The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 20, 1904, Page 7

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY STUDIES Of a Bibliolater :C PARROTT of the h literature at sed a book of e of the mak- upon literature an nglish cle atten- best ich merits dents of th Studies of ttres. alls his volume. Eight he character f his several of his work roaches his task oint of dogmatic the assumptions n the contrary, upon common ledge the per- of a close student d find In the terature some new an hing thought to broaden conceptions of the esthetic value of He would likewise give an o the personalities of the ers as reflected, consciously in their works of Matthew Arnold,” the s studie on of this literary ef- in popular of his prose ¢ our critical to Professo idactic also philo- s ap- poet from somewhat one or two 2 pure poetry. claim it is difficult admissions of Ar- ts. He lacked al- ress of color and ap- ul words, accord He was deficient true rhythm me. The fac- ing into a fairyland of such as Shelley ot Arnold’s. There re- d purity, the simple- ess of the poet’s lyrics tt’s claims. This would s blossoms ¢ upon “The Autobioz- ' the writer advances uggestive idea that such be compiled oy & dis- g student from out of the ton’s many and diverse because of the self-conscious which the blind poet always An egoist he was un- y who could pen in his son- net addressed to Cyriak Skinner that be had lost his eyes: M In Mberty's Gefense, my noble task Of which all Eurcpe rings from side te side. By giving extracts in free translation from Miitex's little known “Defensio BSecunda” the author shows the xreat Puritan's naive seif-esteem and his unhesitating way of expressing the seIme. Parrott’s essays upon “The Person- ality of Dr. Johnson™ and “The Charm of Goldsmith” have little originality in them. They simply give in brief the femiliar outline of these worthies of the famous Kit-Kat Club—the ox and the opper, fearsome the one and lov- able the other. “Old BEdinburgh and Her Poet Leureate” deals with Robert Ferguson and his circle of literati. “The Vitality of Browning” serves the essayist as & happy toplo for discus- sion. Browning is never dull he brought to his poetry an extraordinary grasp upon the passions of mankind, upon the realities of life; a lasting in- fluence is his. Bir Walter Bcott. “the last minstrel” is for Parrott a greater poet then we are won't to consider him. A comparison between his essay upon Ecott's poetry and a critical review of the same subject by Arthur Bymons in the ourrent Atlantic Monthly shows that Professor Parrott’s esti- mate of Soott is not concurred in by all the critics. (James Pott & Co., New York: fil- lustrated; price $1 26.) e REPRINTS Of Valuable Works TLLIAM MORRIS, designer of W!u‘.ned glass, writer of So- clalistic screeds and poet of the Pre-Raphaelites, is probably less in this country than any of he Victorian men of letters whose work bears the stamp of the classic literature. Whether because Mor- v e was overshadowed at the sroduction by the greater e of Rossetti's or Swinburne’s, « whether in the medievalism in which it is steeped America cannot f ready sympathy, the fact re- nains that we on this side of the ocean have yet much of beauty and of strength to discover in the poetry ils man whom we have chosen in large measure to underrate or over- look entirely. Excellent opportunity is given for this by the appearance of a ; gle-volume edition of his known poems co by Professor Percy R. Colwell. The worth of Morris' poems lies more in their spirit than in the polish of their form. His romances of Teu- tonic and Icelandic legend may lack the polished beauty of “The Idylls of the King,” but they certainly possess the bold strength and unsophisticated bluffness of spirit of the sagas them. selves. “The Earthly Paradise” and “Sigurd, the Volsung,” parts of which sppear in this collection, are vividly uresque narrative poems, hardly excelled in English. The poet's best efforts, “Defense of Guenevere,” “King Arthur's Tomb,” “Shameful Death” and “Riding Together,” all included in the present volume, should be knowh to every one who claims close ac- quaintance with the literature of the golden Victorian era. Professor Colwell's work upon the compllation of the book is deserving of mention. Besides a complete bibli- ography as prefatory matter, he has written a comprehensive biographical introduction and supplied notes and commentary to tlose the volume. The work is published in library size in cloth, half calf and limp seal, with type and workmanship very adequate. (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York; price, cloth, $2 00.) One of the most valued of all the season's reprints is the collection of ecsays, “Nature and Culture,” by Ham- flton Wright Mable, which is brought out by Dodd, Mead & Co. in a hand- some Christmas edition. - This series of essays by Mr. Mabie, that person- able student of books and of men, is too familiar to the well read to need a resume. The edition is made an artistic one by the use of woodland photographs as material for {llustra- tion. Reproduced in photogravure on heavy paper with a startling dis- tinctness of detall, these illustrations are very aptly chosen to convey the spirit of Mr. Mable's thoughts. (Dodd, Mead & Co, New York; price $2.) Two recent additions to H. M..Cald- well & Co.’s very tasty Red Letter Li- brary are “Poems by Willlam Cowper” and “Poems by Robert Herrick,” both edited and prefaced by an introductory note by Mrs. Alice Meynell. These handy pocket volumes in red limp leather, and thoroughly artistic typo- graphically, constitute one of the most pleasing teatures of the year's serial publication of standard literature. In brief comment upon one of these volumes note may be taken of Mrs. Meynell's estimate of that dull drab poet Cowper. Ehe finds in this poet one whose natural desire to soar into the high realms of exalted posey was ocurbed and squared off by the literary . fashion of the times. “And we must read him,” says the critic, “with the fact present in our mind that no pas- sion was then looked for in poetry, that no half-thought, no speculation, no groping, no hesitancy, would have been tolerated, that no word not in the best epistolary or conversational use would have been admitted.” Mrs. Meynell further finds, however, that the heart which had to volce itself in moderate phrase and oareful exactness was & human heart, stirring with intensely human emotions. Well, after all, the poet whe could write “To a Bofa” and “On Mrs. Mon- tague's Feather Hangings” only under the repression of the reigning styls in verse may have been capable of better thinga (H. M. Caldwell & Co., Boston.) How many have stowed away in some misty corner of the brain that haunting refrain of dole: It's fitty tathoms deep, An’ there Mes guid Bir Patrick Spence, W' the Scots’ lords at Lis feet. Those old ballads of border days have a savor about them such as nothing in our literature possesses. Grisly trag- edy, hot love, the clash of war—all told in the quaint rhythm and forgotten words of a past age. And since those who set store by these old folk songs cannot well carry with them the two great volumes of Child it 1s a blessed circumstances that “Old English Bal- 1ads” should be the last issued of Mac- millan’s Pocket Classics series. The little book is prepared under the selec- tion and editing of Professor Willlam Dallam Armes of the department of English at Berkeley. Professor Armes explains in a pre- face that to some extent he has mod- ernized the diction of the ballads in- corporated “for more comfortable read- ing,” being convinced that *“too much quaintness (in the matter of archalc text) often prevents an appreciation of the essential characteristics and the poetical qualities of the ballads.” In addition to this revision of the text the compiler of the little volume has added for our better knowledge a comprehen- sive review of the growth of the ballad as a form of the poetic expression of the people, of the variations in ballad form and its influence upon the litera- ture of the race. Full notes in expla- nation of the text complete this very satisfactory little book. (The Macmillan Company., New York; illustrated; price 25 cents.) Sy AND YET More Red Romance T seems that the reading world can yet be beguiled with a cock’s plume and tickled with a trailing rapier. Now it is Louis le Debonnaire, self-proclaimed ‘“lover of strife and devil-may-care,” who flits across the mimic stage of romance with a bow and a swagger. Those that sit up o' nights over the red-cloak-and-tin-pot- helmet kind of fiction applaud this new comer mightily, and one W. F. Pay- son is glad, for he is the gay cavaller's creator. Not that this Debonnalre is a whit different from the score of other cloaked and beited swashbucklers who have carved their way throuhg novels for a dozen years past; not that the deeds he accomplishes are the least less im- probable. Only let an author trick out a new lay figure with an eighteenth- century costume, give that figure an impudent tongue and a strong sword arm, place it somewhere where history has been made in the past and then let it run to the limit of its motive mech- anism. Like the great doll of Nurem- burg, its evolutions will be so near life-like as to delude the near-sighted into conviction. . This Louis le Debonnaire is captain of the Carignan-Salieres, recently come to Quebec, and a perfect devil of a fel- low is he. At a certain wassailing he wagers the Governor of Canada that he will go straightway to New Amster- dam, there woo and win a certain fair French lady and have her back in the feast hall by 8 o’clock on the evening ot Christmas. This he swears, and this he backs by two thousand crowns. Nom de Dieu! Off to New Amsterdam goes this pre- coclous dare-devil with the spirit of the game bubbling under his shirt ruff. Once on the fleld of activities, he finds that a certain overgrown Dutch Attorney General is the professed suitor for the fair lady’s hand, but, pout! the Dutch- man is folled; pouf, again! and in three aays Louis le Debonnaire has won the heart of the beauty. A little fighting, of course, a little swearing of grand oaths and all that, then the redoubt- able Louls is back to Quebec with his clinging bride-to-be and a clalm for payment of the wager. Sacre bleu! and a nom de grand nom! also an’ it please you. (McClure, Phillips & Co., New York; {llustrated. Price $1 60-) — NATURE In Essay and Story ‘6 UP’LAND PASTURES,” a little volume of nature essays by Adeline Knapp, which comes from the presses bound in the green of growing things, is Keith in terms of words just as surely as the frontis- piece prefacing is Keith expressed in the medium of form and color. What the artist causes to glow green for us in his “Upland Pastures” and to bring for us all the refreshing breath of the woodlands the writer transmits in the more subtle conveyance of the written thought. A like uplift resides in the painted and the worded page from the nature book. 2" {RIST B OB ME e N TR\ | 1) \ ! . Miss Knapp is a close student of the laws behind the springing of the grass and the bursting of the bloom, but in her appreciations of the aspects of nature she seeks to find, rather, the poetry that Is in every growing thing and to strike harmonies out of creation to which the soul of man may make answer. “The keener our realization of the human love that is in the flow- ers, in the trees, in all the wild life about us,” writes the essayist, “the richer is our humanity, the fuller our reception of life and love, the more thoughtful our use of all the things of nature becomes.” The publishers have given “Upland Pastures” a form well fitted to the epirit of the text. Printed upon heavy Ruisdeal paper in clear black type, with page captions in a red decorative scheme, and bound in dull olive green, half leather, the book is as perfect a plece of craftsmanship as any on the hollday market. The edition is limited to 1100 coples, signed and numbered by the author. (Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco; price $3.) Nature storles, which had their vogue with the first conceits of Ernest Thompson Seaton (or Hrnest Seaton Thompson, as he was then called) have been justly open to the attacks of: the parodist. Bome of the most extrava- gant of these writers about animals have made the thing a farce by their extremes of invention. Bither Charles Frederi¢ck Stansbury, who wrote “A Kittiwake of the Great Kills,” is one of these extremists or he is a very clever parodist. I am inclined to the latter opinion. The first story of the author's col- lection is one of those typical lachry- mose rehearsals of the woes of a poor little bird whose life had been harassed by wicked hunters. At first one is In- clined to believe that the author really does belong to the Audubon Sobiety, but when he speaks of “the little widow,” meaning the bereaved Kkittl- wake, the doubting reader begins to detect a sly wink In the author’s-rhet- oric. Then again he tells a story of 2 magpie that used to crawl in bed with the writer every morning and le there on his back perfectly contented while the covers were pulled up be- neath his bill. And then another story about a little mousie that lost her rea- son and ate up all of her hopeful progeny. 1f this isn't & very clever satire it is a very wishy-washy story book. (The Grafton Press, New Yorl lustrated; price $1 25.) A STORY Which Fascinates HE publishers announce that an individual who had been following the sérial course of Katherine Cecil Thurston's novel, “The Masque- 11- CALL rader,” In Harper's Bazar, wrote to the editor of that publication request- Ing the favor of advance proofs of the completed novel through fear that im- pending death might rob him of the story’s final solution. One can hardly blame the Invalid; it would be a mis- fortune indeed to pass into the beyond with the novel only half read. Nor can one blame the publishers for trad- ing upon this unusual request, for an advertisément so strong could not be evolved from the most fertile brain. “The / Masquerader” is one of the most keenly constructed stories pro- duced in many a month. It is a story, pure and simple, with no ethical sig- nificance, no didactic ends to be sub- served. Upon the plot, remarkably unique and developed through bafiing turns of circumstance, hangs every- thing. Despite the fact that already readers have been raising mooted points of ethical contention and moral conviction anent the author’s solution of the puzzle in her novel, the truth remains that this is a story, only, a story to amuse; all speculation con- cerning the ulterior purpose of the book 1s decidedly beside the mark, for there is none. The author has founded her plot on impossible premises and worked it out to a logical conclusion. Given two men of an exact identity, the one a de- generate under the clutch of morphia but possessed of a high position, the other unknown yet the master of areat potentialities for action; they change places, each entering upon the sphere of individuality held by the other; ‘what results are possible? Mrs. Thurs- ton has conceived of results as one could never guess at. Bullding up one complication after another, following one situation with another, perfectly logical but equally unexpected, she has constructed a tissue of circumstance whose every turning brings surprise And a teverish desire to gain the next. The mechanics of her story building are perfect, yet so concealed as to be manifested only through the super- structure of even incident which they support. Two lines of interest divide the suspense of the reader. John Loder, the man who has usurped the identity of the degenerate Chilcote, finds that a crisis In the foreign policy of England thrusts upon him opportunities for putting into play faculties for leader- ship that are madly beating within him. Through the seat in Parllament, which he holds by virtue of his assump- tion of the part of the degenerate Chil- cote, he is enabled to mount by leaps and bounds to the heights of ambition. Yet how unstable his foundation: a word, a line of writing from the em- bodied Mr. Hyde in the strange ex- change may wreck all. Again the love element in the book is one admitting of boundless opportunity for surprise for the author. A situation of some delicacy, very like that in which Stev- enson’s Davy Balfour found himself with Margaret in the Lowlands. calls for the author’s neatest ingenuity. Batisfying is hardly the word of sum-~ mation for “The Masquerader,” for after reading it one is very likely to be in dissatisfled unrest because of the fact that he will probably go far be- fore finding another bit of fiction so good. (Harper & Bro trated; price $1 50.) GOSSIP Of the Book World NE of the most prominent Rus- slan journalists, whose pen name i{s “Boukva,” writing from Leipsic, says In a Moscow dally that even in Germany, a country claim- ing Intellectual pre-eminence, to say nothing of Europe at large, the busi- ness of writing and publishing serious and substantial books is decaying. The Russian journalist quotes a leading publisher as saying (we give the trans- lation of the Literary Digest): ‘‘Yes, this business is dead—or at least dying. Books? Who now wants a book, and for what? Books are read nowadays only by professors, manlacs, pedants and prisoners condemned to solltary confinement. Books cost money and time, and contemporary readers have New York: fllus- ) neither. Why should one pay several marks for a single book when for the same amount one can fill a whole shelf with manufactured periodical rubbish? And how is one to get time for books when the struggle for existence hardly leaves a moment of leisure? Men think of the existence of baoks either in rail- way carriages or—in bed, when they desire to f eep with the least de- lay.” The writer declares further that “the attitude of the publishers toward scientific men and authors one of chilly indifference, even of sco 1 con- tempt. To them everything is stale, an- tiquated, uninterest superfluous. Everything has been said; everything has been printed and co d to the storeroom. A book which n count on no more than a total sale of three or four thousand copies is rejected by pub- lishers as a hcpeless proposition. They will not put it out at thelr risk, even it the author foregoes all compensation.” is In the preface (dated April 23, 1902) to his “Life of Willlam Shake- speare,” now Issued in a separate vol- ume by Dana Estes & Co., Dr. Rolfe tells a curious story of literary brigandage which may not be gen- erally known and which may be re- peated her He says: “The manuscript of the TLife’ was finished, except for the notes, in May, 1901, and from the beginning of June to the middle of September was kept in a safety vault at Cambridge. In October it mysteriously disappeared from my library. Though I had lit- tle doubt by whom it was taken, the evidence was purely circumstantial: and for that and other reasons it was impossible for me to make any effort to regaln possession of it. The person who took it intended, after reading it, to return !t without betraying himself, but he was afterward tempted to put it into other hands with a false state- ment of its history, possibly with a view to its being ut!lized, in part it not as a whole, in print. This can hardly be done with safety, but it has com- plicated the affair and interfered with the return of the manuscript in time for it to go to press as promised. I have therefors been compelled to un- dertake the depressing task of rewrit- ing it, and the present volume is the result.” Dr. Mitchell has had pald to him by the critical press of the country a compliment which rarely falls to a writer of fiction. His recent book, “New Samaria,” s made up In a large part of an account of the experiences of & man who threw himself upon the charity of such of his fellow men as he chanced to meet in the highways and byways. For the purposs of his story, as well as for the enforcementg of his idea, Dr. Mitchell was obliged to create a situation improbable in it self. This fact has been universally recognized by the critics, but likewise there has been almost universal agree- ment in the fact that the situation which Dr. Mitchell has outlined is en- tirely convincing as he expresses it. This would seem to bear upon the old question as to whether the fact that a writer knows his situation to be based upon actual occurrence is sufficient to warrant him in relating what is not plausible to the reader. From the London Globe comes this Jament: “There is no more painful sign of modern ‘hustle’ than the ever- decreasing lease of life allotted to novels nowadays. An interesting In- terview with a publisher in a month- ly magazine which devotes itself to the fortunes of books shows what an expert thinks of the matter. ‘Few people,” he says, ‘realize how short the life of an average book is. Fif- teen years ago you could count on its existence for two or three years. Now thres books out of every four are dead as a mutton in thres months. ™ It is, of course the transient interest in the subject matter of the majority of novels which accounts for thelr short life. What are ocalled Bible novels, such as “Ben Hur,” and “Tarry Thou TiIl I Come,” which are still having good sale, rest on a more last- ing basis and will appeal just as strongly to the readers of to-morrow as to those of yesterday and to-day. News comes from London that .the late Guy Wetmore Carryl's “Trans- gression of Andrew Vane” is being dramatized for Mr. Charles Warner, who made such a favorable impres- slon in New York last year in “Drink™ and in “The Two Orphans.” It is more than probable that the play will be seen on this side befors long. Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. announce that the novel on which it i3 based is in its fourth printing here, and has been published in England by Mr. ‘Willlam Heinemann. called, it is a highly dramatic story of the experience of Andrew Vane, a nice young Harvard man in the American colony in Paris. It is not stated whether Mr. Warner {5 to play the title part, or Radwallader, the very striking polished villain of the story. Anne Warner, the author of the pop- ular humorous book, “Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop,” never went to school, nevertheless she is ex- ceptionally well educated, her mother and private tutars acting as her teach- ers. She began writing when she was a child, and at the age of nine wrote As may be re-# ound a big f could to his b rer st as he e for fear His bro and I v mamma ¢ Give me the worm s she ate the we hear any more of t Mr. L “Japa tion,” has Last Febr publication tirely. was pe that he actly right. In Washington, issus, Thacke to an American Far “Life of ( at once Into the books most called for" at the lib: of Congress. Miss Miriam, Michelson's book, “The Madigans,” In the same ljprary took Immediate rank among the four most popular works of fiction of the week. The first edition of 50,000 copies of Mr. Lorimer’s new book, “Old Gorgon Gra- ham,” being more “Letters From a Self-made Merchant to His Son,” was placed so quickly that the second edi- tion had to be put to press at once, and we believe that an Increasing sale will attend this book, which recounts, for the first time, the real essence of Amer- ican business life, told in a humor- ous and entertaining way. So far as we know, this book will be published in more editions in different countries than any new book we ever heard of. Editions have already been prepared in Japan, Australia, South Africa, Ger- many, France, England, Canada and the United States. The Japanese edition of the first letters, by the way, was published under the title “Shose! Kyo- kum"”—“The Golden Teachings of Life.” “On a Lark to the Planets” is the title of a fanciful record of adventure, somewhat after the manner of Jules Verne’s stories, which has been writ- ten by Frances Trego Montgomery and published by the Saalfleld Company of Akron, Ohio. Of course there ars enough fairies, beautiful palaces and such to delight any well-balanced youngster for many a long hour. The mysteries of the planets will be as an open book to the knowing child who follows the fortunes of Harold and Ione to their happy conclusion. Some rich color {llustrations will pass the uncritical eye of the youngster as be- Ing very fine. “Two In a Zoo,” by Curtls Dunham and Oliver Herford, and {llustrated by the latter, comes from the presses of the Bobbs-Merrill Company of In- dianapolls to contribute to the gayety of infant nations. A pleasing chil- dren’s book this is, with its Intimate storfes of the animals and its many anecdotes of jungle manners tem- pered by the conventions of polite zoo soclety. Anybody between the ages of four and forty will enjoy it. NewBooks Received LITTLE CITIZENS-Myra Kolly; McClure, Phillips & Co, New York: illustrated; price 1 50. THE MOUNTAINS—Stewart Edward Whits; MeClure, Phillips & Co., New York; {llustrat ed; price 31 50. ANDREA—Karin Michaells; lips & Co., New York. THE BOTHEREN-— er Faggard: Mo~ Clure, Phillips & Co.,, New York; flllustrated; price $1 50. THE UNPARDONABLE WAR — James Barns; The Macmillan Company, New Yorks fllustrated; price $1 30 THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION— Francis Lo Wellman; The Macmillan Company, New York: price $2 50. THE HBART OF HAPPY HOLLOW-—Paul Laurencs Dunbar; Dodd, Mead & Co, New York; illustrated by Kemble; price $1 50. McClure, Phile LI'L’ GAL—Paul Laurence Dunbar; Dodd, Mend & Co., New York; illustrated: price $1 50. LOVE FINDS THE WAY—Paul Leicester Ford; Dodd, Mead & Co, New York; ifus- trated by Harrison Fisher; price $2. FAMOUS WOMEN DESCRIBED T GREAT WRITERS—Edited by Esther Single- ton; Dodd, Mead & Co., New York; lllustrated; price $1 60, MAMMY ‘MONGST THR WILD NA- TIONS OF EUROPE—Rutheils Mary Gibbons; Frederick A. Stokes Compeny, New York; U= lustrated; price $1 28, THE QUEEN'S ADVOCATE-Fyederick W, Marehmont; Frederick A. Stekes Company, New York; illustrated; price §1 60, THE CAPTAINS AND KINGS-Henry Haynie; Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York; {llustreted; price §1 60 IMPORTED AMERICANS—Broughton Braf denburg; erick A. Stokes Company, New York; illustrated; price §1 60. A CHICAGO PRINCESS—Robert Barr; Fred- erick A. Stokes Company, New York; Ulus« trated; price $1 60. SAINTS AND FESTIVALS OF THM CHRIS. TIAN CHURCH—H. Pomeroy Brewster; Fred. erick A. Stokes Company, New York; illus- trated: price $2. THE MAN ON THE BOX—Harold Mo Grath; The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indlane apolis; {llustrated; price $1 50. The Hochi Shimbun, Tekio, Japan; illustrated by Japancse artists. UPLAND PASTURES — Adeline Knappj Paul Elder & Co., San Franch imited al= tograph edition; half leather; price $3. CYNIC'S CALENDAR—Ethel Watts Mume- ford, Oliver Herford, Addison Mizner; Paul Elder & Co., ‘San Francisco; price 78 cents, POEMS, LYRIC AND DRAMATIC—Bthel Richard G. Badger, Boston; price THE WISDOM OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON—Arranged and published by The Scott-Thaw Company, New York; limp leather embossed; price $1 2 THE ART OF WISE INVESTING—Pub- lished by Moody Publishing Company, New York. ALGONQUIN INDIAN TRAILS—Egerton R, Young: Eaton & Mains, New York; ilustrated; LOUS ANIMALS—Edwin J. Web- wrederick A. Stokes Company, New fliustrated by Kemble and. Addame; price §2. JACK IN THE ROCKIES—George Bird Grinpell; Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York: llustrated; price $1 25, GOOP TALES—Gelett Burgess; McClure, Phillips & Co., New York; illustrated.