men and women have grown up under of intellectual valor. a system of repression and punishment, she argues A humanitarian in the widest sense, Ellen Key that parents were consistent and unbending in earlier disapproves of many forms of charity, while she days: not over-indulgent and severe by turns, guided insists upon the right of every human being to by nerves and moods, as are many parents of to-day develop his best possibilities through an inspiring “We need new homes, new schools, new mar- environment and a chance to express himself in his riages, new social relations for those new souls who work. She once heard a young working-girl say: are to feel, love, and suffer in ways infinitely numer- “It is not your better food and finer clothes we ous, that we now cannot even name,” is her insistent mostly envy, but it is the many intellectual enjoy plea. ments which are so much more within your reach Home influence, its settled, quiet order, and its than ours." The organization of the Tolstjerna call for tasks conducive to the happiness and the circles was the result of this plaint. Women of comfort of the family, is underestimated as an edu- wealth and culture, with a sympathetic understand- cational factor of great value. As soon as humanity ing, met working girls on terms of equality. Ellen awakens to the consciousness of the holiness of Key's beautiful home will belong to these girls in generation,” Ellen Key's ideal of a better parent the future. Only four of them are to occupy it at bood will be realized. The mothers of the future one time; she wants them to be honored members must live according to her eugenic creed: to enhance of a family, not dwellers in an institution. The life and to create higher forms. To this end she home is her sanctuary. All her “revolutionary” would consecrate woman as the priestess of life, doctrines are directed towards its perfection by who regards motherhood as a vocation of high making men and women better able to guard its worth, not as an incident or as an irksome task to sacred flame and render it worthy to be the cradle be avoided. of a new race of beings and a nobler civilization. In “Motherliness and Education for Mother. hood," she asks woman to concentrate her divergent AMALIE K. BOGUSLAWSKY. 1914] 49 THE DIAL novels, histories, biographies, critical essays, and CASUAL COMMENT. miscellanies, note should be made of such consider- A VOICE FROM VIRGINIA makes itself heard in able productions as his five-volume “Histoire de la no uncertain accents in favor of sound culture. The Révolution de 1870-1871,” and his study of Alsace Classical Association of that State has put on record and Lorraine five years after their annexation to its emphatic approval of Greek studies in the high Germany; his history of French literature from school, urging that in addition to proper provision 900 to 1900 A. D., and his life of Molière. Of his for Latin a prominent place be made for Greek in work in fiction, “La Cigarrette” attained especial the last two years of the high-school course. Mr. popularity and served as the basis of the opera, Thomas Fitzhugh, President of the Association, “La Navarraise,” which Claretie helped to set to reports its recent action, and adds, in the course of the music of Massenet. Outside his own country an eloquent plea: “Greek is the one ideal element he is probably best known for those annual volumes needed to round out and perfect our system of in which he was wont to collect the shorter writings democratic education. Its call is a spiritual one. (essays and criticisms) that he had contributed to The maintenance of Greek in the high school is our newspapers and magazines, and in which his facility tribute of loyalty to the spiritual ancestry of our and charm showed themselves to the best advantage. culture. The time is come when we too of Virginia and the South can afford to pay such reverence to THE REASON OF AN EDITORIAL, long or short, the ideal interests of life.” Not long ago an English literary, political, industrial, hortatory, objurgatory, author of the widest popularity and influence was or of whatever character, is that most of us like not heard to say, in conversation with a young woman, only to know what is going on, whether in the world “We are living in the present; why go on constantly of letters or in that of affairs, but also to know what dwelling on the past?” And this was from him who others are thinking about it, and even, sometimes, wrote the poem whose refrain, “Lest we forget,' to be told what we ought to think about it. We fail to lays emphasis on the wholesome steadying influence grasp the full significance of an event until we see it of the past and reminds us that what is best in the through one or more pairs of eyes beside our own ; present strikes its roots into that past. The chief and even then all the possible aspects of the subject reason why we "go on constantly dwelling on the are seldom exhausted. One of our ablest and best- past” is that we are not savages, who, ás has been known journalists, Mr. Jacob A. Riis, has told us, well said, have no past and (largely for that reason) in his vivid account of his life, how on at least one no future, but only the inappreciable instant of time occasion when editorial honors and responsibilities called the present; and we cherish especially that were offered him he preferred to remain a plain portion of the past rendered illustrious by Greece reporter and chronicle what was going on about him, because, to name no other reasons, we value the leaving it to others to tell lies about it. That was a Platonic virtues enumerated in the “Phædo," where rather harsh estimate of the value of editorial writing; the soul is depicted as “arrayed in her own proper but it was an estimate held, not many years ago, by jewels, which are temperance and justice and cour more than one person, and was doubtless partly re- age and nobility and truth.” sponsible for the decline, at that time, in the editorial TAB VERSATILE AND CHARMING JULES CLARETIE, department of many journals. Not a few country whose death in late December deprived France of a newspapers greatly curtailed or wholly discontinued gifted and widely-read author, and took from the their editorial section. But now there is a fortunate Academy one of its most distinguished mem- rebound in the opposite direction. A recent issue bers, gave the best years of his maturity to the of “ The American Press” declares that in the last management of the Théâtre français, of which he five years the amount of space devoted to editorial discussion of current events has increased threefold. was appointed director in 1885, and which he tried to keep true to its traditional high standards even A well-considered, well-written, more or less learn- while it was suffering such losses as the withdrawal edly illuminative, and even somewhat ornately of actors like the elder Coquelin, Le Bargy, and rhetorical presentation of a topic of the times is Madame Sarah Bernhardt. But his endeavors found by most readers to be far more intellectually were not eminently successful, and two months nutritious and mentally stimulating than a bare rec- before his death he resigned his post. He was born ord of the topic as an item of news. Therefore let at Limoges, December 3, 1840, educated at the us hope that the prestige of the “leader," as it was Lycée Bonaparte, Paris, and served his apprentice- known in our fathers' and grandfathers' time, may be revived. ship in letters as dramatic critic to the “ “Figaro” and the “Opinion Nationale,"and as war correspond A “DAILY OF DAILIES” is but the logical continu- ent in Italy in 1866 and at Metz in 1870. He was ation of the series of what might be called (without also a staff officer of the National Guard during disrespect) "scissors and paste" publications which the Commune. His election to the French Academy began in 1890 with the monthly “Review of Re- took place in 1888, and he was seated in February views,” and was soon continued and amplified in a of the following year, being received by Renan. number of weekly periodicals of excellence and use- In his long list of published works, including plays, I fulness. With the opening of this year there begins 50 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL in Berlin, under the direction of Dr. Arthur Kirch “ THE FATHER OF AMERICAN HISTORY," Dr. hoff, the daily issue of a “Zeitung der Zeitungen," David Ramsay, was recalled in one of the letters which purposes to give a “tägliche Weltübersicht received at the recent testimonial dinner tendered der internationalen Politik, Kultur und Wirtschaft.” to Professor McMaster, the writer drawing an in- By an alphabetical arrangement under continents teresting comparison between the two historians. and countries the principal diurnal events of inter Ramsay, like McMaster, was of Scotch descent. national interest are so grouped, in the form of brief McMaster taught in early life at Princeton, where telegraphic despatches, that the eye of even a hasty Ramsay graduated in 1765. McMaster for many reader can easily catch what is of interest to him, years has filled the chair of American history at the and a full perusal of the sheet (a folio printed only | University of Pennsylvania, of whose medical school on one side,“ to facilitate clippings") would occupy the famous Dr. Benjamin Rush said Ramsay was but a fraction of an hour. “About two hundred the most distinguished graduate. Ramsay was a dailies,” it is announced, “and other periodical publi-member of the Continental Congress from South cations from all parts of the globe will regularly be Carolina, whither he removed from his native state, followed up day by day in about twenty languages for Pennsylvania ; he was a surgeon in the armies of the Zeitung der Zeitungen.” An impressive list the Colonies, prisoner of war at St. Augustine, and of more or less eminent men giving the undertaking member of the “Old Congress." His “History of their moral support appears in the prospectus sent the American Revolution" was published in Phila- out by the publishers. A fortnightly issue of delphia, London, Dublin, and Trenton, and in French, “European Letters," from competent pens, contain Dutch, and German. His “Life of Washington ing “a review of the most important economic, polit was published at New York, London, Boston, Balti- ical, industrial, scientific, and technical occurrences more, and Ithaca ; it appeared in Paris in French in Europe," also begins with the launching of the and Spanish, and at Barcelona. Twenty-one editions larger enterprise, and these letters will eventually, it of these two books were issued from American and is expected, be issued weekly. Further particulars European presses between the years 1789 and 1842. may be obtained from the Pressbureau zur Förderung The late Frederick D. Stone, librarian of the Penn- gegenseitiger Kenntnis der Kultur-Völker, Lützen. sylvania Historical Society, thought Ramsay's the strasse 9, Berlin-Halensee. best narrative of the Revolution that had ever been written. His book was one of the few read by the WHAT EVERY SCHOOLBOY SHOULD KNOW, if he be young Abraham Lincoln. While tribute was being in the high school, and at the same time what every paid to the living McMaster, Ramsay's monument, schoolgirl of equal advancement should know, will tumbled over by the earthquake, still lay prostrate be found neatly and conveniently indicated in a in the yard of the Presbyterian Church in Charleston. pamphlet compiled by Miss Florence M. Hopkins, librarian at the Detroit Central High School, and A NEW STATE LIBRARY SCHOOL began its useful entitled, “Allusions Which Every High School existence with the beginning of this year. Its sit- Student Should Know." The allusions are from uation, on the Pacific coast, clears it at the outset the domains of philosophy, religion, mythology, from any charge of desiring to enter into competi- sociology, philology, science, useful arts, fine arts, tion with already established schools of the same literature, history, and general information, and are kind. From the latest issue of “News Notes of arranged alphabetically, to the number of eight California Libraries” we quote: "To meet an in- hundred and thirty-seven, with alternate blank pages creasing demand for librarians and library assistants for additions, and with indications as to the grade, who have had the benefit of technical training as or class, to which each topic ought to wear a famil well as experience, the California State Library has iar aspect. The numbers, 9, 10, 11, 12, and the planned to establish in January, 1914, a library letter G (graduate student) are used for this purpose. school. The purpose of this school is to offer to Let us quote a few of these allusions, to show carefully selected candidates a one-year course in how intelligent the Detroit high-school pupils and library economy, which is designed to qualify the graduates are supposed to be, or ought to be. We students for library service. For this training the find, for example, Balder, Baliol College, Baucis, California State Library offers a well-equipped Bay Psalm Book, Bodleian Library, Bouguereau, laboratory, having a library of about 165,000 vol- Calydonian Hunt, Comus, Cuvier, Dirce, Erech umes, including its law library; the collection of theum, Eurydice, Excalibur, Freya, Gautama, federal, state, and municipal documents; the collec- Haggai, Hegira, Hippolyta, Index Expurgatorius, tion of books for the blind; and the special collection Lachesis, Loki, Obadiah, Odin, Pyrrha, Ur of the in the California Department." Examinations under Chaldees, Zeitgeist, Zeno, and Zephaniah. Not the supervision of the California State Civil Service every college graduate could pass a perfect examina- | Commission are held for the purpose of selecting tion on even the few random allusions here quoted. the limited few who shall enjoy the privileges of Miss Hopkins sets no mean standard for her high- the school, and no tuition fees will be charged — a school pupils, but it is far better to aim too high noticeable item. That the new school may live to than too low. rival in usefulness and reputation that other State 1914] 51 THE DIAL . In fact, institntion of like character at the eastern verge of also a part (but not "Allof the poet Vaughan's the continent, will be the hope and wish of all inter counsel to the growing seed might be fitly cited: ested in the growth of our public library system. “Then bless thy secret gśowth, por cetch At noise, but thrive unseer ård dumb; SHAKESPEARE PRESENTED BY AMATEURS seldom Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch Till the white-winged reapers come.” or never equals Shakespeare as presented by the best professionals; but the value of the performance THE LAUREATE'S FIRST OFFICIAL POEM, “Christ- to those behind the footlights may be none the less mas Eve,” was sent to the King two days before considerable. An eminent Shakespeare actor – Christmas, and was at his request published in “The no less a one, in fact, than Sir Johnston Forbes- Times." In the stately dignity of its antique mode Robertson—is thus, in part, reported on the subject some irreverent modern critics may find matter for in the Yale “ News” (one would not dare affirm the exact verbal accuracy of the report): “Presenting lines where the rhythm is somewhat less obstrusely sport and mockery, and certain of its unrhymed Shakespeare's plays in college has several advan- apparent than in “Yankee Doodle” may seem, to tages. The main one is that Shakespeare demands the frivolous, to invite the application of that ex- of his actors good elocution and articulation — the pressive term some time ago applied to the produc- greatest assets in acting. Modern dramas do not tions of a poet less eminent than Dr. Bridges, demand this to the same extent. For instance, the jerked English.” But to the few who retain even average modern play usually has its characters rep- a faint memory of the archaic charm of “Piers the resenting types who do not necessarily speak well, Plowman” this bit of twentieth-century revival of and thus there is not so much demand on the actor fourteenth-century poetic art will give pleasure. To for good speaking. On the contrary, however, convey an idea of its gentle manner we quote a few Shakespeare compels his actors to speak with far of its lines as they have reached us: greater care. Of course Shakespeare's dramas need “ Now blessed be the towers that crown England so fair, much more skilful acting than the modern, but they That stand up strong in prayer unto God for our souls ; are of high educational value. There is no neces Blessed be their founders, said I, and our countryfolk sity for giving the great tragedies, for most of his Who are ringing for Christ in the belfries to-night comedies are well adapted to college use. With arms lifted to clutch the rattling ropes that race Into the dark above and the mad romping din.” I have seen some of the more rarely staged ones, like «The Two Gentlemen of Verona' and `All's A TOPSY-TURVY METHOD OF LANGUAGE-TEACHING Well That Ends Well,' given in college with great seems to have been adopted in the night schools of success.” The seeming implication that none of Richmond, where the wholly unliterary tongue known Shakespeare's clowns and grave-diggers and con- as Esperanto is taught as Latin and Greek have so stables and tavern roisterers ever express themselves long been taught, by practice in translation from in carelessly-articulated colloquialisms, is of course the alien into the native tongue-though the adjec- easily disputable; but the colloquialisms of three tive "alien” is perhaps hardly applicable to so centuries ago are sufficiently unlike our own to re- anomalous a linguistic phenomenon as Esperanto. quire some study and elocutionary practice for their Not long ago an eminent language-teacher from mastery and effective oral rendering — which we take to be the English actor's meaning. England was in this country, demonstrating to us the feasibility of imparting a knowledge of a dead language by the conversational method so fruitful THE PRICE OF ORDERLINESS IN THE LIBRARY, in giving a command of a living and spoken tongue ; asserts Miss Bertha Marx, head of the Sheboygan and now, by a curious reversal of the plan, a lan- (Wis.) Public Library, "is eternal vigilance on the guage invented for conversational and epistolary part of the librarian, coupled with a sense of order use, chiefly in commerce and travel, and consequently liness on the part of the staff, and untiring, consci with no literature or history back of it, is treated as entious work on the part of a good janitor”; and if its origin went back to the Tower of Babel. Who the model neatness of the institution under her care would have thought the dictionary-and-grammar offers conclusive proof that litter and literature, 80 habit to be so ingrained anywhere in twentieth- often found dwelling together in a sort of sluttish century America ? Or have the Richmond night content, are not necessarily one and inseparable. schools been grossly slandered? To the question whether the public is not repelled by the aspect of such preternatural tidiness as she MAGAZINE COVERS, tastefully and modestly de. describes in a paper printed in the “Wisconsin signed (the one, of course, implies the other) win for Library Bulletin,” she makes reply: “I shall answer themselves, as the slow seasons roll, a certain fond- by saying that we circulated three thousand more ness on the reader's part that makes him averse to booke this year than last, and that we number among any change even for what may be artistically better. our regular patrons the grimy men of the coal yards, Amid the ravages wrought by cover-designers among the odoriferous tannery workers, and hundreds of our long-established monthlies — ravages that have factory men.” John Wesley's famous pulpit utter robbed us of the good old “Atlantic” cover with ance here comes to mind, but shall not be quoted; | its familiar stars and stripes, and have ruthlessly 52 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL peace, iémoved from the venerabilg. Harper” its opulent suffers the fate of most collections and is dispersed. cornucopias and chubby cherubs — there remains, Among items of especial value there are mentioned sturdily:registaht to frivolous innovation, the original thirteen volumes from Lincoln’s library; one of the dressigt.Blickv dod's Magazine” as Blackwood fifty copies of the Emancipation Proclamation signed founded it almost a century ago. “Maga" puts to by Lincoln and Seward; one of the three copies shame the frivolity of Mr: Punch in running after of the Thirteenth Amendment signed by Lincoln, new modes and bedizening his borders with divers Hamlin, and Colfax; a copy of the play-bill issued at i innovations in color, and she thus, in a recent num Ford’s Theatre the day of the assassination; many ber, expresses her disapproval (we quote only a few letters, legal papers, and other documents written or of the lines): signed by Lincoln; a leaf from his sum-book, dated " It is a shame to spoil 1824; a discharge signed by Lincoln as captain in The page of Dicky Doyle, 1832; and the original manuscript of Lincoln's plan Or, at best, waste of toil, of campaign, 1861. Other papers, with relics of a Painting the lily. Don't let the lust for change, different sort, are enumerated — altogether a re- For something new and strange, markable collection. All your old charms derange- We think it silly." MR. CARNEGIE'S LIBRARY GIFTS FOR 1913 amount to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, LITERARY MAGIC, as employed by a master his total benefactions for the same period being some- magician, can often transform a repulsive theme to what over fourteen million dollars. Apparently he something comely — often deceptively and seduc is not specializing quite so much in libraries as for- tively comely-in its outer aspect. This is a prop-merly, although a third of a million for one year's osition that needs no demonstration here, but the outlay in this branch of charity would be for most men truth of it is quite harmlessly and very entertain- royal munificence. royal munificence. Of this amount, the Allegheny ingly illustrated just at this time by the appearance City Library, the first of the Carnegie library build- in English of Professor Henri Fabre's delightful ings, received one hundred and fifty thousand dollars treatise on that common carrier of disease, that pest for an extension; Somerville, Mass., one hundred of the home, that shameless disturber of bodily and thousand for its new building, just completed and mental the house-fly. It is to be hoped that opened; Montclair, N. J., forty thousand dollars this charming book, "The Life of the Fly,” will be for a library building in Upper Montclair; Central responsible for no truce in the modern war on the University, Danville, Ky., thirty thousand dollars for Argus-eyed insect so difficult to be caught napping a library building; Perry, N. Y., twelve thousand by even the most wary and alert fly.exterminator. dollars for a like purpose; and the New York Uni- Charmed with the marvels of the abstract fly, we versity Library (already housed in a Carnegie build- must nevertheless harden ourselves to the pitilessing) five thousand dollars toward its maintenance. extinction of the insect in its concrete manifestations -loving the sinner, but hating more the sin. THE LITERATURE OF FEMINISM, a topic only COMMUNICATIONS. recently come into prominent notice (under its present name, at least) is already far from incon CONCERNING “YE” AND “AMPERSAND." siderable in quantity or negligible as to quality. At (To the Editor of THE DIAL.) the John Crerar Library of Chicago, for example, While I believe Mr. Pickard has performed a distinct as we learn from an excellent historical account of service by calling attention to the common but absurd that library issued in pamphlet form by order of pronunciation of the early Modern English represen- tation of “the," I am constrained to differ with him in its board of directors, there is a “distinct collection the matter of the origin of this symbol. “ The only of nearly 6,000 volumes and pamphlets on the apparent reason for mistaking the character is,” he social, political, and legal status of women. A cata-says, “that two centuries ago the letter 'h'was usually logue of this part of the collection, under the title written with a tail below the line, and with a razeed top, La femme et le féminisme, complete to 1900, was which made it look like our “y.'" On the contrary, I exhibited at the Paris Exposition of that year and regard the character not merely as looking like “ received a diploma of honor.” It is safe to predict but as actually being “y,” though introduced through that, with the increasing public activities of the confusion with the Old and Middle English letter Þ, twentieth-century woman, the literature of feminism and intended, of course, to be pronounced like þ. John and the John Crerar collection of that literature Earle says on this point (The Philology of the English will undergo considerable and rapid augmentation. and that continued after the close of the fifteenth cen- " fourth edition, pp. 103-104): “The words the Tongue," LINCOLN LITERARY RELICS of much interest are tury to be written þe and þat or pl. This habit lasted at this time (Jan. 14, 15, 16) passing under the aue- on long after its original meaning was forgotten. The Þ got confused with the character y at a time when the tioneer's hammer into the hands of fortunate pos- y was closed a-top, and then people wrote ‘ye’ for the sessors. The late William H. Lambert's collection and "yat' or 'yt' for that. This has lasted down close of Lincolniana, after being for two weeks on exbi to our own times; and the practice has not entirely bition at the Anderson Galleries in New York, now ceased even now.” The same position is taken in “y, 1914] 53 THE DIAL p. 2507. • Webster's New International Dictionary," pp. 2147 With such a PENCILL as no PENNE dares follow: and 2358, and in “The New Standard Dictionary,” How thep shold I in Wit and Art so shallow, NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD. Attempt the Task which yet none other can ? Manhattan, Kansas, Jan. 7, 1914. Far be the thought that mine unlearned hand His heavenly Labour shold so much unhallow, Yet least (that Holy RELIQUE being shrin'd (To the Editor of The DIAL.) In some High-Place, close lockt from common light) Agreeing with, and wishing to emphasize, what your My Country-men should bee debar'd the sight correspondent writes in your issue of December 16 upon Of these DIVINE pure Beauties of the Minde: the modern use of “ye” for “the," may I add that the Not daring meddle with APELLES TABLE use of the letter "y" in the spelling of “the” and “that" This have I muddled as my MUSE was able.” originated in the adoption by the early English printers To the uninformed these words seem to be addressed of the runic letter - thorn” which very closely resem to Sidney, whose name appears in large capital letters bles the black-letter “y”; hence when the black-letter in the centre. The poem is, however, a grand panegyric began to be replaced by the Roman type forms, the on Bacon. It commences with “ England's Apelles “y was retained, though at first the “e” was placed and “apelles” means “without a skin.” We must there- above the line and thus a distinction between “ye" fore skin off the pheon and lo! a Beacon, a Bacon, stands and “the” was maintained. Later the “e" dropped revealed; and we must skin off the porcupine's quills down to the line, and “ye” was for a long time used from the “ Hanged-Hog”and again we see that “Bacon" by printers for “the”; there are some writers who stands revealed. We therefore perceive that we are still use it as an abbreviated form of “the” without told that Bacon wrote under the skin, the garment, the realizing whence they got it. weed, the disguise, the pseudonym of Sidney. This The “short and " is a monogram of “et” used by fact is likewise revealed in various books in my library. the mediæval scribes, of which the earliest type found Then we read “This lovely Venus first to limne began.” ers made use. It is further corrupted into the plus This refers to Bacon's “Venus & Adonis,” which he says sign +. It was in the early printing offices that it is “the first heire of my invention.” Scholars never gained the name of “ampersand,” which is a corrup guessed that the real meaning of this is that it is the tion of "and-per-se-and” or “and-by-itself-and.” first heir of his invention of the pseudonym William ARTHUR HOWARD NOLL, Shakespeare. But to explain half of the meaning of this Sewanee, Tenn., Jan. 5, 1914. wonderful pyramid would take far too much of your space. Suffice it to point out that in these verses we MILTON'S “STARRE-YPOINTED PYRAMID." find " Holy-Relique" with the meaning of "literary (To the Editor of THE DIAL.) works,"_“these Divine pure Beauties of the Minde,"ex- I will put a few facts before your readers which will actly as Milton in his Epitaph uses “hallow'd Reliques' dispose once and for all of the imaginations of your cor- with the meaning of the plays, etc. respondent Mr. Samuel A. Tannenbaum, as expressed If your readers will carefully study Milton's Epitaph, which commences, in your issue of November 16 last. " What neede my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, In my unique library are quite a number of books in The labour of an Age, in piled stones which engravings of a Beacon will be found to inform Or that his hallow'd Reliques should be hid those capable of understanding that Bacon is the real Under a starre-ypointed Pyramid ? author of works to which his name has not yet been Dear Sonne of Memory, great Heire of Fame, attached. But as I am now dealing with Milton's What needst thou such dull witnesse of thy Name ?" Epitaph, I will refer only to the engraving which shows they cannot fail to perceive that it is cunningly com- a Pyramid, - a Beacon, a Bacon, — upon which is in- posed from the Pyramid in Sylvester, and from the scribed " Holy-Relique,” with the meaning of literary opening lines of “ Love's Labour's Lost,” which are as works which are described as “these Divine pure Beau under: ties of the Minde.” All writers are agreed that “Para- “ Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives, dise Lost” shows that Milton was much indebted to Live registered upon our brazen Tombes, “ Joshua Sylvester's Translation of Du Bartas, His And then grace us in the disgrace of death : Divine Weekes and Wordes," which was first published When spight of cormorant devouring Time, in 1605. In this book we find on B2 (a page which Th' endevour of this present breath may buy: appears to have no possible connection with Sylvester's That honour which shall bate his sythes keene edge, work) a Pyramid, a Beacon, a Bacon, surmounted by a And make us beyres of all eternitie." pheon (the heraldic name for an engrailed broad arrow), It is all exceedingly simple when you know. Indeed, which is the arms of Sir Philip Sidney. Below this on as Milton clearly tells us, we ought to have sense the pyramid itself is Bacon's crest, the Wild Boar, in enough to see the Mighty Author in bis works, without the proper heraldic attitude. But round its neck is a it being necessary to place upon his Hallowed Reliques, cord with a slip-knot to show us that it is a “Hanged “the Divine pure Beauties of the Minde,” “the Immor- Hog,” which Mrs. Quickly, on the first page 53 in the tal Plays,” the dull witness of a Beacon (a Bacon) to First Folio of the Shakespeare plays (1623), tells us tell us what was his Name. means “ Bacon,” the reason why being supplied in the We must remember that although the Householder 36th of Bacon's Apophthegms first printed in 1671. This of Stratford died in 1616, the real author « Bacon" Hanged-Hog is, however, clothed in a porcupine's skin was alive in 1623, and therefore no Epitaph appeared (Sidney's crest is a porcupine). Below this is a set of in the First Folio of the Plays. Bacon, however, died verses which are printed so as to follow the outline of in 1626, and accordingly his Epitaph appeared in the the pyramid. They are as follows: Second Folio (1632), with Milton's marvellously clear “ENGLAND's Apelles (rather OUR APOLLO) revelation that he was “ Shakespeare." WORLD's-wonder SIDNEY, that rare more-than-man, EDWIN DURNING-LAWRENCE. This LOVELY VENUS first to LIMNE beganne, London, England, Dec. 24, 1913. 97 54 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL The New Books. character well worthy of more than a cursory study; and in the two ample volumes of the present biography will be found sufficient de- FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.* scriptive and autobiographic material to place For half a century or more the name of the reader on a footing of rather intimate ac- Florence Nightingale, the angel of mercy to quaintance with her richly gifted personality. wounded soldiers in the Crimean War, was as Born on the twentieth day of May, 1820, in the name of a mythological character or a the city that gave her her baptismal name, medieval saint about whom all sorts of fables Florence Nightingale enjoyed from the begin. and traditions had clustered, and of whose real ning all the advantages that wealth, culture, the personality it was difficult to form any clear best society, and frequent travel could confer. conception unless one belonged to the favored Her father, a serious-minded gentleman of leis- few admitted to the invalid chamber whence for ure, took an active interest in his two daughters' forty-five years she scarcely stirred. References education, and records remain of the school- to her in contemporary memoirs, with an occa room tasks he set them. Miss Nightingale's sional inadequate sketch of her life, would ap- early notebooks show that before she was out pear from time to time; but for years before of her teens she had acquired some mastery of her death in the summer of 1910 there was only Latin and Greek, that she had analyzed the the vaguest popular impression whether she was “Tusculan Disputations,” translated parts of still living, and, if so, where, and what were the the “ Phædo,” the “Crito,” and the “ Apology,” things that interested her in her retirement, if studied Roman, German, Italian, and Turkish indeed she was still capable of cherishing any history, and critically dissected Dugald Stewart's interests whatever. Now, however, with Sir “ Philosophy of the Human Mind.” Mathe- Edward Cook's two-volume “Life of Florence matics also engaged her interest and claimed Nightingale” before one, it becomes plainly many hours of earnest application. She took evident that the founder of modern nursing, music-lessons in Florence, and in London pur- one of the most heroic characters of her time, sued these studies under German and Italian or of all time, was a very human mortal and a masters, acquiring some proficiency in both very womanly woman; that she had a wealth singing and playing, attending the opera with of mental and moral endowment that fitted her passionate enjoyment, and becoming, as she to excel in any one of many callings she might expressed it, “music-mad.” In fact, so varied have chosen; and that the choice she did finally and also so pronounced were her successive or make was not arrived at without spiritual and simultaneous enthusiasms that, so far as one can intellectual conflict of the sharpest sort, and see, there was no reason why, with a little tip- opposition from family and friends and public ping of the balance at any time, she might not opinion such as it required the most resolute will have distinguished herself as a writer, a musi- to overcome. cian, a classical scholar, an egyptologist, a society In this day and generation, when a young leader, a follower of the religious life, or a model woman's decision to become a trained nurse wife and mother. Temptations and aptitudes excites as little comment as does a young man's were not wanting in all these and probably still choice of medicine as a profession, it is well other directions, but nothing seemed perma- nigh impossible to imagine the formidable front nently worth while that did not tend to the alle- of popular disapproval encountered by a gently viation of the hard lot of suffering humanity. nurtured girl who, three-quarters of a century “I feel my sympathies are with Ignorance and ago, dared to entertain a longing to give her Poverty,” she wrote to a friend in 1846. “ • My life to the service of the sick in hospitals. The imagination is so filled with the misery of this impropriety of such a course seemed more shock world that the only thing in which to labour ing, in some respects, than to go on the stage. brings any return, seems to me helping and That a woman of Miss Nightingale's position sympathizing there; and all that poets sing of and antecedents should have, with all her other the glories of this world appears to me untrue: notable qualities, both the desire to devote her all the people I see are eaten up with care or self to so unheard-of a cause and the tenacity poverty or disease.' Three years later, when of purpose to realize her desire, marks her as a she was doing charity work in London, she wrote * THE LIFE OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, in her diary these significant words: By Sir Edward Cook. In two volumes. Illustrated. New York: “Ought not one's externals to be as nearly as possi- The Macmillan Co. ble an incarnation of what life really is? Life is not a 1914) 55 THE DIAL 6 green pasture and a still water, as our homes make it. and even racial animosities mixed themselves up in the Life is to some a forty days' fasting, moral or physical, disputes. Lord Raglan, who believed in her and always in the wilderness; to some it is a fainting under the supported her, was now dead; and by some strange carrying of the cross; to some it is a crucifixion; to all, omission, the instructions which had een sent to him a struggle for truth, for safety. Life is seen in a much from London at the time of her original appointment truer form in London than in the country. In an En were unknown to his successors in the command.” glish country place everything that is painful is so care She returned to England hopelessly shattered in fully removed out of sight, behind those fine trees, to a health, and from an invalid's chair entered upon village three miles off. In London, at all events if you open your eyes, you cannot help seeing in the next that long and noble labor for the reform of street that life is not as it has been made for you. You nursing and sanitation methods to which her cannot get out of a carriage at a party without seeing field experiences in the Crimea had been only what is in the faces making the lane on either side, and a starting point. without feeling tempted to rush back and say, Those are my brothers and sisters.' Of these later philanthropic labors, and her Again and again her family and friends many writings in furtherance of the causes that claimed her aid, there is here no space to give exerted themselves in vain to win back Florence Nightingale to the safe and comfortable con- even a brief account. Let us rather present ventions of her social station, and every fresh a picture of her in her London home, in South trial left her increasingly dissatisfied with the Street, when the more memorable achievements of her heroic life were over and she was enter- hollowness and heartlessness and sham that seemed all-sufficient to those about her. At ing upon the philosophic calm of her honored last, when she had attained the comparative old age. After referring to her brilliance in maturity and confidence of thirty-one years, she conversation and to Madame Mohl's description of her talk as “most nourishing," the author succeeded in making her will prevail. She continues : gained admission as a nurse at the Kaiserswerth “ But for the most part Miss Nightingale's talk was hospital founded by Pastor Fliedner, and fol- rather earnest, inquiring, sometimes searching, than lowed up this useful apprenticeship with a term sparkling or eloquent. She is worse than a Royal of similar service in the Maison de la Provi Commission to answer,' said Colonel Yule; and, in the dence belonging to the Sisters of Charity in most gracious, charming manner possible, immediately Paris, after which, and as her last work before finds out all I don't know.' Younger visitors some- times felt in awe of her; she could flash out a searching entering upon her great undertaking in the question upon a rash generalization as formidably as Mr. East, she acted as superintendent of an Estab Gladstone himself. She was interested in everything lishment for Gentlewomen during Illness,” in except what was trivial. Her intellectual vitality was Upper Harley Street, London. The autumn remarkable; visitors who knew nothing of her special of 1854 brought a call to larger and more self- interests or pursuits were yet delighted by the stimu- lating freshness of her talk. The humour which sacrificing usefulness, and it was promptly was characteristic of Miss Nightingale came more answered. As head of a small volunteer band readily perhaps to her pen than to her tongue; but she of nurses, Miss Nightingale left home for the always enjoyed a joke in conversation --- even, as we distant seat of war, and there displayed pro- have heard already from one of her nursing friends, at fessional and administrative abilities that won her own expense. Sometimes she was teasing. A High Church young lady once went to South Street. She was the applause of the world. In addition to pros- delighted with her interview, but Miss Nightingale, she trating illness and other interruptions to the said, laughed at High Church curates a good deal: she prosecution of her great work, there were the said they had no forebeads.' She sometimes quizzed vexations of official hostility to her beneficent even her greatest friends. She used to talk with humor- ous indignation of Mr. Jowett's God as a “man-jelly,' activities, and all the petty annoyance of red in contrast with the future life of work which she looked tape and a multitude of miscellaneous worri forward to." ments. Her biographer gives a glimpse of For the preparation of this full and authori- these discouraging conditions in the following tative account of a most notable and noble life passage: the author has had placed at his disposal by “Miss Nightingale's work in the Crimea was attended Miss Nightingale's executors the great mass of by ceaseless worry. She had to fight her way into full correspondence preserved by her, and also many authority. She knew that she would win, but her other enemies were active, and were for the moment in pos- papers of hers, while her numerous pub- session of the field. There is not an official,' she lished writings have of course contributed much said, “who would not burn me like Joan of Arc if he of value. Portraits, bibliography, and index could, but they know that the War Office cannot turn are not lacking to the book's equipment. It is me out because the country is with me.' She was beset with jealousies in the Crimea, both in military and in in every respect an excellent and unusually medical quarters; and to make matters worse, religious, important work. PERCY F. BICKNELL. 56 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL chapter on realism and the literary drama, cor- GUIDES TO THE CONTEMPORARY DRAMA.* responding to Mr. Burton's on the poetic drama, What with the publication of plays in book which latter is one of the sub-topics of his main form, the “readings” innumerable from stage treatment. successes of present and earlier seasons, the The discussion as to whether there is or tabloid reproductions of the movies,” the dra- should be such a thing to-day as the literary matic gossip and digests and criticisms of the drama, seems to be largely due to a confusion newspapers and magazines, and the critical and of terms. There is a tendency to regard “lit- appreciative works on the drama, the dweller of erary” and “poetic” as synonymous expres- to-day in village or hamlet may know as much sions, and to conceive of literary drama only as of the theatre as his metropolitan cousin. The that which is decked out in the flowing robes of books by Mr. Andrews and Professor Burton blank verse. There is surely no need of falling belong to an ever-increasing list of works on back upon Mr. Andrews's comfortable doctrine: things dramatic, and provide guides, one to the - The best way out of the difficulty is to ac- modern British and American drama, the other knowledge what grows more obvious day by day, to the American only. Both are admirably ad. that drama, perhaps beginning in, or at least apted for those who read more often than early combining with, literature, has evolved they see plays. Quite pertinently, therefore, | into a separate art, still relying on literary ele- Mr. Andrews warns his readers that “modern ments, doubtless, but by no means exclusively, plays should be read as plays, with the eye of or even principally.” Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's the imagination fixed upon their actual perform- statement seems much more reasonable: ance, and not measured by old-fashioned literary “ If you have faithfully and searchingly studied your standards." The student of the drama will not fellow-citizens; if you have selected from amongst them find in either volume any very fresh material. those characters that are interesting in themselves, and Indeed, Mr. Andrews frankly admits that " little that also possess an enduring human interest; if, in study- effort has been made to shed any new light upon ing these interesting personalities, you have severely selected, from the mass of their sayings and doings and the topics discussed ; the attempt has been rather impulses, those words and deeds and tendencies which to present in small compass accurate general in mark them at once as individuals and as types; if you formation as to the leaders of the modern stage have then recast and reimagined all the materials; if you have cunningly shaped them into a story of pro- and their work, and to offer, in passing, some gressive and accumulative action; if you have done all opinions as to the prospects and tendencies of this, though you may not have used a single word but dramatic art in our day.” Mr. Burton's some what is spoken in ordinary American intercourse to-day, what more pretentious aim is “to put before the I will venture to say that you have written a piece of live American literature, – that is, you have written reader in synthetic fashion the native movement something that will not only be interesting on the boards of our time in drama, placing emphasis upon of the theatre, but that can be read with pleasure in what seem significant tendencies and illustrative your library; can be discussed, argued about, tested, personalities." Not only has each author lived and digested as literature." up to his professions, but each has produced a As Mr. Andrews epitomizes all this, “truly well ordered and highly readable book. literary drama is essentially neither poetical Both writers preface their main treatment by nor rhetorical, but simply good drama-drama chapters on the general matter of the drama, raised to the nth power. raised to the nth power.” It is not a matter of with discussion more or less familiar even to the verse form; dialogue wanting the accomplish- bucolic lover of the theatre, -as, for instance, ment of verse may be as fully charged with poetic the eternal subject of giving the people what they spirit as some dialogue not in that form, want, the matter of morals, the spread of inter anyone can illustrate at his pleasure from Shake- est in the theatre, the “tired business man," and speare or any other really literary dramatist. the Syndicate, in Mr. Burton's book; and a set Indeed, Lear's faltering cry, of definitions covering dramatic types, plot, “Do not laugh at me, characterization, and stage conventions, in Mr. For as I am a man, I think this lady Andrews's work. Mr. Burton gives a hasty To be my child Cordelia,” sketch of the earlier American drama, merely is as simple as anything in prose dialogue, and to lead to the present. up Mr. Andrews has a as far removed from the exalted blank verse which in the popular mind is associated with the * THE DRAMA or To-Day: By Charlton Andrews. poetic drama as is the veriest prose of a modern Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. The New AMERICAN DRAMA. By Richard Burton. play, and yet it is the quintessence of poetry. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. The real difference between such dialogue and as 1914] 57 THE DIAL that of the poetic play of to-day is in the degree | Mr. Andrews does not do justice to Synge's “In to which common speech has been raised, — in the Shadow of the Glen the Shadow of the Glen” when he says, in the one case to the nth power, in the other to briefly outlining the plot of the play: “Luckily the square. Goldsmith and Sheridan wrote lit- there is a tramp at hand, who carries her (the erary dramas, as did Congreve and Farquhar; wife) away with him.” The tramp is the actual but they did not use blank verse or any other embodiment of the liberty that the woman has poetic form. That poetic drama, strictly so all her life longed for and that her husband bas called, is not always dramatic —or, for that denied her; now it comes to her, and in a sweep matter, always poetic — does not argue against of feeling she sees in the tramp a messenger from the essential verity of the type. Mr. MacKaye, a better and a brighter world. Nor does “ Riders Miss Peabody (whom Mr. Burton triply de- to the Sea” merely depict “the quiet sorrow of signates as “Peabody,” “Miss Peabody," and a mother whose six sons have one by one become “Mrs. Marks,” to the confusion of the unso the victims of the remorseless sea.” It portrays phisticated reader), and Mr. Stephen Phillips the utter desolation which overtakes a woman have made brave beginnings, which it is reason when all hope and all fear are gone together. able enough to suppose will lead to even greater Curiously in this treatment of Synge there is accomplishment. There is nothing inherently no mention of “Deirdre of the Sorrows," that impossible in Wall Street's finding voice in a most poignant of all his plays, the one which poetic drama; already we are hearing of the gives him his greatest claim to immortality. “romance of Wall Street." After Mr. Mac Both Mr. Burton and Mr. Andrews have fine Kaye's “To-morrow," a fairly successful drama, hopes for the future of the American drama throughout suggestive of the poetic, on the sub now in its infancy, and a constant faith born ject of eugenics, nothing is impossible to a dra- of knowledge. The significant fact emphasized matist with the gift of poetic expression. Of by both men is the constant endeavor of Amer- course, the poetic drama cannot be written by ican dramatists to be true to American condi- a playwright whose genius runs only to scissors tions, - no longer to forage afield for plots but and paste. Mr. Burton has faith in the future to get them at home, where they exist so abun- of the poetic drama, -he says he “must disagree dantly. And Mr. Burton admirably shows with those who hold that verse is no longer ac how well the young dramatist is exploring these ceptable in our modern theatre and particularly fertile regions, - the fields of American busi- de trop in practical America.'” The whole ness life, of social conditions, of humor, of discussion parallels the dispute as to whether romance, of sheer idealism. There is a search Pope is a poet or not. for an idea, not a mere patching together of a Mr. Andrews's criticisms of plays and play- set of scenes that will make out an evening's wrights are, on the whole, discerning and just entertainment for a jaded intellect. Mr. Bur- Occasionally in his desire to say as much as ton, with splendid confidence in the future, possible in the fewest words he appears super- declares that “ the higher instinct is astir, as ficial and even unfair. Thus he remarks of never before; that more intelligent activity has Mr. Mackaye's “ To-morrow" that the central begun; that the well-wishers of the theatre are situation wherein the hero, to save the heroine everywhere fast consolidating for effective work from her infatuation for the unwholesome lover of many kinds." JAMES W. TUPPER. she has selected, hurls him over a cliff into the ... does not grow at all logically out of the characters.” Why not? This act is but SOCIAL INSURANCE.* the explosion of the volcano in the hero's breast, It is a whimsical complaint of old-fashioned which was mentioned earlier, and surely the persons that in these latter days the reciprocal motive for this explosion was furnished in the relations of parent and child have been turned events. Likewise when Mr. Andrews says of topsy-turvy. When we were children, much Mr. Galsworthy's “ The Pigeon that it shows was made of filial duties; the duties of parent “the futility of charity for the submerged tenth,” to child were for the most part beyond the scope he ignores what is really back of the resultant of the moralists' scheme. Nowadays we hear fact, that social conditions bave reduced the much of parental duties; but the duties of chil- submerged tenth to a state where such lenitive dren to their parents are vanishing from the measures as charity fail to remedy the disease; the depth to which the evil has sunk into the SOCIAL INSURANCE. With Special Reference to Amer- ican Conditions. By I. M. Rubinow. New York: Henry social state is the subject of the play. So again, sea Holt & Co. 58 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL moral codes. A similar revolution is taking attempts to “ back-fire” Socialism; but this, as place in the reciprocal relations of State and Dr. Rubinow proves conclusively, is an error. citizen, society and the individual. In books not Social insurance in Europe grew out of the con- fifty years old the expression “social duties” ditions of modern industralism; consequently means the obligations of the individual to soci we know that it must develop iu America also. ety. To-day it means just the reverse: the With most American students, however, sup- obligations of society to the individual. The port of social insurance is still a matter of intel- old-fashioned citizen was supposed to exist, ethi- lectual conviction, not a matter of feeling, - a cally, for the State; the new-fashioned State is fact that manifests itself in the colorless char- supposed to exist for the citizen. In former acter of their writings. Such writings have not days, he was a coward and a traitor who was been lacking in number or in scientific merit, unwilling to die for the State, if such sacrifice but we had nothing approaching a spirited and were demanded. The contemporary State may authoritative treatment of social insurance until perish under the weight of the burdens social Dr. Rubinow published his important work. reformers would place upon it; but in the bright Dr. Rubinow's qualifications for the compo- light of to-day it is clear that there is no worthier sition of a work of this kind are numerous. end for the State. He was born in Russia, and emigrated to As a people we have not yet become fully America in his eighteenth year. Since his adjusted to this new order of ideas. American arrival in this country he has lived, for the life has been prevailingly rural; and agricul most part, in the centres of industry and com- ture, so we are told by the economic interpreters merce of the Atlantic seaboard, and thus has of the human soul, creates a patriarchal habit been kept immune from the old American of mind. American thought has, further, been spirit of individualism. He is a highly trained powerfully influenced by the accessibility of statistician - one of the best of the country, frontier of no-man's land, where the young and and possesses an indefatigable zeal for research. strong and resolute might build homes and for-For three years he was employed as a statistical tunes, where the weak and vacillating might beat expert in the United States Bureau of Labor, crooked paths leading nowhere, after the pat- and devoted his entire time to the preparation terns of their souls. Hence an individualism of the Report of the Commissioner of Labor developed, which was not confined to a prosper on “Workmen's Insurance and Compensation ous middle class, as in England and other coun Systems in Europe.” Further, Dr. Rubinow tries of Europe, but permeated all levels of is a propagandist by instinct; it is his ideal to old American society. The pioneer American produce a convincing argument, not a scientific viewed his good fortune complacently as the pro- treatise of an exhaustive and stupefying char- duct of his own unaided exertions, even though acter. Accordingly, while the scientific quality he did, with feigned modesty, impute it to his of his book is unimpeachable, this is not its good luck, or gave perfunctory thanks to God chief merit. What especially distinguishes the for it. In misfortune he cursed his luck; but work is the keen interest it excites. The mass the first shock over, he “ took his medicine," of facts presented is enormous, but the material and set resolutely about reconstructing his is so well organized that even the reader who hopes. And if the misfortune involved his prides himself upon his contempt for facts will death, he closed his eyes in the pride of dying cry “More!” The book will be welcomed by 66 with his boots on.” the trained economist as the most competent We have travelled far from those brave days treatment of the subject in English —and the of individualism; but their spirit still haunts most convenient treatment in any language. In an abstract way we know that the con The general reader should welcome it still more ditions of American life are rapidly becoming warmly as the one work that provides bim with assimilated to those of the Old World, and that all the elements necessary for a rational opinion consequently the institutions that recommend on this important subject. themselves to the Old World should recommend What do we know of the need for social in- themselves to us also. The Old World has found surance in the United States ? Very little. For it necessary for the State to assume a constantly many years the subject of industrial accidents increasing portion of the burden of accident, has been prominent in public discussion, but we disease, old age, and unemployment. Super- do not know even the number of such accidents. ficial historians have informed us that this Dr. Rubinow estimates the annual number of movement received its impetus from Bismarck's fatal accidents at 30,000,-about a third more us. 1914] 59 THE DIAL than occur in the whole of Europe. The num itary trades than in others. We have relied ber of accidents resulting in permanent disabil upon private thrift to make provision for old ities he estimates at 200,000, of which 60,000 age. Again, in vain. Again, in vain. A great proportion of are mutilations. To these may be added tem our industrial workers receive wages that barely porary disabilities lasting three months or more, suffice for current living. Mutual associations estimated at 170,000. Such figures convey to meet the costs of accident and disease have little meaning to the mind, but we shall under been organized in every industrial country; stand them better if we translate them into great efforts have been made to extend the terms of a war of the machine upon our own scope of their activities, but their achievements workingmen, a war vastly more destructive of have been of slight consequence. The only life, vastly more fruitful in suffering, than the solution of these problems must be attained war of factions across the Rio Grande. through state action. To this conclusion Dr. Still less do we know of the extent in which Rubinow's argument must force even the reader our working class is afflicted with diseases of a decidedly individualistic habit of mind. originating in the conditions of their employ For all the untoward accidents of the worker's ment. The money loss from industrial disease life Dr. Rubinow's formula is insurance, with must be enormous. Dr. Rubinow estimates it the costs borne either wholly or in part by the at $650,000,000. Whatever the worth of the industry. For accidents the industry should estimate, all will agree that such figures tend bear the whole burden. If every 200,000 tons to minimize rather than exaggerate the extent of coal costs a human life, surely the incidental of the evil. What is lost is not a few hundred economic loss should be borne, not by the millions that might have been spent for com dependents of the victim, but by the employer forts and luxuries, but medicine and nursing who profits from the mine or by the house- for a million invalids, bread and clothing for a holder who buys the coal. No one will dissent million little children. from this conclusion, if such accidents are due Everyone is familiar with the pathetic spec- to the fault of the employer, or are inevitably tacle of the superannuated workman, forced to bound up with the industry. But suppose the eat the bitter bread of charity, or by right of accident results from the victim's own negli- kin to place the burden of his support upon the gence. Suppose it results from his intoxication. frail budget of some workingman's household. Dr. Rubinow regards all inquiry into the dis- How many of them are there in the United tribution of blame as vicious. The employer States? We do not know. In thrifty France has a right to dismiss careless and dissipated fifty-seven per cent of all persons seventy years workmen. This, Dr. Rubinow argues, is the of age and over qualified in 1910 for pensions to proper penalty, not forfeiture of accident aged dependents. In England seventy-five per benefits. cent of the same age group are now receiving For the protection of the worker against the pensions, by title of need. Even in agricul. costs of sickness, Dr. Rubinow supports the tural New Zealand and Australia between plan whereby the employer and employee both thirty-five and forty per cent of all persons contribute to the expense of insurance. It is over sixty-five bave proved their need for pen obvious that in so far as sickness arises out of sions. Dr. Rubinow accepts as conservative occupational conditions, there is every reason Squier's estimate that we have a million and a why indemnification should be at the expense quarter of persons over sixty-five supported by of the employer, or, in the last analysis, of the charity, public and private. And these are not industry. It is worthy of note, however, that men who have led idle and dissolute lives; since Dr. Rubinow makes no attempt to distribute the such men do not commonly grow old. They cost between employer and employee on such a are men whose services have merited a serene basis. His criterion of excellence is solely one of the proportionate sharing of the cost: the more Accident, disease, and superannuation are the employer pays the better the system. among the inevitable incidents of human life. For the relief of old age, two methods are What is not inevitable is the destitution that employed,—insurance as typified in the German so often accompanies them. We have relied system, and pensions as typified in the British upon the natural adjustment of wages to pro- system. Most individualists prefer the plan of vide a fund out of which the costs of occupa- insurance, since it places at least a part of the tional risk and disease might be met. In vain; burden on the beneficiary, and hence savors wages are not higher in dangerous and unsan less of charity. Dr. Rubinow prefers this plan old age. 60 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL also, but for different reasons. By the insurance to the very poor. It is doubtful whether such plan the employer can be made to contribute, limitation is advisable. If three-fourths of the and thus each industry is saddled with super aged in Great Britain are able to qualify for annuation costs, as well as with the costs of pensions under the present act, four-fifths, at sickness and accident. Furthermore, this plan least, are so poor that a truly just State would admits of differentiation. The highly paid pension them. Of the remaining fifth, who do worker receives a larger superannuation benefit not need the pension, some would doubtless than the ill paid worker; and thus differences in apply for it and receive it. This, however, is a standards may be maintained even in old age. matter of no great importance; if the aged rich To the reviewer neither argument seems cogent. demand their stipend, the State can later recover If we should penalize an industry for exposing the funds through an inheritance tax. Such its workers to accident and disease, there seems costs as would result from an all-embracing to be no good reason why we should penalize it pension scheme would be amply compensated by for permitting them to survive to old age. It the removal from the pensioner of the stigma cannot be said that it is the exploitation of the of charity. laborer by the industry employing him that is A combination of insurance and pensions chiefly responsible for his arriving at old age appears to be the only adequate means of meet- in penury. Low wages may have the effect of ing the just claims of labor under modern indus- increasing the profits of an industry, or they trialism. This is the view of Dr. Rubinow; may have the effect of cheapening its products; and we may accept it, reserving the right to in the latter case the responsibility for exploit retrace for ourselves the boundary line between ation is diffused throughout society. Further the two systems. With the assumption by the more, exploitation may take the form, not of State of such a relation to labor, the economic low wages, but of a low purchasing power of distress now attendant upon personal misfortune money, resulting from the acts of the retailer would be much abated. Would the incentive who gives short weight and charges full price; to personal industry and thrift disappear? No; the landlord who extorts the highest profits from the State can never guarantee more than a the poorest tenements, the State which levies minimum ; all the motives that spur men on to the heaviest burdens upon its weakest citizens. attain a position of superiority would remain. Where the responsibility begins and ends no Would the springs of charity be dried up, with one knows; it is therefore unreasonable to the disappearance of hopeless poverty? No; apportion the burden in any other way than private charity would have abundant field for through ordinary taxation. exercise in assistance to those who are seeking As for the differentiation of benefits, we may to rise from a lower to a higher plane. There accept the plan as desirable in case of temporary is reason to believe that the sight of the irre- disability, through accident or sickness. If the mediable poverty of those who are permanently skilled laborer is temporarily disabled, he should incapacitated tends to produce callousness, not he forced down to the standard of the un. rather than to call forth charity. Private skilled laborer, lest he accept such a standard and charity thrives when it may help men to help lose motive for regaining his former earning themselves ; and opportunity for such charity power. This ground for differentiation of insur will always remain. Will the burden crush ance benefits is wanting in the case of old age. the State ? No. There is no modern State Here it would appear wisest to assure a reason which could not assume it, and still raise rev- able minimum of subsistence to all the aged ; if enues ample for all its legitimate needs in time any persons desire higher standards in old age of peace. But the burden will none the less be than others, let them be free to establish such heavy so heavy that no State that has once standards through their personal thrift. Because assumed it will seek to enter upon competition a man has once belonged to an aristocracy of with its neighbors in the arming of men or the labor is no good reason why the State should building of forts or Dreadnoughts. constitute for his benefit an aristocracy of the ALVIN S. JOHNSON. superannuated. But what of the stigma of charity, if all are MR. GEORGE MOORE's “Hail and Farewell — Vale!' pensioned alike? Dr. Rubinow, like the indi- the concluding volume of the three which he has de- vidualists, supposes that the pension system voted to his reminiscences of Ireland, is to be published shortly by Messrs. Appleton. It is understood that the necessarily implies an inquiry into the means author deals even more faithfully with some of his con- of the pensioners, and the limitation of benefits temporaries than in the former volumes. 1914] 61 THE DIAL MORE KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNKNOWABLE.* world-view, is a true interpretation. This would appear to come nearer the meaning of an earlier Although M. Maeterlinck's new book, “Our and wiser book of Maeterlinck's, “The Treasure Eternity,” is of much interest, it would be an of the Humble.” At any cost to his pet theory, impervious worshipper who could assert op readMaeterlinck should not commit logical suicide ing it that the poet of mysticism” speaks with by condemning any, even the absurdest, hypo- the same authority when he turns out-and-out thesis. But this is the common squirrel-cage in philosopher as when he remains at home en which all agnostics revolve. veloped in mystic vapors. I cite two instances of assumptions that no The chapters on "The Theosophical Hypo one should make, - certainly not an agnostic. thesis and “The Neospiritualistic Hypothesis This is the first: are admirable, on the whole, for their adequacy · “ Total annihilation is impossible. We are the pris- of treatment and for their fairness. A spiritist oners of an infinity without outlet, wherein nothing could not object to the author's leniency; and at perishes, wherein everything is dispersed, but nothing lost. the same time a skeptic would find his analysis ... To be able to do away with a thing, that is to say, to fling it into nothingness, nothingness would rigorous enough. This part of the book is valu- have to exist; and if it exists, under whatever form, it able to the honest inquirer who lacks time to is no longer nothingness." go through the wealth, or wilderness, of spirit-With the indefensible remark that “total anni- istic evidence,- indeed, it is the only part that hilation is impossible” the author assumes that possesses absolute value to a fact-seeker and he has disposed of one of the “four and no positive thinker. more" solutions. For argument he creates a The key to the whole is in this final sentence: concrete “nothingness " into which he says “In any case, I would not wish my worst enemy, matter would have to be flung. But is it not were his understanding a thousandfold loftier possible to conceive of a species of annihilation and a thousandfold mightier than mine, to be whereby consciousness ceases ? Consciousness condemned eternally to inhabit a world of which is a stream, as seen by modern psychologists, he had surprised an essential secret and of which, existing not in space but in time. So it may as a man, he had begun to grasp the least atom.' stop. The consciousness of wicked people, who Maeterlinck as a mystic naturally wishes the have not worked out a soul worthy of everlast- world to be the greatest conceivable mystery — ing life, — why should it not "cease upon the the greater the better for mysticism, which loves midnight, with no pain ” rather than go on to to lose itself in an “O Altitudo." It would seem vitiate the cosmic consciousness? Without that he had a slight suspicion that in this age of doubt, that is an imaginable view, and one that super-active inquiry someone was likely to sur- may hereafter gain some standing. prise a small secret from the universe, and he The second assumption is seen in the fol- writes his book in the attempt to head off such lowing extracts : a catastrophe. He rejects all possible solutions, “I repeat, if we do not admit that thousands of including the religious ones, with a dogmatism worlds, similar in all points to our own, in spite of the not supported by completeness of logic or evi- billions of adverse chances, have always existed and dence; and the conclusion is the most unsettled still exist to-day, we are sapping the foundations of the only possible conception of the universe or of and agnostic imaginable, except in one vital infinity." point, — the absolute certainty with which he “ Whatever the ultimate truth may be, whether we endows his negative conclusions. Knowing so admit the abstract, absolute and perfect infinity — the little of the universe as Maeterlinck pretends to changeless, immovable infinity which has attained per- know, it ought to be clear to him that he cannot fection and which knows everything, to which our rea- son tends — or whether we prefer that offered to us know that it is impossible to know anything. by the evidence, undeniable here below, of our senses Perhaps anything and everything is true,—than the infinity which seeks itself, which is still evolving which I can conceive of no greater mystery. and not yet established — it behoves us above all to The secret of the universe may be too simple foresee in it our fate, which, for that matter, must in either case end by absorption in that very infinity.” and near for the philosopher; it may be that the random and hazy notion of the man in the In all this it will be noticed that the author street is right; it may be that every good and is very certain of infinity. To be sure, in the every bad instinct, every good and every bad second quotation, there are two kinds of infin- ity, but we are forced to accept one or the *OUR ETERNITY, By Maurice Maeterlinck. Translated other. The suspicion that the universe may not from the French by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. be infinite never crosses his mind. Yet finity 62 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL is not unthinkable; in fact there are certain mathematical considerations that make it more THE STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE'S STAGE- CRAFT: A CLIMAX.* and more worthy of examination. The ortho- dox argument for infinity, that it is impossible Professor Brander Matthews is well qualified, to conceive of finity, Poe shattered in his “ Eu in certain respects, to be the judicial summer- reka” long ago. As between impossibles, he up of that busy study of the Elizabethan stage said, there can be no greater or lesser. Finity and Shakespeare's stagecraft which has been and infinity are two incomprehensibles; it would in progress for some years. His new book be silly to risk our all on the one before we have wears a climactic air. But while fully appreci- fully investigated the other. Yet in this book ating its several excellences, one must also of Maeterlinck's, “finity” is assumed out of feel that the work as a whole fails to present court: the word is only a counter wherewith adequately the Shakespeare one finds either in to define infinity. reading the plays or in watching them pre- One curious and striking hint of the drift of sented on the stage. One explanation is that current thought is the indifference with which the author endeavors, consciously or not, to the author regards religion, and the utter neg. | fulfil two purposes which, when looked into, ligibility which he assigns to its solution. reveal themselves as cross-purposes. Primarily, “ Let us lose no time in putting from our minds all as he himself suggests, the book “is a study of that the positive religions have left there. Let us his (Shakespeare's] stagecraft.” But it pursues remember only that it is not for us to prove that they also, and from a critical standpoint, Shake- are not proved, but for them to establish that they are speare's general dramatic development, taking true.” “ If this God punishes as for not having blindly fol- up the plays in roughly chronological ordert lowed a faith that does not force itself irresistibly upon and presenting a characterization of each. This the intelligence which He gave us; if He chastises us method of procedure the author was led to for not having made, in the presence of the great adopt partly, as he intimates, by the analogy of enigma with which He confronts us, a choice which is his earlier critical biography of Molière; and per- rejected by that best and most divine part which He has implanted in us, we have nothing left to reply; we haps partly also by the predilection, widespread are the dupes of a cruel and incomprehensible sport, at the present time, for tracing the “evolution" we are the victims of a terrible snare and an immense of Shakespeare, as of other organisms. injustice; and whatever the torments wherewith that The case of Molière, however, presents a injustice may load us, they will be less intolerable than problem quite different from that presented by the eternal presence of its author.” his great predecessor; and on the whole easier. Of all the javelins burled against the various Furthermore, Professor Matthews's original “solutions,” this against religion is the deadliest. contribution, in the case of Shakespeare—or It will come as a shock to the devout churchman who knows that Maeterlinck has much of the old and new ideas about Shakespeare in the more exactly, the extent to which he has fused prophet in him and is hailed by many as the heat of an original treatment—is not sufficient most important of living writers. It will of to justify so ambitious a review of the general course occasion little surprise to the student of subject; especially as this subject had already the signs of the times. Many straws have been been handled, after much the same fashion, in blowing in that direction, and recently have come Professor Baker's book on Shakespeare as a some mighty puffs from such widely different dramatist. And finally, Shakespeare's stage- men as Alfred Russel Wallace, George San-craft, in so far as it may be distinguished from tayana, and Rudolph Eucken. Socialism has his art in toto, is after all a thing of particulars. long been blowing a hot breath against the cold It may therefore be best presented after a and senseless pillars of an institutional religion. method analogous to that in which Professor However, it is worthy of more than passing Moulton treated Shakespeare's story-weaving interest for anyone to find mysticism and relig- artistry: namely, through a scientific analysis ion at such odds. of underlying principles, illustrated by a de- " It is well to acquire by degrees the habit of *SHAKSPERE AS A PLAYWRIGHT, By Brander Matthews: understanding nothing." If we interpret this New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. statement generously enough, there is much pith † On pages 85 and 89 it is stated, as though an ascertained and poetry hidden herein. Mysticism and won fact, that Shakespeare finished “Titus Andronicus" before der are fine cures for the weariness of a blasé writing his four early comedies, and these before turning to “Richard III.," "Richard II.," and "King John." It might intellect. here be added that on page 79 the parts of the lovers in THOMAS PERCIVAL BEYER. Midsummer Night's Dream are mixed. 1914] 63 THE DIAL tailed examination of a limited number of already been better made by Professor Bradley plays. The succession of fleeting glimpses in his volume on “ Shakespearean Tragedy." which Professor Matthews gives us of Shake On the whole, we are indebted to Professor speare's work fails to open up for us its dra- Matthews's work for fully demonstrating two maturgic meaning. useful truths. First, the study of Shakespeare's This deficiency, to be sure, does not prevent stagecraft will have had a corrective effect upon the book's being frequently interesting and sug the currents of Shakespearean criticism - re- gestive in the matter of Shakespeare's technique. ducing some romantic bubblings and opening The author's knowledge of the drama in general, up certain shallow channels which had been and of Molière in particular, enables him to neglected. Second, critical comprehension of give us many a stimulating comparison. From Shakespeare's stagecraft cannot, by any means, his knowledge of stage history and tradition he be distended into Shakespearean criticism; since reconstructs for us, though very hypothetically, Shakespeare's most characteristic work is, after the intimate relationship which must have existed all, essentially poetic in conception, like that of between Shakespeare's work and the actors who Sophocles, and not merely excellent drama poeti- originally “created” the rôles. A commonplace cally adorned, as the naïve reader might gather chapter on the Elizabethan audience is compen- from the present work. And since these two sated for by an excellent chapter on Shake- truths are just what the “Shakespearean stage speare's theatre and another on Shakespeare's movement," if it may so be called, has all along work as reviser and imitator. The main features tended to demonstrate, surely Professor Mat- of these two subjects which the reader of Shake thews's book may fittingly be designated the speare can really profit by, are nicely disen climax of that movement. It is impossible, tangled from the mass of pointless details which indeed, to conceive that the public will require investigation has piled up. still another book of the same general nature. It is when the author gets farthest from those GEORGE ROY ELLIOTT. aspects of his subject which are closely related to the stage, that what he has to say is most lacking in fresh interest. For example, his RECENT POETRY.* discussion of the characters of Falstaff and Hamlet, which strikes the reader as distinctly The high hopes which we entertained twenty digressive, is also thoroughly trite, and fre- years ago for the career of Mr. Stephen Phillips quently clogged with encomiastic statements of have not been fulfilled. The poet of “ The poet of “Marpessa has declined, by gradual stages, to the poet of the a surprisingly conventional nature. It should here be remarked, too, that in a book which *LYRICS AND DRAMAS. By Stephen Phillips. New York: John Lane Co. professes to deal with Shakespeare's obvious, HELEN REDEEMED, and Other Poems. By Maurice dramaturgic motives, rather than with those Hewlett. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. attributed to him by critics, it is not pardonable A SYMPHONY, and Other Pieces. By Arthur E. J. Legge. New York: John Lane Co. to assert that Hamlet delays his vengeance be- ENGLAND'S GARLAND. By George Bartram. New York: some means must be found to expose the The Macmillan Co. guilt of Claudius and to make his death not a APHRODITE, and Other Poems. By John Helston. New York: The Macmillan Co. mere assassination but a righteous execution." SALT-WATER BALLADS. By John Masefield. New York: This motive is of course what Werder and other The Macmillan Co. determinedly palpable critics have discovered BEGINNINGS. By Roger Heath. Oxford: B. H. Blackwell. THE QUIET SPIRIT. By John Spencer Muirhead. Oxford : between the lines; an audience does not feel it. B. H. Blackwell. Indeed, Professor Matthews not infrequently KNAVE OF HEARTS. By Arthur Symons. New York : John Lane Co. makes a quick transit from the theatre to his THE LONELY DANCER, and Other Poems. By Richard library, or study. For instance, we feel that Le Gallienne. New York: John Lane Co. his imagination is entirely with the audience A WAND AND STRINGS, and Other Poems. By Benjamin when he shows us that the sublimity of “ King R. C. Low. New York: John Lane Co. ATLANTIS, and Other Poems. By Julius West. London: Lear," " which stood out stark upon the Eliza David Nutt. bethan stage, is sadly diminished, not to say MERCHANTS FROM CATHAY. By William Rose Benét. New York: The Century Co. obscured, by the elaborate scenery, the compli- MINIONS OF THE MOON. A Little Book of Song and cated trappings, and the multitudinous effects, Story. By Madison Cawein. Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd Co. with which it is perforce represented to-day.” THE THEBAN EAGLE, and Other Poems. By Chester Allyn Reed. Boston : Sherman, French & Co. But almost every other point which he has to THE POEMS OF Paul MARIETT. New York: Mitchell make concerning the sublimity of this drama has Kennerley. cause 64 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL 66 “ Lyrics and Dramas” now published, in which vol To be manœuvred out of robbery, ume the spontaneous lyrical quality is sadly to seek. And tore the spoil, and mangled shamefully Now and then it may still be detected, as in “An Bodies of men to strip them, and in haste To forestall ravishers left the victims chaste. October Day": Ares, the yelling God, and Até white Through dry and hurrying leaves Swept like a snow-storm over Troy that night; Golden our way; And towers rockt, and in the naked glare Sound of the wind, south-west Of fire the smoke climbed to the upper air; From the wild day! And clamour was as of the dead broke loose." Wild all thy loosened hair, Shorter poems upon classical themes -“Hypsipyle," Blown in my eyes ; “Oreithyia,” “Clytie,” “The Argive Women"- Till tbou dost seem a part follow this epic, and round out the volume, with the Of autumn skies. addition of some sonnets and epigrams. We quote “ Wild from the setting sun the lovely sonnet, “Quel Giorno Più -": Rushes the rain; Ah, be it true or false, “ That day - it was the last of many days, Thy kiss again." Nor could we know when such days might be given Again — we read how Dante trod the ways Mr. Phillips endeavors to be timely, but it is at the Of utmost Hell, and how his heart was riven cost of being poetical, as when he says of “The By sad Francesca, where sin was forgiven Aeroplane": So far that, on her Paolo fixing gaze She supt on his again, and thought it Heaven, “ Whate'er the silly crowd enjoys, She knew her gentler fate and felt it praise. Our Progress is but stench and noise, We scream and shout and grasp but toys. “We read that lovers' tale; each lookt at each ; Leave us the air! But one was fearless, innocent of guile; So did the other learn what she could teach: “ The earth is blackened from our eyes, We read no more, we kiss'd not, but a smile And filled with dismal hoots and cries, Spare to profane the holier skies; Of proud possession flasht, hover'd a while 'Twixt soul and soul. There was no need for speech.” Leave us the air!" « The Submarine likewise proves deficient as a “A Symphony,” by Mr. Arthur E. J. Legge, is lyrical text: a long philosophical poem of the soul's quest for a “ What clamour of old ocean-war, solution of the unfathomable mystery of existence. What thunder belched at Trafalgar, “ The dust of his endeavour Matches in terror the unseen Is blown about the world. Stab of the silent Submarine ? Time works to rend and sever So, late in time has come to be The symbols that are hurled This man-built menace of che sea; Down from each ruined altar God gave no monster to the main And shattered temple roof, To make the works of man so vain." To bid devotion falter, And worship own reproof. Mr. Phillips had better leave these themes to Signor Inscrutable and solemn Marinetti and his anarchistic gang Most of these The ironies that cling pieces seem tasks that the author has set himself, To splintered shaft and column And stone-work, harbouring and the utterance is without the inner compulsion Remembrance of the glory of true poetry. The “dramas” of this collection are That crowned a passing creed, three short pieces, not particularly significant, that Dead chapters in the story Of Man's immortal need." occupy the latter half of the volume. A generous half of Mr. Hewlett's new volume is This extract is from the opening "andante,” and taken up by “ Helen Redeemed," a narrative poem is only one of the great variety of metres employed in in couplets, with many dramatic episodes, dealing the four movements, through the languid adagio" with the siege and sack of Troy. We may illustrate and the tripping “scherzo” to the long roll of the its quality by a passage from the last “stave," after final “allegro.” As an example of Mr. Legge’s the stratagem of the wooden horse has made the shorter pieces, we give these stanzas on Spring”- invaders free of the city: a theme not unfamiliar to poets: “But now is crying fear abroad and wins “ The first faint note of Spring The very household of the shameful lover; Hums through the air, and surges Now are the streets alive, for worse in cover Fiercely in troubled veins, Like a trapt rat to die than fight the odds With a mutinous ache that urges Under the sky. Now women shriek to the Gods, Our souls to go over the mountain-ring And men run witlessly, and in and out And view the uncharted plains. The Greeks press, burning, slaying, and the rout Screameth to Heaven. As at sea the mews “ We know not whose the call Pack, their wings battling, when some fresh wrack strews That stirs in the blood, and maddens The tideway, and in greater haste to stop With hope and a strange desire; Others from prey, will let their morsel drop, Even though the vague thought saddens, And all the while make harsh lament — so here How early the blossoming dreams will fall The avid spoilers bickered in their fear And Autumn veil Life's fire. 66 1914] 65 THE DIAL 79 “But the voice, to shame our doubt, Nor needed any. Now is Reverence Murmurs a song of nesting, Done to such death as no dog ever died. Ancient before our birth, And when you lied against my love there died An anthem of Power unresting, Something, in flower, that will not bloom again.” That forges the re-born harmony out From the old, orchestral Earth." This is the first of a group of long pieces which fill about one-half of Mr. John Helston's volume, We cannot say that Mr. Legge's verse is stirring, “Aphrodite and Other Poems.” The love which is but it is thoughtfully wrought, and pleasing to the license seems to be their central tbeme. They are refined sense. followed by an elegy upon Swinburne, from which “What weakling urges that the starry nights one section is here quoted: In woodland wanton with the joyous sprites, “I hear thine echoes round, as though the world In meadow peopled with the tripping fays, Fills her own fight with pæans through the spheres “ Have fled forever, and our souls are borne Whilst dying creeds as rotting leaves are swirled In endless circuit of the streets forlorn ? Along the dust of the decaying years, Till all the tree of Priestcraft's faith be bare Who sings a requiem for the golden days? Of fruit or any blossom as of leaves: “Though now no longer amid alleys green Yea, as a god in whom no man believes Brave hearts go riding, and the kisses keen Shall surely perish, faith shall perish there. Of sun and tempest uncomplaining share, Before man was were only Truth and Song. Yea, singer, seer, and prophet, - Master thou! “Though doubts delude us, and by deadly rote Who sawest the future clearly come to pass, We learn Life's lesson, in stray hearts remote As from some far serene beyond the brow The sylvan secret lingers unaware.” Of Morning, - and God mirrored in a glass Wherein are Love and Truth where Fears are now. Thus opens the “ Valediction” of “England's Gar- When man at last shall fare forth true and strong land,” by Mr. George Bartram, a sheaf of verses Of his own spirit, Truth shall right the wrong, dedicated to the memory of Borrow and “composed The light of very God, that Falsehood mars : afield, in that abiding-place of beauty and romance, Still shall be heartened April into song, And there be heard old music in the stars." the remoter South of England." These are outdoor songs in praise of the vagabond life, and inspired This tribute may fairly be grouped with those of by memories of England's historical and poetical Mr. Alfred Noyes and Mr. Arthur Ficke upon the past. They are dated (in spirit) all the way from same theme. There is a fine touch of indignation the fourteenth century to the nineteenth, and evoke in the lines to Shelley, suggested by Arnold's mon- the ghosts of Chaucer, Spenser, and the Eliza- strously inept criticism : bethans, of Herrick, and Cromwell, and Cobbett. “ They say it: 'Beautiful and Ineffectual' - thou. The following verses express the spirit in which Then is the sun all potent save of fire, the author has written: Growth, and the might to swing the spheres and swing Through their eternal courses night and day.” “Oh, yield not this that stirs thy sanguine heart, From the shorter poems that follow, we select these To the dull rabble's shallow scrutiny: That jaded tribe can have no part with thee, gravely beautiful lines “In Autumn": Thy thorn-fenced nosegays, or thy rugged art. “I see the sun grow old, Grow grey and old, and full of quiet, creep “ Seek thou no welcome from that alien crew, From the still slopes and chasmed ways of clouds Leave thy poor posy to the cautious test That fill the frontiers of his place of sleep : Of English only, yet of England's best : that bleach the shadows cast The tardy verdict of the royal few. On stubble-fields all day with mist of gold, Where evenings — each one earlier than the last “See that thy bantling wear a sober dress From golden mist prepare their paler shrouds. Good English homespun of the ancient time, As nightfall gathers stars with viewless hand, For much that masketh it as modern rime So death goes wide and gathers in the dusks: Is tangled fustian, utter weariness. The sharp wbite breath of morning on the land “Snatch thou from yore the stout simplicities Gleams whiter for the empty chestnut husks.” And humours strange (then England but drew breath At present Mr. Helston seems to be classifiable as By love of life and valiant scorn of death), a neo-Swinburnian. But he is a young man, and Be thy quaint garland woven all of these." he may in time acquire his own accent. This is to “Lonicera” is a long dramatic lyric in which a be hoped for, since his poetical gift is clearly out of man and a woman disinter their dead love, and the common. indulge in mutual recrimination, which leads to a Mr. John Masefield's “Salt-Water Ballads" better understanding and a sort of forced reconcilia- tion. It is written in such blank verse as this : “The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout, “There is no heaven lovers may not climb The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the With the strong pulse of two-fold passion blent shout, In psychic pinions Godward, nor no hell The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired lookout." So deep that Love may hide his dead away These poems are avowedly youthful compositions, Among its nadir-night of mocking stars, now reissued without much change from their orig- That haunt like ghosts what love might else have been. ... inal form. Such reverence as man may give was yours “Hell's Pavement” is a characteristic Freely, I knew no higher God than Love, specimen : Wan suns, sing of 66 Jan. 16 THE DIAL “When I'm discharged in Liverpool 'n'draws my bit o'pay, It is I whose robe is the summer, I won't come to sea no more. The night is in mine eyes, I'll court a pretty little lass 'n have a weddin' day, I know the couch of the North Wind 'N' settle somewhere down ashore. And the lair where the West Wind lies, I'll never fare to sea again a-temptin' Davy Jones, And the stars are ever about me, and the flame of them A-hearkenin' to the cruel sharks a-hungerin' for my bones; never dies.” I'll run a blushin' dairy-farm or go a-crackin' stones, Or buy 'n' keep a little liquor-store, - Here is a charming picture of "Night": So he said. “Upon the web of night the dewed stars lie, And the cowled trees stand watching on the height “They towed her into Liverpool, we made the hooker fast, To guard thy sleep, my soul; in jewelled flight And the copper-bound officials paid the crew, A myriad planets swim the seas on high An' Billy drew his money, but the money did n't last, O little lake that breathest every star, For he painted the alongshore blue,- Mirror of sleep, from the broad-petalled sky It was rum for Poll, and rum for Nan, and gin for On thee the star-lit fragrance softly ran, Jolly Jack. That tipped thy waves with opal and afar Silvered thy lilies; 0 that hence might I " He shipped a week later in the clothes upon his back, Drink Lethe of thee and with waiting eyes He had to pinch a little straw, he had to beg a sack Dream through the long, long nights of Paradise." To sleep on, when his watch was through, - So he did." Paraphrases from Catullus and from the French Mr. Roger Heath is a poet whose imagination Symons's “Knave of Hearts." The original pieces poets of love make up the bulk of Mr. Arthur has a cosmic quality. He sings pleasantly of “The are wistful, passionate strains of the kind that he Great Bear” as through the æons the constellation has made familiar in earlier collections of his work. views the pageant of the ascent of man from the “The Spirit and the Bride” represents him at his brute. He even sings of the Fourth Dimension as best: a possible future revealer of “new loveliness for “If, when the Spirit and the Bride say Come! man to make his own.” A fine poem called “The I yet be found lingering by the way, Resurrection of the Gods” has the following opening: Even as I linger while it is to-day, “The world went out in blood and fire Wait thou, my God! although I journey from When the power of the gods was broken. My home on earth and from thy other home, I will remember at the last, and say: Then came an age of starless night, Thou who wast near when I was far away, A night of dreams and slow desire, And a little glimmer of ancient light Take me: the Spirit and the Bride say Come! Was left it for a token. “ Thou hast held me in the hollow of thy hand, And the eyes of a watcher might have traced And I have fought against thy power; thou hast kept A little stirring in the waste.” Thy watch over my spirit while it slept, Dreaming against thy wisdom; I have planned So much for the past. The closing poem in the Ways of escape, but thou hast overswept, volume is called “Futurity,” and sings of the return Like loving water, all my dykes of sand.” of the golden years in such strains as these: There is a close kinship between the muse of Mr. “God shall close Symons and the muse of Mr. Richard Le Gallienne, This book of life and turn the final page as the following poem, placed side by side with the Of the old record that is written there, And the new Universe shall be unfurled. one just quoted, will show: He shall inaugurate the golden age, “The bloom upon the grape I ask no more, The tearless æon, and in all the world Nor pampered fragrance of the soft-lipped rose, The wilderness shall blossom as the rose, I only ask of Him who keeps the Door – And we shall enter, and the stars above To open it for one who fearless goes Shall sing a pæan for our victory. Into the dark, from which, reluctant, came And then at last God's spirit shall descend His innocent heart, a little laughing flame; Into our hearts, and earthly love shall be I only ask that He who gave me sight, A perfect copy of that perfect Love Who gave me hearing and who gave me breath, That made us fellow-workers for the End." Give me the last gift in His flaming hand - The holy gift of Death.” “Beginnings” is the title of this modest little book of song that comes to us from the city of the We are always a little doubtful concerning the sin- dreaming spires. cerity of these songs of satiety; the pose is so easy A second modest little volume that hails from for the young poet, and so unnatural. It takes a Meredith, in the ripeness of his wisdom, to sing Oxford is “The Quiet Spirit,” by Mr. John Spencer convincingly of a yearning for the grave. Mr. Muirhead. He opens with a deprecatory note: Le Gallienne's volume is entitled “The Lonely “For I have known only of light April weather, Dancer, and Other Poems.” Its contents are grace- Quick tears and quick laughter all mingled together, And nothing have known of a sorrow abiding ful lyrics of love and nature, with here and there Nor feared very greatly what darkness is hiding." an emergence of the note of human brotherhood. The following tribute to the poet's present wife is He sings of “The Poet” in such dialogue as this: very ingenious; it reminds us of the lines written “ Who is he that is girdled with summer, by Aldrich to similar effect, explaining to his wife Whose veil is the grey night's woof? That hath made the winds his pavilion and the ageless that all his earlier love lyrics were really veiled stars his roof? tributes to "You dear, you, just you": 1914] 67 THE DIAL “I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year, That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it; And my young broken heart in little songs, Dew-like, I poured, and waited for my end Wildly - and waited — being then nineteen. I walked a little longer on my way, Alive, 'gainst expectation and desire, And, being then past twenty, I beheld The face of all the faces in the world Dewily opening on its stem for me. Ah, so it seemed, and, each succeeding year, Thus hath some woman blossom of the divine Flowered in my path, and made a frail delay In my true journey - to my home in thee.” The confession is so human that it almost disarms cynicism. It is the way of man to discover his “Flos Ævorum” at the close of a long series of amourettes and tendresses. Tuneful twitterings, neatly scored in a variety of lyrical measures, are given us in "A Wand and Strings," by Mr. Benjamin R. C. Low. There is nothing very arresting or magical about these songs, but their technique is good, and their thought clean- cut. A little more weighty in thought than the others is the “Rough-Hew Them How We Will,” of which these are the opening stanzas: " Far-flying warders turn and tell Of thunders in the dreadful hills; Pale prophets of destruction swell Beneath our darkened window-sills; Virtue is dead, they say, and song; And civic pride is sore beset; Riches are right, and honor, wrong; The world remembers to forget “How are the walls of Babylon Tumbled and moulderous and gray! - And how her ruined Parthenon The soul of Athens bears away! Slow-moving as a mist of sleep, The tides of destiny befall; Sand cities reared heap on heap;- The ocean overruns them all. “Yet are the pinnacles of gold Beleaguered by our heart's desire, And still the hands of mortals hold The anguish of immortal fire: Death over death, the ramparts rise, And life on life, the builders go; The spirit in the coral dies, The splendors of the coral grow.” This is from “The Apology of an Opium-Eater,” found in Mr. Julius West's “ Atlantis, and Other Poems": “You ask if I feel conscience-pangs! You never hung where the moon hangs, You never rode in the Sun-God's car Or ever became a flaming star, Tossed headlong into the heights of space To hold with comets a fiery race. ... “The courts of Heaven you never trod, Or heard the symphonies of God, Great sounds that massed and broke and tore You with them down a breathless shore, And breaking, colours bright became, And each a fierce vibrating flame, Rainbows that interwove and made A living net of every shade." There is imagination in these poems, and originality, especially in the long one which reshapes the legend of Atlantis. This picture of “The Haunted Ship” is striking: “They are not men that walk her deck, She is no ship, but a shell ... For long years she has been a wreck, And those faint forms that move, as in a spell — They once were men, and sailors of the sea, But now are flickers of the flames of hell Doomed to drift unceasingly Until an end shall come When the seas shall be still and winds be dumb, And to and fro she sways, And her torn rigging idly swings And a chill silence follows all her ways, Curst symbol of lost things.” We like particularly this song of “The Nun Re- leased": "The convent bells do toll, do toll, For Sister Anne died yesterday, And on the winds they say her soul Rides to its holiday. "They toll because her body lies Within the chapel, on its bier, Stained-glass colours round her eyes, She seems to smile, yet somehow drear. “For forty years, the Lord alone She served, and never looked on men, And trusted she had this wise sown Rare flowers of grace in God's garden. “But wrongly, for the truth, man knows, Though all are lost the soul who kill, God's deepest anger falls on those Who leave the body living still. "Reserving all his highest hate For those who make the flesh a tomb, For they His temple desecrate. For them He deals no easy doom. “The convent bells are tolling For Sister Anne in Heaven; Though death is Life consoling To them who are forgiven, “No soul has been set free by death, Though the bells are tolling slow; Only her body lacks its breath, Her soul died long ago.” Another volume gives us this: “I would not be a dogmatist, Banging a heavy, hairy fist To crack the pint-pots on the table. But I would dream as I am able And noose God's wonders in a twist Of quaintest thoughts and rippled rhyme; By happy turns of fortunate phrase Would capture Faith, and teach stern Time To mend his ways." Thus discourses Mr. William Rose Benét, in “Mer- chants from Cathay.” He is certainly a master of “quaintest thought and rippled rhyme," although the “happy turns of fortunate phrase " seem to elude him. Gifted with an opulent imagination, and bearing a staggering load of the stuff of poetry on his shoulders, he makes us a little too conscious of the burden, and does not quite succeed in so ordering his expression as to escape turgidity. Now 68 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL 2 and then he achieves restraint and clean-cut form, as in the sonnet on “The Guests of Phineus”: “ Man hungers long. Into his cup is poured Wine of pearled brilliance or of flaming dyes From gold and silvern ewers of the skies — The sun and moon. And on his banquet-board Rich lands of romance, glamorous seas, afford His vision viands. Yet with upturned eyes Like to poor Phineus, he still descries The shadows overhead, the birds abhorred. “Ye dark enigmas of this universe, Cloud not my feast! God, give me thoughts to face And rend despair, as did the winged twain Who soared above the baffled guests of Thrace And hurled the harpies of Jove's ancient curse To whirlwind ruin o'er the Ionian main!” Mr. Benét is fond of classical themes, but he usually handles them in the wildest romantic manner. The realms of phantasy are his province, and he delights in the imaginings of Baron Munchausen and Sir John Mandeville. It is not every poet who would be daring enough to write a chanty in Kiplingese for the Argonauts to sing as they plied the oar: “Lemnos lies behind us And ladies of good grace, Home, bring home the oars again and lift the coasts of Thrace! Nor yet the Clashing Islands find, Nor stark Promethean highlands find, But here, of far or nigh lands, find Adventure's very place - Adventure's splendid, terrible, and dear and dafting face! "Then, Orpheus, strike harp for us! Oh, Talking Head, speak true for us! Lynceus, look you sharp for us! And, Tiphys, steer her through for us! May Colchis curse the dawn o'day when first she thundered free And our golden captain, Jason, in glory put to sea.” Ragged and swinging measures are Mr. Benét's favorites, and they force his volume into a special format for their accommodation. But even the widened page is not wide enough, and a small type has to be used which is a serious obstacle to pleas- urable reading. This is the opening of the titular poem: “Their heels slapped their bumping mules; their fat chaps glowed. Glory unto Mary, each seemed to wear a crown! Like sunset their robes were on the wide, white road : So we saw these mad merchants come dusting into town! “Two paunchy beasts they rode on and two they drove before. May the Saints all help us, the tiger-stripes they had ! And the panniers upon them swelled full of stuffs and ore ! The square buzzed and jostled at a sight so mad. - They bawled in their beards, and their turbans they wried. They stopped by the stalls with curvetting and clatter. As bronze as the bracken their necks and faces dyed And a stave they set singing to tell us of the matter. - For your silks to Sugarmago! For your dyes, to Isfahan! Weird fruits from the Isle o' Lamaree! But for magic merchandise For treasure-trove and spice, Here's a catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan, The King of all the Kings across the sea. Here's a catch and a carol to the great, grand Chan ; For we won through the deserts to his sunset barbican; And the mountains of the palace no Titan's reach may span Where he wields his seignorie! This is quite in the spirit of the rollicking ballads of Mr. Alfred Noyes, but just misses the magic of “Forty Singing Seamen,” for example. Many of Mr. Benét's poems are marred by infelicitous words and halting rhythms, but sometimes he achieves something approaching perfection of form. There is probably no finer poem in the volume than “The Rival Celestial”: “God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone ? Thou coment when she first draws breath in sleep, Thy eloak blue night, glittering with stars of gold. Thou standest in her doorway to intone The promise of Thy troth that she must keep, The wonders of Thy heaven she shall behold. “Her little room is filled with blinding light, And past the darkness of her window-pane The faces of glad angels closely press, Gesturing for her to join their host this night, Mount with their cavalcade for Thy domain! Then darkness. . . . But Thy work is done no less. “For she hath looked on Thee, and when on me Her blue eyes turn by day, they pass me by. All offerings- ev'n my heart — slip from her hands. She moves in dreams of utter bliss to be, Longs for what not of earth may satisfy. My heart breaks as I clutch love's breaking strands. “I clutch — they part — to the wide winds are blown, And she stands gazing on a cloud, a star, Blind to earth's heart of love where heaven lies furled. God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone ? Thou hast all powers, dominions, worlds that are; And she is all my world — is all my world!” From Wood Dreams," the opening poem in Mr. Cawein's “Minions of the Moon,” we quote the first two stanzas and the last: “ About the time when bluebells swing Their elfin belfries for the bee, And in the fragrant House of Spring Wild Music moves ; and Fantasy Sits weaving webs of witchery: And Beauty's self in silence leans Above the brook and through her hair Beholds her face reflected there, And wonders what the vision means - About the time when bluebells swing. “I found a path of glooms and gleams, A way that Childhood oft has gone, That leads into the Wood of Dreams, Where, as of old, dwell Fay and Faun, And Faërie dances until dawn; And Elfland calls from her blue cave, Or, starbright, on her snow-white steed, Rides blowing on a silver reed That Magic follows like a slave - I found a path of glooms and gleams. “For what we dream is never lost, Dreams mold the soul within the clay, The rapture and the pentecost Of beauty shape our lives some way: They are the beam, the guiding ray, That Nature dowers us with at birth,- And, like the light upon the crown Of some dark hill, that towers down, Point us to Heaven, not to Earth, Above the world where dreams are lost." 1914] 69 THE DIAL 66 The “way that childhood oft has gone” is the way ventional attitudinizing of the poet over sweetness into the magical realm of fairyland, and here we and light he had a bitter scorn; he could hate with dwell with Mr. Cawein in a world of delicate fancies zest; he believed that hate was a good robust virtue. and fantastic imaginings which is made almost a real To all kinds of softness Paul was a hard bed indeed, world by the poet's power of minute observation. and to muffled personalities and finicky souls he He knows flowers and birds and trees with a loving was a cleansing gale.” Thus one of the two friends ; intimacy that the professional naturalist may well the other has this to say: " He endeavored to envy him, and he enshrines and spiritualizes them extract the intrinsic from the accidental in love and in song so exquisite as to class him with Wordsworth beauty, in life and death. With all his joyous and Tennyson. The volume is filled with joyous virility there runs through his work, almost from the beauty from cover to cover, and it is with regret for beginning, an impending melancholy, that is neither the completion of the offering that we come to the the immature cheerlessness of skeptical youth nor Epilogue: the unrealizable unreality of a dreamer, but some- “There is a world Life dreams of, long since lost: thing unaccountably sinister, and premonitory, a Invisible save only to the heart; quality that pervades his most powerful and poignant That spreads its cloudy islands, without chart, lyrics, flashing out finally, nakedly mystical, in the Above the Earth, 'mid oceans none has crossed ; poem, “The Grateful Dead.'" We may as well Far Fairylands, that have become a part Of mortal longings; that, through difficult art, transcribe this poem as another: Man strives to realize to the uttermost. "The grateful dead, they say lie snug and close Under the smooth, soft sloping of the grass. “Could we attain that Land of Faërie Here in the flesh, what starry certitudes Grateful indeed because above them pass Of loveliness were ours! what mastery No other steps than those of wind or bird No other sound is heard. Of beauty and the dream that still eludes! What clearer vision! - Ours were than the key "For without eyes we see, and earless hear; To Mystery, that Nature jealously Sweeter is this than nights of restless mood, Locks in her heart of hearts among the woods.” Sweeter than nights of blank infinitude, Other poets may voice the spiritual issues of our Sweeter than ghostly pageants of a dream, Half-caught, of things that seem. national life with richer expression and greater au- thority, but none of them can surpass Mr. Cawein “Another life have we than those who live, Another death have we than those who die. as an interpreter of the beauty that lies at the heart Mortal and ghost and angel pass us by - of natural things. Mortal and ghost and angel have one breath “The Theban Eagle, and Other Poems” is by Die, would ye learn of death." Mr. Chester Allyn Reed. The titular piece calls WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE. Pindar a Philistine, and reproaches him because he did not write as a sentimentalist. A poem on “Magellan” describes the sea conquests of the BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS. Portuguese : The portrayal of the main pattern “ Until the day when Diaz in the cold Beasts of in the web of life as it has been Passed the great Cape, and, lo, the way was free. the past. Then at a touch the eastern kingdoms old woven in the Western world by the Sprang from their long unbroken mystery forces of evolution in past geologic ages is the main And the far Indian Ocean was aflame purpose of Professor W. B. Scott's “History of With splendor of the new invading name," Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere (Mac- and then goes on to describe the wonderful voyage millan). It is, however, with the evolution only of which proved to the most skeptical the sphericity of the highest types of animal life, the mammals, that the earth. Of his verses “Off Viareggio" the author deals, tracing their increasing diversifi- tribute to Shelley — the author says: cation and modification from the small and primi- “These are for those who love him, who have felt tive types of the Paleocene Period of Tertiary His presence deep within their fondest thought- Epoch through the remarkable faunas of the Upper As when across a desert's burning belt The song of birds is brought.” Tertiary to the much reduced mammalian fauna of to-day. The organization of scientific exploration Mr. Reed's verses are thoughtful, neat in form, but by the State and its advancement by private endow- not exactly inspired, revealing the poetic sense ments, the unifying influence of common language, rather than the poetic faculty. and of educational and scientific organization, and Paul Mariett, a Harvard graduate who died a of the single political control of the greater part of a year or more ago of a malignant tumor, at the age continent, have made possible in this country, as in of twenty-four, was a true poet in the making, as no where else in the world, the disclosing of the the small posthumous volume of his work attests. secrets of the past life of a continent and thanks Reading what the two friends who have edited this to the able work of an enthusiastic group of Latin- volume say of him, we are reminded again and American palæontologists of Argentina — of a again of Moody, who was cut off, his renown unful- hemisphere. No small element in the success of filled, by a similar stroke of fate. “ For all the con this project has been the discovery in America of 70 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL remarkable beds of fossils in the Great Plains of as so many different reflections of the same life and Nebraska and Wyoming, in the John Day region the same spirit.” What “national consciousness” of Oregon, and in that unique death trap of the Bradford and Byrd expressed the author does not ages, the tar-pits of Rancho La Brea, from which say; and the critic who refuses to see the peculiarly the University of California has recently exhumed New England characteristics in Hawthorne, or the a most complete and superbly preserved representa- peculiarly Southern elements in Simms not only tion of the fauna of Pleistocene times. The author ignores much that is necessary to the understanding thus has at his disposal an exceptionally complete of individual authors, but fails to trace the impres- record of the past. His book is written for the sive unification of American literature during the general reader, and for the biologist who is not years since the War. On the whole, however, the versed in palæontological lore. The relations of the theory does less harm than it threatens in the successive phases of life to geological time and to preface. More striking are numerous interpreta- environmental conditions are in evidence through tions and critical judgments that challenge discus- out, and the details of teeth and skeletal structure sion. Only a few may be cited. That Lowell is upon which the palæontologist constructs his con the "only successor” of Cotton Mather (p.349), and ception of the ancient beast, of which he may pos that Hawthorne seems more akin to Wigglesworth sess but a fragment, are correlated with those of than to any other writer” (p. 405), may be defen- the better known mammals of to-day. Indeed, both sible propositions, but are likely to be perplexing for biologist and for lay reader, one of the most or misleading to students who have not yet acquired instructive features of the work is the remarkable a sense of relative values. So the remarks that the series of reconstructions, against typical environ conception of nature in “Thanatopsis”. “ seems to mental backgrounds, of these ancient mammals. us hardly more poetic than that of the Alaskan A choice series of original photographs of living Indians, who say that the earth is a huge animal, mammals, for purposes of comparison, heightens vegetation is its fur, and men and animals are para- the value of these reconstructions. Professor Scott sites on its back (p. 202); that Poe's verse is and the artist, Mr. Horsfall, have succeeded admir “beautiful but apparently meaningless," and Poe's ably in making these dry bones live again. How theory is “to the mature mind . . . an abnormal, ever large the element of conjecture in these recon a diseased conception of poetry” (p. 239); that in structed portraits, they are both interesting and “ Tom Sawyer” “ the hero is essentially a liar, one instructive. The closing chapter, upon the modes of who makes a virtue of falsehood; and his adven- mammalian evolution, is brief, cautious, and tenta tures are of a kind to make the thoughtless laugh tive, the author stating the various conceptions of and the judicious grieve” (p. 466); that Uncle the factors and their modes of operating. He lends Remus is “in some respects the most natural and some support to the view that the change from one lovable character that has ever appeared in Amer- species to the next in a line of descent was by small ican fiction” (p. 468), - these and many similar though abrupt mutations rather than by a series of opinions will arouse interesting discussions among gradual transitions. The chapter upon the primates those competent to discuss. In view, however, of perforce excludes the evolution of the human type, the tendency of pupils to accept textbook state- since there is as yet no critical evidence that primitive ments without question, the presence of so many de- man originated in this hemisphere. Abundant and batable utterances in a book for secondary schools excellent illustrations, logical development of the may be a disadvantage. Even more harmful than subject, clear-cut and critical presentation of the data, these opinions are apparent mis-statements of inter- and breadth of view characterize this standard work pretation and content, e. g., the remark (p. 237) of reference on American mammalian palæontology. that in “The Fall of the House of Usher” Poe “ makes use of a favorite theory, or hallucination, Mr. William J. Long's volume on A new textbook that the will survives for a time in the body of a of American “ American Literature” (Ginn & person after death." Co.) is to be commended for its full treatment of the colonial and Revolutionary times, In "Government Ownership of Rail- The case against its bibliographical material and suggestions for state ownership ways” (Appleton), a large and im- study, and in most cases for its biographical sketches of our railroads. portant question of public policy is of authors. Its usefulness as a text for secondary discussed by Mr. Samuel O. Dunn, editor of “The schools may be impaired by the fact that it seems Railway Age Gazette" and already well known to be the work of an iconoclast with occasional as the author of a book entitled “The American enthusiasms and a theory. The theory may be Transportation Question.” Mr. Dunn ventures the inferred from this statement: “There are no Mason opinion that “no more important question confronts and-Dixon lines, no political or geographical divis the people of the United States than the question ions in the national consciousness. Bradford and of what policy they shall pursue in the future in Byrd, Cooper and Simms, Longfellow and Lanier, dealing with the railroads of the country.” He Hawthorne and Bret Harte are here studied side examines in a seemingly fair and judicial spirit by side in their respective periods, not as repre the various arguments for and against government sentative of North or South or East or West, but I ownership of railroads, and reviews the experience literature. 1914] 71 THE DIAL of other countries in which the railroads are owned the once rather famous “ Julia" and her “bureau” and operated by the State. His conclusions are dis and her alleged "communications” receive due men- tinctly adverse to the policy of government owner tion, as also sundry other matters that appeal to a ship in the United States. He reviews the more love of the marvellous. But perhaps not the least flagrant abuses that have attended the system of extraordinary incident recorded in the book is the private ownership in the United States, and dwells following in reference to the founding of the maga- upon the attempt to remove these abuses through zine with which Mr. Stead's name is inseparably the policy of public regulation. The argument for associated. A memorandum from his own pen reads government ownership drawn from the experience as follows: "The Pope, if up to date, ought to publish of other countries is, he thinks, by no means conclu the Review of Reviews, which is an attempt to render sive, because the conditions in countries like Prussia accessible to all the best thoughts to be found in the and Japan where government ownership has been periodical literature of the world. Before founding most successful are entirely different from conditions the Review I went to Rome to see what chance there in the United States. He asserts that the railways was of the Pope undertaking the task. Finding of the United States are, considering all things, as there was none, I did it myself.” Many portraits and economically managed as any in the world; under other illustrations add to the book's attractiveness. private ownership their development has gone for- (George H. Doran Co.) ward at a rate which, until recent years, has not been equalled in any other country; the quality of the The career of Philip, Duke of Whar- The amazing freight and passenger service is in most respects ton, is one of the most amazing in Duke of Wharton. equal or superior to that of any other country, English history. His father had been although it is admitted that the accident record is an unrelenting opponent of the Stuarts and was one rather appalling; passenger rates in America are of the chief members of the Whig“ organization” probably no higher than in most countries for simi in the days of William III., and young Lord Philip lar services; the average freight rate per ton mile is should have inherited a large measure of political the lowest in the world; the condition of the labor influence along with titles and wealth ; but he threw employed on American railways is relatively as good away his future while still a youth, and took up the as that of any other country; and the experience of cause of the Stuart Pretender. This act in time led other countries, where the railways are owned by to outlawry, deep poverty, and finally to death in a the State, would seem to indicate that government Franciscan monastery. At the time of his death he management in this country would tend to corrupt was only in his thirty-third year; but he had made rather than to purify politics. Therefore the better a profound, though not entirely favorable, impression alternative, according to Mr. Dunn, is to leave the. on the men of his time both in England and on the ownership and management of railways in private Continent. Alexander Pope characterized him as hands, and at the same time to develop and perfect the scorn and wonder of our days ”; he appears as the present system of public regulation. Lorenzo in Young's“ Night Thoughts,” and as Love- lace in Richardson's “Clarissa Harlowe "; Hogarth The founder of Miss Estelle W. Stead's filial tribute introduced him into one of his paintings. It is this "The Review to the memory of the late W. T. career that Mr. Lewis Melville has traced in his of Reviws.” Stead is appropriately entitled, “My latest work, “The Life and Writings of Philip, Duke Father,” and is further described by the fitting sub of Wharton” (Lane). We may agree with the author title, “ Personal and Spiritual Reminiscences." The that “a character more interesting ... does not often striking qualities of the man, and his activities in fall to the lot of a biographer”; but the reviewer building what he believed to be a “bridge” between would like to express a doubt as to whether it is this world and that of discarnate spirits, are vividly really worth while to produce a detailed study of a and lovingly presented. Also the notable work he life that was a failure in every way and that left no did as a great journalistic force for social righteous- impress on the history of the time. The author, ness is reviewed in such a manner as to command however, has done his work well; he devotes most our willing admiration and to intensify our regret of his space to Wharton's public career, but does not that so enlightened and energetic a reformer should neglect the private life of his subject. No attempt have been removed by so untimely and tragic a fate is made to gloss over the moral and financial ex- from the scene of his beneficent labors. His birth travagance of the man, — though Mr. Melville does in 1849 in the little manse at Embleton, his early think that the worst thing about the “Hell-fire Club,” life in that north country, his editorship of “The of which Wharton was president, was its name. The Northern Echo" at twenty-two, followed by that of permanent value of the work will be found chiefly “The Pall Mall Gazette” in 1884, and the found in the documents that the author has collected, the ing of “The Review of Reviews” in 1890, with a Duke's efforts at poetry, some of his letters and necessarily incomplete account of the many good speeches, and various other documents that belong causes championed by him, all enlivened by frequent to his personal history or to that of the Wharton extracts from Mr. Stead's personal reminiscences family. The volume also contains seventeen excel- and other writings, are well and interestingly set lent illustrations, chiefly portraits of the men who forth in the book's thirty brief chapters. Of course made history during the early eighteenth century. 72 [Jan. 16 THE DIAL a British Miscellanies Lady Ritchie has a store of notable anese feudalism (Dutton). All the sensitiveness to by Thackeray's memories to draw upon whenever she design, the delicacy of rhythm and color, that we daughter. chooses to put pen to paper for the associate with Japanese paintings and prints are to delectation of her readers, and it is largely with such be found in these texts; with, in the actual repre- memories that her new volume of collected papers, sentations themselves, as the editor tells us, the addi- “From the Porch" (Scribner), entertainingly deals. tional beauties of an elaborate conventional acting First comes “A Discourse on Modern Sibyls" and posture and a peculiar chanting by protagonists namely, George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte and chorus, all emphasizing æsthetically the religi- Brontë, and Mrs. Oliphant—all of whom the writer ous character of the drama. The effect is not unlike knew and admired in their time; then a reminiscent what one imagines the ancient religious drama of fragment on Charles Dipkens, after which follows the Greeks to have been; there is the same brevity another retrospective piece, “A Dream of Kensing of plot, the same limited number of actors, all men, ton Gardens”; next we have a half-dozen “mono the same use of masks and symbolic scenery and graphs," — on Sainte Jeanne of Chantal, Anna costume. The Nō suggests a further classical com- Seward, known as “the Swan of Lichfield,” Mrs. parison through the myth of its origin in a sacred John Taylor of Norwich, the art of being a grand dance. dance. The best of the Greek priests and philoso- parent, the painter Morland at Freshwater Bay, and phers, moreover, would have taken pleasure in another painter, of a later generation, Alfred Stevens. recognizing the mystic idea shadowed forth in this Finally, a smaller sheaf of papers is offered, having portrayal of life, — Plato would surely have under- to do with the beginnings of “The Cornhill Maga- stood its emphasis on Eternal Being and its subordi- zine,” ånd sundry other matters more personal to the nation of the passing accidentals of life to its essence. writer. Where Lady Ritchie does not write from No one to-day who is at all interested either in phil. her own memories she usually has unpublished letters osophy or drama or Japanese civilization can afford or other special sources of information to give fresh to miss this illuminating and sympathetic treatment ness and vitality to her narrative. Even the now of a subject so difficult for westerners to learn about somewhat mythical “Swan of Lichfield” is made to and to understand. The beautiful illustrations from live again in the packet of letters quoted from by color-prints add great value to the text. Lady Ritchie. We see her writing to a corre- spondent (from whom the letter, with others, passed The collection of addresses by Lord Speeches of to Thackeray's daughter) “with the vilest pen that Milner published under the title Imperialist. ever scored," and still persisting, “though night “ The Nation and the Empire” creeps on apace, and the drowsie hour steals upon (Houghton) comprises seventy-eight speeches, deliv- I should have written before to express my ered since the eve of his departure for South Africa gratitude, but that I had promised to work Mr. in 1897, and of these twenty-two were made in the Charles Backeridge a waistcoat by the next As- latter country during his historic service as High sembly.” A reference to “a well-known critic, an Commissioner. Since his return in 1905 his interest American lady, Miss Fanny Repplier,” still goes un- in the concerns of South Africa has been keen, and corrected in the re-edited form of the essay. A por- many of the other addresses deal in whole or in trait of the writer appears as frontispiece, and a part with problems of the new Union. Second in view of “ the porch " later in the volume. number are the speeches devoted to Imperial Unity, and on this subject his ideas are well presented in six addresses given in Canada in