The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 27, 1904, Page 11

HANA, Daughter of Japan i addition to my 4 came last d no thirty odd g for atten- plunged Japanese w efrest yond any ng 1 Hoch Gensai f of the spaper, e i for might see and understand that has been taste sou of the tree; rest of the fruit.” ategorically reck- Indeed a re pter ne w had we not the prefaced word for it. Purpose n every page. cle ante-bellum days had 3 force than “Hana, a er of Jdpan.” Russia is beyond £ hteous. conside; gly right. the ruthless oppre: : hter for liberty. The s the decadence of Japanese stands nlightenment. i not o’ertop i argument of Mr. Gen- ch: c this ‘even the aggrandizer, Jag the figl lot conveyance for ed sentiments—that is T of a old e opening chapter of the s an unfortunte ntlema: from Chicago—a Mr. C seeking health at the springs of mnoshita. His malady is not a broken heart, not nostalgia even, but éyspepsia! Blunt realism this. At the watering place he falls in with a patri- archal Japanese doctor and his charm- ing daughter, Hana. The villain also enters upon the scene of action—Mr. Deanski, a Russian naval officer. The @004 dootor undertakes to cure Mn Comnor .of his ailment and the bad Russian undertakes simultaneously a slege of the falr maiden’s heart. But war's alerms interrupt the progress of both operations. Mr., Danski hurries to join his fleet at Port Arthur and EHana's household is plunged into gloom &t the departure of the only son for the soene of activities. 'We ere spectators next of the thrill- ing torpedo boat attack upon the Port Arthur squadron. In the midst of the exultant Banzals of the victorious Jap- enese sallors sounds this reproof, strangely reminiscent of the admonition thet made an American ship captain femous in the engagement at Santiago. “Boys, don't cheer, men are dying!"” Despite this, however, the Russian Danski comes near dying under the sword of Hana's valiant brother, but he is snatched from death and sent to S Hospital in Japan, where for- tuitously, Hana, the beautiful, serves as a Red Cross nurse. The plot thickens. Hana it to be her duty to Japan to worm out of Danski all the military f rt Arthur. The villain con- e them only on promise of After much mental travail e villain tells all he is sacrificed to a olable for the honor and Mikado. e the dyspeptic Mr. Con- love of the beautiful Jap- has passed through hide- res among the Russians in apt to save her from self- mart He comes to ital grievously wounded upder the care of the fair Thus he importunes her for the use of her manifest grief: “Miss Hana, if you have an inch of SOrTOW your heart, it will reflect mine a foot of grief. You will excuse me for telling it,- Miss Hana, but you have the whole of my sym- pathy. Why can you not tell me the cause of your affiiction?” ‘I have no objection to telling you,” replies Hana, “but I fear it wilk only our heart when you hear it, Conner. 1 cannot bear to give trouble and pain on account of secrets ¢ sents to gi yrdom one upon Mr you e Here is the romance of courtship a la Japonais. Buf to make a long 'story short, Hana cannot entertain the proffered love of Mr., Conner because she feels st to Mr. Danskl summe: nding mar g in Siberia’ hyperborean wi quote the auth phrase—she ré- turns to victoriou »an at the close f the gain meets the in- le Mr. I ki. ‘At a grim moon- t meeting he urges his suit with a revolver, but Hana faithful dog t the villain’s throat, the s from hin fingers, strikes lodes and the bullet finds ski's black heart. Of course, s the now thorough a-proof Mr. Conner of Chicago romance is drawn to a close »uds of painted maple leaves. Ingen at fits the characteri quaint Jap- e novel. Murai has read 1d enough of “Ouida,” Arc avering ( or, and Marie Corelli, ibly, to beli nself possessed the true O 1 story telling idea; with th ion he has flavor built up a t of e which is neither strictly strictly Japanes chil” _ of Western are mot those tiveness idea. those due of of to of one the parents. study of the novel is a delight as well as a benefit to the English reader, for it shows the fiction idea of the West as interpreted according to Japanese lights. By it we may see just how much weight our conventions and traditions of fiction bear with a schooled to totally different ards. I must not neglect to commend the art work in this book. Kwasun Su- & has contributed a r rkably e fective box cover for the volume, be- gldes three colored plates, reproduced from many imprints of wood blocks, are of remarkable beauty. Hand-painted fleur de lis, upon faw colored silk, make striking ins backs. Altogether “Hana, a Daughter of Japan,” is a book to be prized. (Sold by the Shimbashi-Do, No. 1 Izumo-cho, Shimbashi, Tokio.) LA S BROTHERLY - Love and Fighting [DER HAGGARD, the romancer of romancers, has outdone him- self in his last story, “The Brethren.” All that made the early success, “She,” breathless, all that made the later story, “The Pearl Malden,” dramatic finds place in the scheme of this romance. This and something more, a finer touch of the literary essence of restraint than that shown in any of his previ works. The man who wrote ing Solo- mon's Mines” and “Allan Quarte; main” over a decade ago h strug gled through a long period of emanc pation from the shackles of sensation- alism and at last found his place as a master at legitimate romance. The Rider Haggard of to-day is not the Rider Haggard of the eighties, whose books were forbidden children of ner- vous temperament, but eagerly read by the elders in the seclusion of their closets. While not curbing his imag- ination a whit, the popular author has succeeded In diverting it into channels more subdued than.those along which “Eric Brighteyes” and “Maiwa’s Revenge” plunged their mad course. The staid muse of literature may award Flaubert’s “Salammbo” the palm for imaginative romance while withholding a like honor from “King Solomon’s Mines.” This measure of distinction Haggard has recognized in his later books, in none more than the one now under consideration. The Crusades, that inspiration of romance itself, offers Haggard the field for “The Brethren.” His story opens in feudal England at a castle on the Essex cogst, the stronghold of, the D’Arcys. There lives Rosamund, the daughter of old Sir Andrew D’Arcy, a girl born of the romantic marriage between the English knight and the sister"of the great Sultan Sa- ladin of the East. It was while kept in durance in the Moslem potentate’s couyrt that the valiant Crusader had met and wooed the royal Princess, carried her to England as his bride despite every effort of Saladin, and there cherished her until she had died, leaving a daughter to fall heir to- the designs of the powerful Sujtan. Trusting to his two nephews, Wulf and Godwin, twin brothers, to assist s rraen Le GALLIEN, Avrror oF [ zorz srorzs E?i:’z.D of QLD him in keeping his precious treasure, Sir Andrew lives under the haunting fear of Saladin’s long arm. In the early chapters of the story D’Arcy's worst fears are realized. First by bold attack and then by a ruse the retainers of the eastern po- tentate attempt to kidnap Rosamund. The second effort brings success. Sir Andrew killed and the brethren Wulf and Godwin stupefied by drugged wine, Saladin’s agents hurry their fair prize on to a galley and hale her off to be presented to the court of her powerful uncle. There follows a whiri- wind of incident and adventure- The brethren hasten to Syria on the mad quest of rescue. Treachery brings Rosamund to the court of Al-je-bal, a terrible ruler over assassins, Whose stronghold is in the fastnesses of the mountains of Lebanon. Fate draws her rescuers there also. A web of con- spiracy and murderings, a sudden veer from death, escape for all three and at last unexpected clemency from Sala”in, the plot carries through a dramatic fight upon the narrow bridge at Masyaf, the headlong flight from the country of the dreaded Al-je-bal d at last the terrible battle on the Hill of Hattin, where the last vestige of Christian power in Palestine was swept away. Through the whole tale upheld the abiding love between the twin brothers Wulf and Godwin, beneath this the tangle or the love of both of them for the fair Rosamund. If only Rider Haggard could match style with his imagination he would easily rank with Maurice Hewlitt as first among romance writers. Unfor- tunately his writing, spirited and vivid though it may be, is not that of a stylist, is even slipshod at tinfes. One who allows himself to say, “Has- san threw the corner of his cloak over his head and eyes that he might nei "see nor hear their volces,” is his own worst opponent in the bid for recognition as a careful writer. (McClure, Phillips & Co., New York; fllustrated; price $1 §0.) JAPAN; is h Its Rise Into Power APAN holds the Interest of the world at present. Now that the J little nation has given pause to one of the world's greatest powers In its march of armed aggression, the thoughts of every one are centered about its people, their lives and tradi- tions. And since the island empire has come in the full glare of publicity it has become evident that for the Ocei- dental Jdpan and the Japanese are in many ways beyond comprehension. Even the late Lafcadio Hearn, who probably got closer to the Japanese life and the Japanese thought than any other Western man of letfers, con- fessed that the longer he studied these things the mare he was convinced that he knew nothing at all. Others, less better qualified than Heafn, have made their several tries at a reading of the riddle aud failed. Even in these few months of fevered interest about the things of ti.e Orlent it has become al- most a tradilion that any book about Japan not written by a Japanese had only the value of individual interpre- tation and little o verity. This month brings ihe publication of a book about Japan which rings with authority. Okakura Kakuzo, an ac- complighed scholar and studen* of Jap- anese philosophy and art, has written directly in English “The Awakening of Japan,” a book which will go far in clearing up some of qur misconceptions of the national life of Mikado land and set before the Western world the true attitude of the nation both toward its own destiny and that of the community of world peoples. For in this book the duthor shows ‘that the present accom- plishments of Japan are but the logi- cal-outgrowth of her centuries of re- liglous and secular growth, not, as we are prone to believe, the apish acquire- ment of Western civilization settled upon a pliant and imitative national- ity. This book also sets forth with em- phatic clearness the unity between Ja- pan and the great Orientalism of the whole East: it reveals Japan, the emancipated of the sleepers of Asla, not the natural offspring of fostering Europe. The major part of Kakuzo's work Is devoted to a study of the historical growth of the country, of its emaneci- pation from what he terms ‘“‘the night of Asia,” of its gradual fermentation under isolation and its final yielding to the pressure from within at the touch of the clvilization of the West. As no one has yet succeeded in analyzing so clearly, the writer follows the indissol- uble growth of the religious and secu- lar spirit in the life of the people, indi- cating how from earliest time the soul of Japan was made one with those of India and of China through the bonds of Confuclanism and Buddhism. The result of the highly specialized philo- sophic doctrines of the Japanese mid- dle ages, which held sway until the country emerged into the light of the last decade, the author summarizes thus: “The national consciousness, divided within Itself by the dams and dikes of its own conventions, could but narrow and finally stagnate. The flow of spon- taneity ceased with the end of the sev- enteenth century. The microscopic ten- dency of later Oriental thought be- came in us accentuated to a degree un- known even in China. Our life grew to be like that of our miniature and dwarf trees.” From this state of enforced quiesc- ence, which was due to the influence of religious thought and which even to- day holds sway over China, Japan freed herself, according to this author- ity. as a result of a ferment within. Three national schools of thought arose almost simultaneously in the early years of the eighteenth century, em- bodying the spirit of protest against the elaborate formalism and the dead- ening introspection of philosophic dic- tum. Harking back to the purer and earlier systems of religious thought, these schools revived the slumbering activity of the national mentality, fos- tered it, inspired it until when Admiral Perry sailed into the Bay of Yeddo the reincarnation of Japan needed (nly this outslde influence to crystallize into a fact accomplished. Mr. Kakuzo will give his Occidental readers ample food for reflection by his exposition of the attitude of new Japan and Asia generally toward the Western world. “To most Eastern nations the advent of the West has been by no means an unmixed blessing,” says he. Against our imagined “yellow peril” Japan and the rest of the Orient has a very tangible, very threatening “white disaster.” The militant organized com- merge of the West—what chance has individual Eastern trade against it? Need the white nations fear a “yellow peril”, inspired by Japan when the very nature of her civilization, inbred through thousands of years, prohibits aggression against foreign nations. It is this “white disaster” that has driven Japan to arms. “What mean these strange combina- tions which Europe displays?” asks Kakuzo, in the significant closing para- graph of his book. “What mean the hospital and the torpedo, the Christian missionary and imperialism, the main- tenance of vast armaments as a guar- antee of peace? Such contradictions did not exist in the anclent civiliza- tions of the East. Europe has taught us war; when shall she learn the bless- ings of peace?” ° (The Century » New York; Py anflny ) % A o, Copyright, 1904, by The Baker & Taylor Co. $ymple Panel Designs tom “OLD, LOVE STORIL RETOLD" by RICKARD L& GALLIENNE HOWELLS Inspires Long Tale EREDITH NICHOLSON, a M young writer with one book al- ready tallied after his name, has attempted to enrcll himself in the Howells school of fiction with a long and serious novel, “Zelda Dameron.” The attempt has not been altogether successful, for the author has not made himself master of the Howells art of finding significance in the common- place. He mistakes all incident. for telling incident. He believes that the trimming of a pie crust deserves equal emphasis with a daughter’s branding her father as a liar. As a consequence, though Mr. Nicholson has evolved a plot of considerable strength and shown a good insight into human character, he has filled his book with a lot of usgeless lumber that clogs ac- tion and wearies the reader to petu- lance at times. The motive of Nicholson's story is an old one—a parent’s weaknesses shielded by his child. Zelda Dameron enters the story, fresh and breezy from five years in Europe, where she had been taken by her aunt while yet a young girl in order that she might not be open to the influences of her widowed father. Upon her return Zelda de- termines to live with the parent whom everybody conslders unworthy and she bravely endures a long year of his hy- peerisy gnd sanctified roguery, know- Ing full well that it had been just this mean pettishness that had broken the spirit of her mother before her. But Ezra Dameron gets the fever of stock gambling and recklessly dissipates the fortune of his daughter, which had been left in his trust. Even after Zelda be- comes aware of her father's duplicity and openly charges him with it, fam- ily pride serves to bring her to make every endeavor to keep the skeleton in the closet. This she does successfully and finally marries the rather colorless young man who has persistently wooed her. Of action there is very little in this novel. Not until the reader is two- thirds through the story does he feel any uplift of interest; then comes a sudden one, well sustained to the end. In the early chapters a long side issue ig followed through almost a hundred pages, dealing in minute detall with the rehearsing and production of an ama- teur theatrical performance; but it serves no end in the development of the story save to show that Zelda Dameron was a real generous girl. Mr. Howells is competent to handle such bypaths effectively. Mr. Nicholson is not. A tale filled with discursiveness of incident such as Nicholson’s is has the alr of being stuffed and trussed like a fowl for the roasting. The character of the heroine is well drawn—a forceful, self-willed girl with a he.rt in the right place. Zelda keeps the center of Interest whenever sh> ZioEL HAGGARD AvTEOR oF THE BRZEZHEREN. adts. The father is likewise blocked out in strong lines, a veritable Mathias of “The Bells,” touched with the taint of 1-ligious pharisaisr:. Rodney Mer- riam is not so surely fixed; he is too much the gentleman of the old school to be the present day man of the world Nicholson would have him. The sol- dier, Captain Pollock, has as little to do with the stery as you or L (Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indiana- polis; illustrated; price $1 50.) WHITE Tells of the Trail T is easier for us here in the West to read understandingly Stewart Edward White's book “The Moun- tains” than for those of our less for- tunate brothers in the East who know not and never can know the acute urg- ing of that “wanderlust” that calls from snowy summits with each recur- ring summer season. In the States “back home” they go to their moun- tains to play golf and they hold pic- nics at the only spot for miles around where an eagle may be seen. That is why they cannot appreciate Mr. White's book, cannot cateh the photo- graphic trueness of the thing it re- produces. The author of “The Blazed Trail” and “Conjuror’s House,” himself a man of the East, has but recently learned what joy lies in California’s mountains. Now he lives at Santa Barbara, within clos touch of the coast mountains, and, as this book demonstrates, not too far from the Sierra to be beyond striking distance. Only this summer, gossip has it, Mr. White roughed it in the most inaccessible ranges, the “‘tender- foot” in that instance being his bride. Knowing the spell of the mountains, then, and sensing all of the indefinable emotions born of their near presence, the author has written “The Moun- tains” to carry to others some of the charm denled them by circumstance or, maybe, very lack of energy. Famillar, ity with “The Forest,” White's descrip- tion of the timbered region of the Ca- nadian lake country, will prepare read- ers to emnjoy in this book the writer's rare gift of word painting. He both reproduces the natural picture and con- serves in his reproduction the essence of things felt, not seen. Not only does he spread before us the panorama of peak and canyon, but he makes to live again for those who have once felt it that intangible, compelling power which we call the spirit of the mountains. By contrast the plece that stands out strongest in all of White’s descriptions of wild places is his chapter on “The Inferno.” Death Valley and the south- ern desert have both been done before in fiction and in works of travel, never better, however, than in the strong, sub- jective ‘manner of this writer's treat- meng. His artifice of drawing the ter- rors of the desert through the medium of 1ijs psychological effect upon the minds of those in its grip Is an effec- tive approach to the subject. (McClure, Phillips & Co., New York; fllustrated by F. Lungren; price $1 50.) [} ' > > - LOVES Classic in Letters RULY If it is a poet who can spell best the words of the divine pas- sion a poet it must be who recites for us the tragedies of poets’ loves. Richard Le Gallienne is that one. “Old Love Stories Retold” is his chronicle of blighted affectione. Le Gallienne is pecu all his fellows to arly fitted above read the prosi facts. H to the impress of esthetl at times been com something beyond th say some with coar Granting that this is ¢ tiveness, even, it may & that if any one can find romance un- alloyed in the affair between S and Ms Godwin Richard Le G enne can. Seven auther ated and one legend- ary love affair fin in this volur Some are well known to all students of literature, some fall under the eye of the antiquary only. Of the first kind are the stories of Dante and Beatrice and of Abelard and Heloise, classics both of them in the annals of letters. These two well known episodes of tragic love offer the writer little ground for new treatment, and he is content with telling again the ad idents” that have passed down ry. In touching upon the love Elizabethan gallant, Sir Philip for Lady Devereux, Le Galli- €idney, enne freshens a romantic tale of true love, which lives in the quaint old love journal, “Astrophel and Stella,” Sid- ney's longest poem. The affection of Heine for Mathilde and the passion be- tween Lassalle and Helene von Don- Le Galllenne, es to most of us. lay poet comes beldly to f that great singer of a hun- dred y ago, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in vindicating his love for Mary God- win. Denying that either of them ad- vocated t general practice of their own failing apologist says: “Of all people Shelley and Mary held the doc- trine of one man for one woman—only The ¥ they i ed it must be the right man for the ht woman.” Le Galllene does not v afe an explanation of the ac- tual working operation of this scheme. “Love Stories Retold” is bandsemely bound, rated and illustrated with marginal panels and full page repro- of Burne-Jones’ paintings—a Company, New A CRITIC on His Profession 3 for the honor of thq trade, ¢ enough people read literary icisms and there are still fewer that care to go to & book for their critical pabulum. Mr. Frank Moore Colby believes, however, that his random sketches upon things bookish 1 his fugitive opiniens on the daily round of the human comedy worth preserving. He has col- them, with this end in view into a volume which he calls “Imaginary Obligations.” The three score short skits-essays they could hardly be termed—that Mr. Colby gives us in his book afford pleasure enough in the reading, but they have not the worth of serious ness, nor have they any great pre- tensions beyond that of begullement, One cannot dash off in a typlcal breezy and ephemeral newspaper styla reflections called up by the reading of books or the viewing of plays and expect such to weigh greatly in the balance of contemporary literature. With the possible exception of Miss Jeanetts Gilder of The Critlc,'I be= lleve that few critics of books hope to be taken as oracles or literary divin- ing rods nowadays. As with Mr. Col= by himself, work presses too ceaseless- ly to admit of classio criticism. Unless it 18 such it hardly merits book covers and the permanency such imply. However, Mr. Colby has hit off some very clever conceits and struck tearlessly at the root of several com- mon humbugs. His series of thoughts upon “The Business of Writing” con- taln some sharp criticism upon more than one accepted standard of crea- tion and criticism. What he has to say on “The Phrase Maker” and the critic who bounds his adulation ouly by the language of the stars is calcu- lated to make one of the craft keep the blue pencil very close to his copy. (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York; price $120.) From Second Floor to Ground Floor. Tee Whitaker @ Ray Co. Are Now Located At 711 Mission Street, Opposite Grand Opera-house, And Have an Increased Stock of BOOKS OF EVERY KIND. SELL WHOLESALE and RETAIL. FORCRCRO