The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 4, 1895, Page 17

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 1895. 17 Artist Joseph D. Strong is an ardent ad- mirer of Professor Charles Warren Stod- dard, poet of the South Se: The artist and the poet are fast friends. In the ex- uberance of his affection Mr. Strong has for a month devoted eight hours a day to sketching the poet in his different moods and poses. For the time beiag he has turned himself into a pi ing Bos- well. Wearying of more sedate methods of treatment the artist ventured S ative caricature. into the handsof nd is reproduced Only the bonds of brotherly love wo fy the taking of such a liberty with a poet. The responsi- bility for the c yon rests with the artist. e on this page tc becomeanart, added to their ad of collecting posters. e mania has taken deep Modern poster: and bookish pe other In t s this week have had a wide 3 le volumes from which E LARE—A PUZZLER. sco is enjoying the distinction i of letters of producing a lication. It is called The Lark, 1d our Eastern cousins, up to the present e, have not been able to make out ex- actly what it means. This little publica- tion, established by Bruce Porter and Ge- he sedate wits of New York, Philadelphia and Chicago have not been able to make out is written in such a bantering | whether it is in earnest | B ookmakers, A DEPARTMENT 4OF LITERARY APPRECIATION - cared for our singing, and would have more of it, then you must follow us afield. ., For, aiter all, there’s your place and ours— there you may hear the birds calling, and see trees blowing, and know the great content of the earth. Meantime. shut in the town, we shall blow our nickel pipe, to make you believe itis a reed, and that you dance, garlanded, to its piping ch issue of this paper has a new title- page, drawn by some artist in the coterie, for the original publishers have drawn unto them the assistance of Florence Lund- hyorg‘ Richard Redforth and Edmond Charlroy. In addition to the odd things aid in ‘this little book the weird style of typography is diverting and apparently ctive to the minds of critical and erary people, for hundreds of letters are being received each week asking what the whole thing means and what is intended to be made of this new venture in serio- comic journalism. A few specimen pages will be published to-day, in order that the general reader may obtain an idea as to the style of the publication. Here is a characteristic contribution : “SHE HAD A KIND HEA SAID VIVETTE. HAD A GOOD H D, SAID 1. The whole world was open, and we walked in, smiling. There was no one at home but a squirrel, so we sat down tojwait. ‘At last the people began 1o come back. First, there was a lame old man with his foot | gone. | ~“Poor 0ld man!” said Mamie, I feel so sorry for you! Won't you take my foot?” | . He was such a droll man with Mamie's little | foot on him, but he wouldn’t stay, and ran off, | shouting. Then along came a boy with his arm in a sling. “Can’t you get a good arm?’ said Mamie; “here—take mine!” So off went Mamie's right | arm nd how I langhed at her! | ““Faith, I'm all_one-sided, and you'll have to | hold me up,” said Mamie. | A little later they scame, two by two, and thick as spatters, and by noon there was noth ing left of good little Mamie but Mamie’s voic “Put me in your ear, so you'll not lose me, said Mamie. The 1 the rest came too, for the cripple man had told them, and *“Oh, where's Mamie?” | they said. “Teli them I'm up the tree,” whispered Ma- mie's voice. “SHE There is a Theory That Lamp Posts high, And a Little Boy And be stretched >em out to *leven foot| long! some deny, once were three foot was terrible strong, SAMPLE OF COMIC ILLUSTRATION IN THE LARK. [Printed from the original engraving by cou rtesy of Editor Burgess and Publisher Doxey.] or merely a joke. The first page of the rst issue of this peculiar little magazine gave the keynote,so itissaid. Itisstrange that these words should have been over- looked by the bohemian patrons of pencil and brush east of the Rocky Mountains: “HARK! HARK! THE LARK AT HEAVEN'S GATE sINGS!” The new note—some of the joy of the morn- ing—set here for :i!ée refreshment of our souls of ay. I on ‘more. serious intention than to be gay—to sing a song, to tell a story—and when This 1s no longer to ourliking—when the spring calls, or the road jnvites—then this little house tassure will close its doors; and if you have ! oishe’s gone up the tree after more limbs,” said L. | Bo they all went up the tree after her. { s the whole world up there?” gaid Mamie. | “They're all up there,” said I. X | " said Mamie, “one “Then call them down, by one.” | So first a little girl came 0 you like black eyes?" said Mamie. Brown ones.” said I, “like yours.” Then let her go,” said Mamie Aiter a while another came down. ‘She has eyes like vours,” said I. ey’re prettier!” ou'd | never have said that; so take them1” So I took | them away from her as she came down the tree; | Bat I kissed her first, for Mamie coularn’t see. ow, Il have & mouth next,” said Mamie. (How she could have suspected I don’t know, but she watched me with her two brown eyes after that.) It wasa rosy mouth, with pretty milk teeth, that I got for her. There wa: nothing in'the whole world like it. “Now, you're safe,” said Mamie. “Do you like light hair, or dark?” said Mamie. old hair,” said I, ‘*with a spark in it,” said I; and they came down by dozens, and ran vay across the earth like ants, before I got t0 suit her. By this time Mamie was too pretty, almost. I kept turning my head to look at her. “Hurry up,” said Mamie; “we must let them all go before night, and it's 4 o’clock already.”’ So Mamie grew and grew. The folk were self- ish at first and stingy when I stopped them; but when they saw Mamie they were proud of her and they’d say, “Oh, indeed, my hands are pretty enough. Teddy always said so!” But at first Mamie would refuse them and turn uj her nose. O, please.take them, o 1" they'd say. “Well, perhaps they'll do,” said Mamiie. e very last thing was a little pink toe, and Mamie was so particular that they were all out of the tree, but three old men, before we knew it. “The sun is setting,” said Mamie; *I don’t want their old toes; let them go.” So when tne whole world was empty again, I was alone with a beautiful, beautiful Mamie. “I'm afraid I shall limp a little, but I'm per- fectly happy,” said Mamie. The posters issued by The Lark adver- tising 1its several publications have been even more peculiar than the regular edi- tion of the paper. LOCAL POSTERS AND OTHERS. ‘We have been wont to hear that thisisa | “or | | | strictly utilitarian age, wherein nothing counts that does not bring substantial re- turns in current coin of the realm. Be that as it may, there was never a period when more attention was paid to producing beautiful effects in the mere utilities of life. It isa principle in archi- tecture that we may ornament construc- tion, but must pever construct ornament. This principle is now receiving attention in other fields of art, and nowhere does it better apply, nowhere is its application more pleasingly conspicuous, than in the up-to-date poster. Until within a year or two past a poster has been regarded as an essentially utilitarian object, in‘ended to make an announcement, and of no further value beyona the object which it was in- tended to serve. They have been as bar- ren of beauty, as euiltiess of artistic effect as that early effort in Hogarth’s famous pictare of *‘Gin Lane,”’ with its naive an- nouncement that ‘‘gentlemen and others’ can get “drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence”’—+‘clean straw’’ in the latter case being “furnished for nothing.” It is a desirable thing that_the desire for beauty should express itself in the making of the common things of every- | day use, and it is, therefore, a healthy indi- | catlon, this sudden blossoming out of our | mere advertising notices into things of beauty. esthet significance that forms of grace | lace the outre monstrosities that have heretofore done duty as bushes for what- WRET 15 ThaT, NiéThe: & LIRK,my chald.¥ "i &7 ever sort of wines advertisers have had to | to offer. | Tre Carr, bas been a pioneer among the | newspapers of this coast to adopt an artis- tic form of poster in announcing its Sun- day edition, and the brave young warrior who bears upon his shield the programme | for each week in active demand among | collectors of these works of art. | There is a deep significance in this beau- tiful figure that has become as it were THE Ca presiding geni He isthe cham- pion of the Pacific Coast. He stands for war to the knife and no quarter against all e at threaten the commonwealth, for clean journalism, for pure politics and the defeat of swincles, jobberies and corrupt monopolists inst which Tue CALL's face B el Another artistic and appropriate poster announcing a loczl publication is the dainty design issued by the publishers of The Lagk. 7The dainty little chap tuning his pipe is the very subtie essence of that spirit of mirth-making and joy for which alone The Lark stands. It is the | Lark himself piping to us from the morn- ing meadows. Not =0 happy is this latest effect from the publishers of the Overland. One is puzzled, studying the grewsome figure, to decide whether it is a prophecy or a rem- iniscence. Whatever its significance, it is not a lovely object, and suggests a desire | to attract attention rather than to produce | an artistic effect. There are many other poster-makers, but a few specimens mustsuffice. The Echo of Chicago is reaching out for talent in every direction. It has given promi- nence to the productions of Landers, Sloan and Nankivell. In its issue of July 1 the Echo “We draw attention to the | new poster that we issue this month by F. A. Nankivell, a San Francisco artist for whom we claim great possibilities. In this particular poster there is a graceful beauty of line and a sketchiness that reniinds one of Van Beers. We venture to affirm that ]| this poster of Nankivell's is hereafter to be | in reckoned with any summing up of American poste: SOME REGENT VERSES, Several years ago the editor of a well- | It has a moral aswell as an | | known magazine said to the present writer: “Poetry? Oh, when we need a poem to fill out a page we set one of the staff off in a corner until he has ground out the requi- site number of verses.”” Looking through the pages of our maga- zines to-day it almost seems as though this description of *‘poetry done to order’ would apply to most of the current verse. Here is a batch gathered from the June and July magazines: Inthe July McClure’s appears a poem by Edmund Gosse, which, however, we must feel assured was not made for filling- in purposes, although it is difficult to_see for what other purpose it is printed. Itis entitled “Tusitala in Vailima,” and is a tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson, on whom be peace. We are told, in a footnote, that the ef- fusion reached Stevenson just three days prior to his death. The poet reviews the days, years gone by, when he had known Stevenson in Scotland, and asks him: Does your heart remember, Tusitals, Westward in our Scotch September, Blue against the sun’s pale ember, That low rim of faint, long islands, Barren, granit-snouted nesses Plunging in the dull’d Atlantic, Where beyond Tiree one guesses At the full tide loud and frantic? And he then proceeds to wrest from the language this lament over Tusitala’s absence from his native land: Vanish’d? Ay, that's still the trouble, Tusitalat Though yonr tropic Isle rejoices, "Tis to us an Isle of Voices Hollow like the elfin double Cry of disembodied echocs, Or an owlet’s wicked laughter, Or the cold and horned gecko' Croaking from a ruined rafter— Voices these of things existing, Yet incessantly resisting Eyes and hands that follow after; You are circled, as by magic, In the surt-built palmy bubble, Tusltala; Fate hath chosen, bt the choice Is Half delectable, half tragic, For we hear you speak, like Moses, And we greet you back, enchanted, But reply’s no sooner granted Then the rifted cloud-land closes. There is a certain rhythmical beauty about these lines that captivates the ear and cheats the reason in the reading, but it were easier to track the jabberwock Lo his lair than to follow the poet’s idea amid the mazes of language in which he has en- meshed it. i The July Muncey's gives us some verses and artistic loveliness are in demand to re- | by Bliss Carmen, who enjoys an unmistak- able vogue just now as oneof the Chap | Book’s pet poets. In this screed, which he | calls “A Son of the Sea,”” he tells us: 1 was sired among the surges: T was cubbed teside the foa; All my heart is in its verges, And the sea wind is my home. The first two lines, although strained and uncouth, are intelligible, but who shall say what the poet means when he says: “All my heart is in its verges,” And who shall follow the fancy-flights of the genius that makes his home in the | sea wind ? The next verse is: All my boyhood, from far vernal Bournes of being, came to me Dream-like. plangent and eternal Memories of the plunging sea. There is a certain pleasingness of sound about this which, for the moment, ob- scures the fact that it is pure nonsense. The memories of the sea wafted from | “vernal bournes” is a fatal lapsus naturew, | and one only equaled by that of another | poet in a recent magazine. The offender | this time is Emma Carleton, who, in the | Chap Book for Juna 1, writes: I peers the golden daffodil Along thy footpath way; Still chant the jay, the thrush, the lark, Their summer 3ongs all day The jay does not sing at all. The thrush sings only in the evening, and who that The Lark’s Poster for May. has heard the lark’s glorioas burst of glad | melody would drear of calling it a chant? Who, indeed, but a modern poet? i In the Chap Book for June 15 Louise Chandler Moulton, who ought to know better, speaks of Lord de Tabley, whom she hails as a poet who “does not appeal, as did Burns, or Whittier, or Longfellow, to the ordinary reader,”’ as singing: A song of dust for waning years, A solemn song in sackcloth clad, Whose, chords are wet with poignant tears And its pale singer's lips are sad. Mrs. Moulton must answer against two counts this time. In a recentissue of the Century she has a sonnet in which she asks, tragically: Shall I lie down to sleep, and see no more The splendid afluence of earth and sky; The proud procession of the stars go by : The white moon sway the earth and woo the shore; The morning lark to the far heavens soar: ‘The uightingale with the soft dusk draw nigh? It might be in order to remind the poet that if she dees lie down.to sleep she mus$ in the very nature of slumber forego the vision of the splendors she enumerates, but that were, perhaps, frivolous, and we will content ourselves with a_protest against the absurdity of a New England A Poster by Frank A. Nankivell. g{oet implying that she ever did see on ew England soil, The morning lark to the far heavens soar: The nightingale with the soft dusk draw nigh. ‘We are not yet done with the Chap Book's poets. In the issue for July 15 Jean Wright is eased of a plague called a song, which is sung as follows: The fickle wind blows west and east, Love blows as the wind blows. The fickle moon islove’s high priest, Love blows into the heart. Sweet love, sweet love is lightly won, Love blows as the wind blows. Sweet love, sweet love Is quickly gone, Love biows into the heart. April's made of shine and shower, Love biows as the wind blows. The north wind frights each timid flower, What 1s Thar Mother? ANGVST -+ Scts The Lark’s Poster for August. June roses with their hearts on fire, Love biows as the wind blow: ¥lame and fade in their own desire, Love blows into the heart. Ah! periect love, for thee a sigh, Love blows as the wind blows. Thou wert 5o fair and sweet to die, Love blows into the heart. Bind with the rue thy radiant brow, Love blows as the wind blows. Beloved of the gods wert thou, Love blows into the heart. Clinton Scollard is another of our newer bards who, like Bliss Carmen, has a vogue, just now, and he has a love song in the current Munsey, in which he lilts (lilt is quite the proper thing in poetic words just now), as follows: THE DUEL i Forsooth, T oft had faced the foe, When face the foe I must, And parried blow with stinging blow, And thrust with counterthrust. L. So when the fatal challenge cathe 1 girt mge for the fight, And went like one of noble name To battle fof the right. beed We met, and lo! T stood abashed, A trembling wight at bay, For from my foeman’s eyé there flashed A single rapier ray. Iv. 0 malds and masters, tender be! For, with his cruel art, Young Love, my “dearest enemy,” Hath pierced me t0 the heart. This might have vassed in the day and from the pen of Sir John Suckling, but in this day and generation it is merely an archaic and not particularly graceful pose. One wonders why, if Mr. Scollard thought that particalar bowl of cream worth whip- ping he did not whip it to better con- sistency. ‘We have spoken of “lilt” as a fayorite word with our bards. Spilled, or, indiffer- ently, “spilt” is another. It seems as if, our poets having slopped over, evervthing else must do likewise. For instance Cur- rent Literature for,June quotes a sonnet by Isabel Bowman Finley, which opens: When Night comesdown it resurrectsthe hours The Day has spilt;into our beggar hands. “ EVERY ONE IS TOO GOOD TO ME; I AM SO . SAD.” 1% £ : [From a caricature of Charles Warren Stoddard, Poet of the South Seas, by his friend and admirer. Joseoh Strona.} Love blows into the heart. | And in the Cosmopolitan for Au oceurs this quatrain by John B. Tab *Tas all she could: The gitt that Nature gave, "The torrent of ber tresscs—did she spill Before his feet; and 1o, the iroutled wave Of passion heard his whisper, “Peace, be still.” _The poet here seems a little uncertain in his historic values, but the conception of that “torrent of tresses’” spilled before the Master’s feet is certainly unique. But words, words, of these our poets have over many, yet, apparently, all too few. Here, for Instance, is Francis Saltus writing “Dreams After Sunset,” like this: ‘When I press unto mine arms with thirst of cap- ture, The fond form my yearning senses {dolize The pale thought of separation from such rapture Comes to chill me with its terrible surprise. And William Morris, whom we had fondly hoped to trust, telling 01 Margaret mitting glorious there In glory of gold and zlory of hair ‘And glory of glorious face most fair. _In Harper's for July, Rosamund Mar- riott-Watson makes The strong, living heart Beat the dissolute dust. And here is Rudyard Kipling’s latest con- tribution to the cup of our general woe: ‘Weknowed too much to suffer—we was bloomin’ cunnin’, too, An'a company commander up an’'it us with 'is sword, An’ some one shouted “’00k it,” an’ it come to Save-ki-poo, Aw we chucked our rifles from us—oh, my Gawd! These selections were not made with malice prepense. They are taken entirely atrandom from the current magazines an are given as samples of what our modern poets are doing. We are taught that toward the end of a century we may look for a period of decadence in all forms of art. This, in fact, is what is meantto be conveyed by that modern phrase-of-all- work fin de siecle. A contradiction is be- ing given to it in certain lines, however. Atno period have we had such a galaxy of brilliant young prose-writers as are busy in this last decade of the present century; but if their work in our magazines is to be any criterion, our poets are nothing if not fin de siecle. Vapid, affected, imitative, it would almost seem as though the verdict of the Philistines had some justification in the evidence and that the art of verse- making is an art of the past. AN IMAGINATIVE MAN. Have we a new man to match the new woman? Certamn indications in the litera- ture of to-day prompt the conclusion that we must have & new man and that George | Moore is his apostle. - He, Moore, has given us several examples of the type in his latest book, ‘Celibates,” and now comes R. S. Hichens with enother, even { more weird, more utterly new, if that were possible, than the newest of Moore’s | new creations. Mr. Hichens, it must be understood, is the author of ‘‘Green Car- nations,” a recent exotic whigh, published anonymously, was for a time credited to Oscar Wilde. Mr. Hichens is evidently the disciple of the apostle of the new man. “The Imaginative Man’’ he calls his latest creation, and he introduces him to us standing in his young wife’s bedroom, watching the lady say her prayers. “I wonder why she is praying?”’ Henry Den1- con thought, still looking at his wife and drawing his brows together in a slight frown. “Is it because she believes in God, or because | she wishes to sound me? * * * I wonder what she is praying about?” He moved a step forward, as if to go soitly out of the room, then paused again. { _“I wonder whether she is a Pharisee,” he | thought, *‘and for a pretense makes long pra s? Or perhaps she tancies I have gone down- stairs. She cannot see; her eyes are blinded by her hands. These private prayers are fas- cinating—everything that is strictly private is fascinating. * * * The Bluebeard’s cham- ber of the soul is, after all, the only room worth looking into. * * *'Ihave not quite got into Enid’s, Bluebeard's chamber yet. I The Overland’s Poster. wonder if there are headless creatures there— Dizarre monuments of her mental crimes? Let us hope so.” Much after this fashion the creature dodders on through the whole of a_rather good-sized volume. Henry Denison is considered an odd fellow. His creator tells us that “‘he was a man who considered it almost criminal to be what men call ‘a thoroughly good fellow.”” Fortunately, however, “‘this last insult had not yet been offered him. Sometimes he had waited for it with dread, but it had never come. His personality had gnarded him from and for this he was thankful.” Anything that this charming character understood becomes to him an object of loathing. He is married to a dear little girl who adores him. So long as she puz- zles him he is interested in her, but a few months after marriage came the fatal mo- ment when “he felt inclined to seize Enid by herssoft white throat and cry, ‘You fool, why have you allowed me to under- stand you?” They go to Egypt. He dreads to see the Sphinx, lest this famous mystery shall fail to impress him. He is agreeably disap- pointed, however, and falls in love with it —if one may use buman language in re- eounting the vagaries of Mr. Hichens’ cre- ation. He is fascinated, held. He neglects his wife, eschews the society of his kind and spends all his nights under the spell of that ancient face of stone. When the time comes #or their departure he sets a trap be- side his wife’s bed, falling into which she sprains her ankle, and their stay is thus prolonged. There are some side issues to the tale—a dying, consumptive boy, gone mad over the sensuous pleasures of Cairo—and his mother, who, seeing him going the pace that kills, dare not check him. Denison and the boy visit a famous dancing apart- ment in the city, and we are treated to a vision of mysteries that recalls a recent stricture unon the measures of our modern poets, which characterizes them as ‘‘erotic, neurotic and Tommyrotic.” The book comes to no definite end. Our last vision of the young wife reveals her wandering about in the night in search of her errant spouse, who is bidding farewell to the Sphinx—for they leave, at last, on the foi- lowing morning. That is all. It has not been our pleasure as yet to come across the new man- anywhere out- side of a book, but the type is becoming numerous to the verge of nausea inthe work of a certain London school of literary dabblers. It is possible that his advent may bring surcease from the new woman, but what agnco to pay for that immun- ity [New York: . Appleton & Co. For s&{e by William Doxey.] GERALD MASSEY, POET, PROPHET AND MYSTIC. B. 0. Flower has done the world a genu- ine service in giving us this appreciative, sympathetic study of Gerald Massey, a poet of more than common inspiration and gentus, of whom too little has been thought of late years. Massey is essentially a poet of the people in an even more intimate sense, perhaps, than William Morris de- serves that title. He might easily have been one of England’s popular sinzers, for he possesses the gift of song ina high de- gree, had he not chosen rather to dedicate his muse to the cause of the laboring man, the weak and the oppressed. In his study of him Mr. Flower indicates certain striking resemblances between this English singer and our own Quaker poet. 5 Massey is passionately in love with the beauty in common life. He is a tireles reformer, hating injustice more than he loves life, and possessing a spiritual in- sight equaled by few poets. These were The Call’s Poster. also marked characteristics of Whittier. The titles poet, seer and prophet were as applicable to him as to Massey, although, as Mr. Flower points out, the latter pos- esses less intuitional perception than did Whittier. The book contains many quo- tations from Massey’s poems, and will prove for many readers their first intro- duction to the singer. Asa mystic and a seer his interpreter is peculiarly fitted for the task of presenting him to the Ameri- can people, for Mr. Flower is himself thoroughly imbued with the spirit of mys- tieism, the spiritual insight and the pas- sion for humanity that breathe through all Massey’s work. He has given us a book of real worth and interest. There is not too much of the reform element between the covers of his book to detract from its literary merit, while yet every page sug- A Poster by Will K. Bradley. gests the impulse of humanity’s upgoing, [Boston: The Arena Publishing Company.] A TRAVELER'S GUIDEBOOK. The passenger department of the New York Central Railroad has issued the fifth volume of its Four Track Series. The volume is prettily bound and lavishly illustrated, many of the pictures being taken from well-known works of travel. The book is one of great value to those intending to travel for health or pleasure. New York: The New York Central and udson River Railroad, George H. Daniels General Passenger Agent, $1.] THE MAGAZINES. TrE ArENA.—The leading feature of the Arena for August is a paper by Helen Gardener, giving the history of recent age- of-consent legislation in the United States. Professor George H. Emmott writes on an arbitration treaty between Great Britain and the United States. B. O. Flower has an attractive paper on the present age, which he calls “The August Present.’’ The symposium for the month is a num- ber of brief papers by representative ‘women on the single tax, ScrieNER’S MaGazINE for August is a fiction number and a notable one. Presi- dent Anderson’s history gived way—goes over until September—before the insatiate demands for space of the short story, and we have a blessed respite until' the same time from Robert Grant’s inanities on the “Art of Living.”” There is, however, one— and only one—important and serious paper in thenumber. Theodore Roosevelt writes upon “*Six Years of Civil Service Reform,” and wri‘es with the personality, the ability and from the standpoint to command at« tention and respect. TaE F orux for August hag a character- istic article by W. H. Mallock, entitled “Isan Income-Tax Socialistia¢® ©Probably no one ever thought that it'was, save Mr. Mallock, who has a peculiar facility in setting up men of straw and earnestly de- voting his valuable breath to the task of blowing them over. “The Deep Water- ways Problem’’ is an article by E. V. Smalley, editor of the Northwest Maga- zine, that will interest Western readers, and the literary feature of the magazine is a paper of literary reminiscences by Mau- rius Jokai, the Hungarian author. Los Angeles has a magazine called “The Lana of Sunshine,” that is in every way a credit to California. Itisedited by Charles F. Lummis, himself a writer of charming ‘Western stories,and he has gathered about him an able staff of contributors. The half-tone 1llustrations appear to be for the most part produced in Los Angeles. They are well made as a general thing, but some- times lack that certain quality of ‘‘develop- ment’’ required for good effect. This is particularly true of the reproductions on page 141 of the current number. Tre CosmororiTaN .for August finds it possible_to give stories by Sir Edwin Arnold, Henry B. Fuller, W. C. Barnes and W. Clark Russell, together with a number of papers and articles by other literary notables for 10 cents. Whether cheapness will continue to be compatible with this degree of excellence is a problem which we fancy the Cosmopolitan has still to solve, but the merit of the present number is un- mistakable. HARPER'S MAGAZINE continues to ex- ploit * Julian Ralph. ' That puissant trav- eler gives us a commonplace ‘account of “Evervday Scenes in China” in the August number and . Pouvltney Bigelow’s study of “The German Struggle for Lib- erty” is continued. There is a suitable amount of midsummer fiction and an arti- cle by Frederic Remington, who is al- ways admirable, like his own drawings, on “*Cracker Cowboys of Florida.” Moops—*“A Journal Intime” announces that a feature of its forthcoming volume will be ““The reply of Gigadibs, a dramatic monologue, being the reverse to the ob- verse of Browning’s Bishop Blougram’s Apolo%y'." Moods does not say s, but it is_probably written by the Idiot of the Oddlot of what the sage meant when he said “All the fools are not yet dead.” The Traveller for August is up to its usual high standard, both in regard to the quality of the letterpress and the illustra- tions. Among its many good features may be mentioned an- article on the evolution of the bi:icle or velocipede, which is timely in view of the present rage for the wheel.