The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 7, 1906, Page 27

w ngry at the s if they were intrud- d from discovery. The everything bravely, but ad to bear was “that over- ression and fear scourge most dreaded | " This was what over. e awful hardshivs he coasts of Alaska. he sed his attendant not to try | THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 1906 wit W ment v he stor i was by t America s which stupend and riv fon a p discovery.” I from the great of the indom- it is so fine 's own sake f time to read les of human And after s has passed C. Laut’s lit- is found well r the enjo; she tel e spirit of passed in order to ring expedi- r wonderful the wretched the sand on a grateful for e covering of 1 over his body So he died, half burled will ng perhaps be of Francis Drake in here on Cali- 0fs the é@flt P, treasure ships was so near t 1t orings the story he xave 0 Lhe ougnc he was taking pos- of for Great Britain, to wit: New , must often make England regret e lost the chance of owning Cali- by very natural to_the sea, for null of an ola ves- very natural right T Spaniards, ior bitious anda thrifty boy, ar staked his all in Hawkins' ex- e was tained, “to his last peany Spanish treachery. In his was almost “a religion | nd to hate Spain.” So we un- igations of his pirati- ny countrymen | Queen so thoroughly approved tive robberies. Think of his uring nearly a million in gold and er in one swift right. He was in| hd of the Golden Hind, the fast- t. On the Pacitic, close to | of Panama, he was chasing | The Glory of the South Seas,” a Span- easure ship. "1t was now a wijd e for gold—ror gold enough to en- | 1 every man of the crew; tor treas- e that it buy up half a dozen | Zuropean kingdoms and leave the buy- | er rich; f old in huge siabs the| shape the legendary wedges long ago given the rulers of the Incas by aescendants of gods; gold to had forgthe t4 by the strikin * * For the rest the 9 w has been enacted wherever pi rates have played their game—a furi ous fusiilade from the cannon meuths belching from decks and portholes, the unscathed ship riding down on the| staggering like a beast on its the clapping of the grappling that bound the captive to the| sides of her victor, the rush over ks, and flash of naked sword, the cks swimming in bloed and the quick surrender. The book has a number of good il- ations. One of them is of Queen zabeth conferring knighthood upon | It was after a dinner on| famed ship, The Golden Hind, | she went in state to do him and to silence the criticisms of | emies by royal approval unmis- | expressed. She bade him fall| knees aind gave him the ac-| the midst of her assembled or upon his lade in courtlers r is a peculiar thing, done in ply contrasting black and white | the clever artist, Charles Living- Bull. Part of that picture rep-| sents what must have been the ap- pea e of the immense combination of whale and ox-like animals, now ex- tinct, which the wrecked crew ot 1y by ston the Bering expedition existed when | they were ca . These animals! were about thirty-five feet long. They of the oc: 1d mosses of the land in an Their meat was like beef. w of sailors could live on s for six weeks. » A passage which well reveals the spirit of the author's enthusiastic sympathy with the men of whom she so strirringly writes is th “They were not anaemic, these old ‘sea voyagers' of the Pacific, daring death or devil, with the red blood of courage in their veins, and the red blood of a lawless manhood, too. * * * Neither their vir- tues nor their vices were lukewarm: but they did things, these men: added to the sum total of human effort, human knowl- | edge, human progress. BSordid thelr mo- |tives may have been, * * * but from the anvil of their hardships, from the clash of the primordial warfare between the Spirit of the Elements and the Spirit of Man, struck out some sparks of the Divine. There was the courage as daunt- less in the teeth of the gale as in the face of death. There was the yearning to know More, to seek it, to follow it over | earth's ends, though the quest led to the | abyss of a watery grave. What did they | want, these fool fellows, following the | one carcs |just it. They didn't know what they | sought, but they knew there was some- | thing just beyond to be sought, something {new to be known; and because Man is Man, they set out on the quest of the the sake of a little gain to human pro- & (Macmillan §ompan TOUR OF LEVANT BY JEROME HART New York. $2.) The editor of the Argunaut, Jerome Hart, has written a new volume to add i to his series of travel books. This time it is called “The Levantine Log-Book," and consists of travel sketches of Eastern Mediterranean. It has fine fllustrations taken from photographs by the author. It is on handsome paper and well bound. The material for the work was gathered by the author in a two years' stay in the East, and as he returned from his trip last May, his di cussion of conditions in that part of the world is practically up to The book’s opening is devoted to the def- inition of what and where the Levant is 0 easy task, for the Levant is an el term. It takes near f a dozen ges 10 settle the confines of what that P | particular part of the East may correctly | be said to extend to. If you wish to get there, you will be safe In going to Ne ples first, and then circle around, see Malta, Crete, Cyprus, the kingdom the Hellenes; all - of the Ionian and Aegean seas: g of coasts of the ts of the Bal- | kan Peninsula; those parts of European | Turkey on the Sea of Marmora, the A gean, the Bosphorus; the coasts of As ic Turkey, including Syria and Pales finally the Levantine African coast, in- cluding Egypt and possibly Tripoli and Tunis. Added to the interesting descriptions there is much of the quiet humorous chat about those far and famous lands s0 many people hear about and so few are privileged to see. ere is some en- thusiasm in the book, but perhaps more in evidence is the disillusion due to a bent for telling the piain truth about things as they are—as contrasted with what one with vivid imagination might them. A list of these disillusions would be too long to mention; but for just on as a sample of the many, fet us take th | about the famous figs of Smyrna of which . ull the world has hear: “How about the luscious figs of Smyr- na? My experience was that the nearer we got to Smyrna the poorer grew the figs Wnen we reached Bayroot they were pretty bad; when we were off Smyrna the peddlers brought some aboard that wer very bad; when we got ashore at Smyrna we were offered some on the quay that were worse; in the hotel they were wormy, and when we got into the heart of Smyrna the figs were able to walk around the dealer’s counter.” One of the bits of up-to-date information we get from this account of recent trav- els is that the irrigation works in Egypt and on the upper Nlle are so vast the cli- mate of the country i{s becoming very much changed, and consequently the magnificent 0ld ruins there, which have lasted so many centuries because of the | extremely dry afr, will now under this new condition of extended irrigation and growing crops and flourishing trees prob- ably crumble away. Another notable item of observation the author made in Egypt is that the boasted coming brotherhood of man seems very far off, and Hart doubts if it will ever come. The people of various nationalities who have coionies in Egypt, even such enlightened people as Germans, English and French, dislike each other so heartily that, taking their contact in an alien soil as evidence, the brotherhood of man seems actually to be getting farther away from fulfillment. If when you begin to read this book you are surprised not to find more en- thusiasm, here is a hint for its reason of not being. This traveler has evidently grown tired of perfervid eloquence. He has heard it to satlety: ‘“‘Remembering Bret Harte's happy title for the select verses of California’s poets In the early quartz-mining. days, I thought that the phrase ‘Acropolis Outcroppings’ would make an excellent title for the senti- mental musings of the many tourists who climb that famous hill. In listening to them as they rave over the surroundings, order. They are ready to admire every- thing, whatever it may be.” 4 However the sight of ancient Athens moved even this traveler so sternly tem- perate in use of ardent eloquence. I came picture | OF AUTHOR OF MUCH ED BOOK AND ILLUS TRATION FROM NEW WORK. % s enthusiasm is not dead, but sleepeth. 1 1t waked to this effect: ' “But the view from the Acropolis 1s | magnificent enough to finspire even the most stolid, not to speak of sentimental | female tou - (Longmans, Green & Co., New York; $2.) —— |{GOOD COLLECTION | OF MYSTIC VERSE | | “The Valley of Dreams!" Deep into it | If you are willing to go dreamily, and let | the delight of mysticism lie heavy on vour eyelids, then enter it by opening the volume which bears that name—so sug- gestive of slumber being a sure passage to the land of visions. The book that bears the title is a collection of mystic verse by H. Hayden Sands, who is trav- eler and poet by avecation, but by veea- tion most eviuently a true dreamer. He is known socially in San Francisco, and so his new book will be of local interest here; but everywhereit wili call the true dreamers to go with him into his valley, and, following the mystic's lead, they will worship beauty both for its own sake and because such adoration opens the door to | all nobility of thought and being. The work is illustrated by the clever Ttalian artist, Adolfo de Nestl, who is the drawer of the pictures for the books of the famous novelist, D'Annunzio. These | pictures are admirahly adapted to the text and are verily such stuff as dreams are made of. By their assistance you can, if you will it <o, sink under the spell of the verses' hypnotism and slumber deeper into the vision valley than the poet’s words alone would bear you. They are simple as cartoons and very little | ones, but all rich in symbolism and large | with the grace of abundant and far- reaching thought. They are things of harps and stars; of domes and spires; of roses laid on altars; of human heads bowed in meditation: spirit women walking upon water lilies: white, fair, feminine arms lifted out of stormy ocean waters where wrecks might be, and pointing aloft to bright stars in black midnight skies; the long-rayed light of the sun just rising over ripening grain; an old man standing close by the surf of the infinite ocean and with the sounding sea shell held to his ear, listen- ing to what it can tell of eternity; the symbol waters of a brook, hastening from mountain heights back to its mother ocean; lovers, clasped hand in hand, be- neath the moonlit sky; and almost every- where the mystic dream entanglement of the web of a woman'’s hair. In his introduction the author explains to us what Is an idealist. Himself is surely ome. Music, poetry, and all the aesthetic arts have in common one final aim—of rendering beauty's *various and abstract forms” by allusions that stimu- jate the imagination to ““an abler concep- tion of her all too elusive attitudes. Here is a place where the dreamer pro- claims his creed: ‘‘Beauty, Symbolism, ! and Muysticlsm, these abstruse forces distant, are alluded to in many of the | succeeding pages by one who confesses i'to crave a life of idealities rather than of realities.’ From among these many mystic poems 1 can tell of but one, and will select “The Forest’s Daughter.” Often the attempt has been made in appreciating an author's work to trace the lineage of the u- rushlight of their own desires? That is’|it is easily to be seen that they rave to | ences which most strongly flowed fnto ‘his mental and emotional being from the great masters who give us all more or less of unconsclous mold. Mow in the produc- tion of this “Forest's Daughter” it seems to me I see the confluence of moods en- hile on his famous raid upon | unknown, chancing life and death for|acrdss one sentence which made me think ) gendered by loving reception of the beau- L 4 I fi m - <7 e which to us may now seem so strange and | | r —3 ty of Shelley's “Cloud” and Tennyson's | “Brook.” It is as if the spirits of those two pretty poems of the great masters met within some chamber of the soul of | Hayden Sands, and, being kindly wel- comed there, they took up their abode in his breast for a while, and married and caressed; and the image of the cloud .rested reflected upon the bosom of the brook and it bore another pittle poem, to wit: “The Forest's Daughter.” It is too | long to quote entire—I will give you| enough to test if you can see the lineage | that I think I see. It is a pretty thing of | its own sweet self; and if the author made | the spirit moods of the great masters so thoroughly his own that he could trans- fuse the divine fire into a fresh creation worthy of its high lineage, “The Forest's Daughter”” becomes still more interesting. THE FOREST'S DAUGHTER * When lowering clouds Unclasp their shrouds, Dissolving in the showers, With pleasures rife T spring to life Amid my mist-hung bowers. Then down the hills, In merry trills, 1 fall, I leap, And laugh again To greet the rain And hear the thunder rumhle. My flight transforms The broodinz storms Tp one of light and laughter; O Never a child So_gladly, wild As I, the Forest's Daughter! 1_wind my course From my dizzy source Through the smiiing lower valleys, To cool the land, Ang_that flowery band Which clinigs to my grassy aifeys. . . . . . Oft, oft I've stood Within the wood *In unperceiving motion, And told a tale Unto the vale Of life In cloud and ocean, Throuch leafy fells And darkened gells, Where the light fs ever ‘broken, Of the love I bring From the hills of Spring 1 linger as a token. 1 tumble, *Tis thus T go From the land of snow, From the clouds to the Ocean’s water— O Never a child So gladly wild As I, the Forest's Daughter! WOMAN DESCRIBES MAKING OF FARM “A Self-Supporting Home " is the name of a valuable book written by Mrs, Kate V. Saint Mdur, who gives a record of how she persopally made such a home and found much pleasure in the accom- plishment of that economic feat. She was a city woman perplexed with the con- tinuous problems of trying to make ends meet and maintain the home, and so she decided to get a little farm out in the country and there establish a home that would support itdelf. She found a place she could rent for $180 per year, and that amount with the addition of the cost of a commuter's ticket for her husband was less than she had been paying for her city home. Her husband was a cautious man and she obtained his consent to the project | only on condition that by it their outlay should not be increased. So she had to plan from small expenses and successes | to build up to larger ones. She began | with one old hen, named “Mrs. Perry,” ! whom she purchased for fifty cents from a woman who wanted to get rid of «her | because “the plaguy thing” wanted to| set too soon in the season. Mrs. Saint | Maur let her set, and the old Plymouth Rock became the founder of her poultry | farm. From that start the home-maker went forward to all the eges needed for | her own table and fifty-eight pullets for | stock. Then there were ducks, salable | maltese cats, rabbits, pigeons and other pet stock, and on to the possession of a cow, a garden and an orchard; and so | the home was self-supporting and abund- antly and deliciously supplied. The ly gives minute practical in- structions about how she managed such a little farm. She avoids being so learned as to confuse the learner about methods of suecess, She makes her monthly ‘schedules of work 'simple and drastically plain, stating exact quantity, quality and methods found by experience to”be safe and useful—a sort of necessary founda- tion on which the layman can build . . . | { i | | | | shorter ones. knowledge as gleaned from personal ex- perience.”” A large number of illustrations are given to make the work more inter- esting and instructive. The book may prove both a guide and an inspiration to many a woman with similar needs and tastes. The author says that before she tried it she used to wish she had money enough to get such a home: and then “it suddenly occurred to me that Instead of waiting for fortune to she actually could and did do the things she says she did. May her commendable enterptise in doing a book be as success- ful as was her undertaking to make & self-supporting home, and the wide read- ing of it prove no mean factor in our economic advance, (The Macmillan Company. $1 75 net.) CALIFORNIAPOET PUBLISHES BOOK Louis F. Curtis of Los Angeles has published a velume of his poems, with some good illustrations by Florine Hv_< er. The title is, “Story and Song. There are two stories of considerable length, told in verse form, and the shorter poems number nearly forty. The principal place is given to the long New York. | narrative of “Gurth,” who was one of | twin brothers so mueh alike that: 1 know not how the marvel grew, That nature made one model do: Graving the features bold or fine Alike 1A every shade and line. Gurth, was a Norseman. but bern of a Gallic mother. His likeness to his twin brother leads to some complications in love affairs, and Gurth wins the girl who | had promised herdelf to his brother. It is a more elaborate poem than any book, but not so fine as some of the There is one called “Racent Wand-rings of Ulysses.”” It tells of a dreamland visit which the old Greek hero paid to the author and of & long conver- sation with him. No footfall echoed from the floor, And, though I scented danger, 1 summoned courage felt before And boldly faced the stranger. Before my sight a giant's height, A beamy breadth of shoulders, A sinewy arm to tareaten harm And terrify behoiders. Many questions are put by the dreamer to his phantom guest. I select just one query and reply, which will be sure to interest all men and some women: Ahd since he sat beneath my dome Tt seemed a pleasing duty To _listen to his journey home— But first of Helen's beauty 1 prayed him then reveal again How Helen seemed so peerleas, To send a hundred thousand men To battle Trojans fearless. Was hers the fairest form oo earth Without the least restriction, Or was her beauty, like her worth, A bit of Homer's fiction? He foliowed truth, yet not one prize Inspired the slaughter wholly; Fair Helen did but symbolize All women, high and lowly. Each man in Helen's form divine, Where Venus loved to hover, Beheld another face as fine That. owned him lord and lover. w Trojan walls were undermined With right good will and pleasure We struck a blow for womankind, Man’s high and holy treasure. Some fought for epoil, or fame inclined The ages to {llumine, But every warrior's heart enshrined The portrait of some woman. Mr, Curtis must have been in quite a Bayard Taylor mood when he wrote those lines. (R- R. Donnelly & Sons, Chicago. sale in the book stores.) NOTES OF BOOKS \ AND THE AUTHORS Harper Brothers are authority for the tollowing fragments of information about the anonymous author of “The Martyrdom of an Empress” and the “Tribulations of a Prineess,” the first of which has been classed as a biog- raphy (of the Austrian Empress Eliza- beth) und the latter as an autobiog- raphy of the author of the former. “The Doffed Coronet.” by the same writer, though sometimes considered fiction, is, by these notes from Harper's, also revealed to be autobiography. Her more recent work, “The Trident and the Net.” which was reviewed at length in these columns, might easily be guessed to be at least largely auto- biography because of the striking sim- ilarity of the character of the mother in that latest story'to the mother of the princess as portrayed in the “Trib- ulations.” ‘\Harpcrs teil of a letter written by a ‘colored man, who was formerly a trusted servant of the authoress. Here are some extracts from it: “The authoress is a lady who was for years one of the most admired court beauties of the Austrian capital. Although now almost 38 years old, she is still extrewely beautiful—not tall, but with a lovely figure, brown, golden hair, like sunshine on a chestnut, large, dark gray eyes and the smallest hands and feeg. She rides, drives and swims to perfection and is a lover of flowers, dogs, birds and horses, having alwa some Great Danes with her when she walks out. She is also a splendid mu- gician. a painter of talent and models beautiful statues of fuller's earth. “What education I have I owe to her, For | for T was quite ignorant when I en- tered her service; but she was always teaching me and telling me to be good and to work aund to be following my religion, for she is a pious Catholic. A e T WS TR e “You ought to have seen her when sne was over here. She was 35 years old then, but she did not look 20, and somehow she was not like anybody else that I ever saw—she was like a wise little kid at times, but also she showed that she was horn above every one else I mean her manners were so different from other people’s. I think that that is jugt like pretty queens are, although 1 never saw any, or like luck fairies. 1 cannot bore you any longer, so gocd-b; Harpers adds this bit of ht on her anonymity: “The Doffed Coronet” is a frank narration that only withholds enough to insure the impenetrability of that cloud of mystery which continues to enfold the writer. When one has fin- ished the reading, one knows about all there is to be known, for so few people have of late years been privileged to see the subject of this sketch that it is a ¢-other - Vooks . —~— o T well nigh Impossible task to say much about her daily life and personality. That she lives in the seclusion of a beauti- fully poetical country piace, where only a few valued friends are ever admitted, is known. There she spends both summer and winter, wholly satisfied with the quiet and peaceful life which has followed the | storm and stress so graphlcaily set forth by her in “A, Doffed Coromet,” anxlous only to aveid that publicity which is the realize the desire, the desire might be ! lot of those who labor brilliantly with in the | made to heip acquire some of the for. | the pen. i tune.” | i, | 1 The picture of Mrs. Saint Maur;, Alice McGowan's short story, cal looks as of a genuine, chin-up, smil-| ‘A Doll” whica Is published in H Ing worker and winner. It was a se-|Per'S Magazine for January, deserves a ‘riuus mistake. in the publishers not r_“ lI :vmnkn s-‘»v::;hw]n: more - an tho i M o iberal chec whie 1 ssured; soma to put her portrait in the book: for | I red: sor the look of her, expression. attitude | Reart-wrought thing, existing perhaps and all, gives you confidence that in the thought-world only, too daintil ! daedalian to be tangible save in {land or spirit planes, and invaluabie there and ever-enduring. If the st | &ets no prize in money. cup or medal wil surely win the more be | ured, one of the appreeci of | dreds of hearts that reac { moved by its beauty and nesses of thousands of which will be due to that erary creation. The cheek | enough for bread, of cc | shall not live by bread | 1cal to say that many e | tle boons will come to | the promptings born of story, forno man or woman ¢ | it without having their | awakened or deepened for | sorrows of littie maidens. and made more careful by fo | Dess to disappoint them of any ! blisses. | Neither the little girls, nor any m | tal. may be able to trace back the causs ! of the kindness that made their Chris | mas or their birthday a completer d | 1ight, to the moods and motives created by that story which so atheticall rev he pain and pl re of | child’s heart; but the fairies will know | It ail from the source of its light and bit of | will be & but It § one ning ould read sympath joys ere | music to the last effect of Its ted |love and the Intuitive, kindly deeds | commanded by its remotest echo. And it Is the fairies who will know how to | plan the most fitting and satisfyiig | prize for such a plece of mortal's work, {and how to deliver the goods so se- | cretly that the whence of the blisses | they comprise will be past all earthly swearing to, It is useless to say the belief in fairies is a superstition. We all know there are | some sprightly spiritual forces busily at work about bringing little blisses which are most evidently too small matters to engage the serious attentions of Saint Michael or the other archangels, but n ertheless are very largely precious to mortals. If we choose to call these minor beneficent agencies fairy folk, we have a | right to so name and imagine them, at least until it is more fully revealed to us how such delicious Mttle things just hap- | pen to happen every once a while,/ as if only a fairy fancy could have Dll.Jnfld and fairy forces executed them. The story called “A Doll” is just such a happening as one weuld imagine fa spirits would inspire. However Alice Mc Gowan may think she did it it is evident that a thing like that cannot be done in any prosale, ordinary way. In dreamland the suggestion may have come: and the author, waking, forgot its source and thought she did the doll out of her own talent and In regular routine writing If you pick up Harper’s and happen not to have time o read it through, be sure not to miss the seven pages that tell of | the doll and the darling little girl whom | two ranchmen 1nade happy by working all night to fa%cicaie the gift in time for her | birth@ay. It was a longed for gift that nearly, ever so nearly, failed to come: and that it did not fail was surely due to one of those mysterious influences we | may imagine as prompted by fairy-like spirits whose assignment in the economy of the universe is to busy themcelves about little blisses. € e THE APPRENTICE. (By Charles P. Cleaves.) d took my tools away, Bade me seek better. . Where I would carve a scroll, Said, “Carve a letter’ ‘When | had wrought in haste, Said.” “It is vain” When T had done my best, Said, “Try again. Is this thy way, O Lord? So let it bet By part to purpose led, 1 shall kiow Thee! Though much I count Faill to the fire, Ever I hear thy voice— “Son, come up higher:"* —From The k.lu(lwl. January. gt of worth Peter Rosegger, the Styrian peasant wrifer, whose story of the Christ, “L N. R. L,” has reccutly been published in America by McClure-Phillips, is the na- tional poet of his native country. His first productions, written in his eariy youth, when he had little or no educu-~ tion, were folk poems characterized by the same naive simplicity that Is the most attractive quality in his Christ story. The quality of his genius as a poet is well indicated by the following little poem taken from his wvery first volume, “Zither and Cymbal THREE LITTLE LIGHTSS In going from home to a foreign land There fell three tear-drops on my hand, My friend’s, my sweetheart's, my mother's tear. They burned lfke lights, all golden clea The first meant: Grateful in need am L The second: I will be true till T die. The third one burned so pure and mild: It meant: Thou art my own dear child. And when a year its course had run Two of the lights were entirely gone And only one burned pure and mild. It meant: Thou art my own dear child. S BOOKS RECEIVED. SEFFY: A Little Comedy of Country Manners—By John Luther Long. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. 1 50. ‘RU“ELL H. CONWELL (Fouader of the Imstitutional Church of America)— By Agnes Bush Burr. Johm C. Win~ ston Company, Philadelphia. IDYLLS OF MONTEREY AND OTHER VERSES—By John E. Rich- ards, San Jose, Cal THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN—By Booth Tarkington. Harper Bros. New York: $1 50. - | THE FOOLISH ALMANACK—John 'W. Luce & Co.. Boston. - GOSPEL OF LIFE—By Charles Wag- ner. MecClure, Phillips & Co., New York; $1. THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR— The “First Folio” Shakespeare. Edited by Charlotte Porter apd Helen A, Clarke. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. Cloth, 75 cents; leather, $1. SWINBURNE-By George Edward ‘Woodbury (Contemporary Men of Let- ters series). McClure, Phillips & Co. New York. SHAKESPEARE'S SWEEYSEART - By Sarah Hawkes Sterling. George W. Jacobs & Co.. 1216 Walnut streety Phii- adelphia. s -~