The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 3, 1906, Page 23

aent of an- K P His new work enge.” Mr T s & his right part brary napo- DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL WRITES A NEW STORY ring bo Welr sts of pact or of the unities of u is_an incident war scene and the story person by one of Greville, who s e American lega- of the. author's Ing the char- and - in get- gaged in half of the The other aptain Merton, an ted States army, who hedith—a man, the ac- is oné of the Moyne of the who propen- N whose gallantry potent causes of the nierest his & WOomin are tangle that makef a-large paft of the story's Duret, serve , alert mi : record ‘as a valet jn nd ‘ahd. Frante. He was neat “and that gaught my had| {ancy.’ 100k 118 min was a humorous T employed as a:8py d¥ the Prenoh nnlice _acters. he frankly confessed the fact to the ng that Alphonse to masters, but that the great- espionage f spie France the dip- Snterbmt. it the e about wi 80 nervous he wis to go she despe that come has unable to ex- to escape, leads him adventure of having h ipped up to out-travel a car- . is pur- > gallant les yan in in ‘the al- pursner, e gets with Le Moyne, in the night and the Count a card from nd tells him he will be his apartments to arrange details th the Count's seconds at 11 the next » happened that Greville the of the day's wark the card of his friend Captain Merton in his case In the con- n and dark of the night he hand- Merton's d to Count Le Moyne tead of his own the Count ,to the captain at there take as he has never seen the Count and no cause of quarrel with him. The seconds insult- ly take this to mean that Merton a coward and trying to escape from the wrath df his challenger. At this the captain loses his good nature,.hot words come and at the terview he finds that in addition to accepting the Count's challenge he has engaged to fight both the seconds serially if he escapes in the earlier T ers. Greville discovers his mis- take next morning, but by the time he catches up with the rapid trend of events he finds he responsible for three prospective duels, and all about a woman, his relations with whom he cannot even explain to himself satis- factorily, let alone to any one else. Here begins quite a complication which told as & e essen taat makes the thing a diplomatic adventure is that some lost papers concerning the French Govern- ment’s plans of recognizing the Con- federate States have a group of people in Paris stirred up to the polnt of risking both their lives and their reputations.’ Dr. Mitchell adds some in- terest to his little story by eonstantly comparing four of his D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos and Ara- mis (The Century Company, New York.) HERNANI PRESENTED IN A NEW EDITION Among the new educational books recently issued hy the American Book Company is one giving Victor Hugo's famous play, “Hernanl,” in the ariginal French, with a very instructive intro- to s0 be both exciting and duction, abundant notes, and a full vocabulary The work is prepared by James D. Bruner, associate professor of the Romance languages in the Uni- versity of North Carolina. The intro- duction, written in English, contains an essay on the theory of the Ramantic drama, an explanation of the language of the Homantic school” as contrasted with that of the clasgical, a brief his- tory of the first performance of “Her- nani” and an analysis of the char- All through the volume there are abundant foot notes throwing a light on many passages that makes them doubly interesting. The victory over strong opposition which was won.by this play was taken by those followers of Victor Hugo who wished to break away from. the old | igid rules of play writing and acting, | as held by the Classicists, to be a proof of the correcthess of tha snthars that Greville soon | end of the in- | characters to | dramatic theéory—that theé play should be a mirror refiecting human life in a broad way, and must be released from the restrictions and formalities thrown round it by the men who had been in control of literature in France during the time of monarchism and who had until Hugo's victory successfully majn- tained the rules of the Classical school, Professor Bruner tells very interest- gly the story of the struggle. It was a contention wnd a vietory for| liberty in literature in somewhat the | same way the French revolution was a victory for political freedom. A collection of adjectives by which he characterizes the defects that had come upon the classic trageds drama at the time Hugo, with “Hernani,” broke the| vonds of conservatism, makes quite a | f dable and condemning list; for| nst th Artificial, abstract, nar- | row t and form, general, im- personal, golorless, unreal, monarchical. The break aw from this was very complete when” Hugo decided it must be dope, The romantic dramatists, who then permanently triumphed over the Classical, got such free play for their inventiveness that no longer could | cast iron rules hold down the wings of | genius, The confinements to the three unities of time, place and action, as be-‘ queathed by the ancient Greeks, were thrown off, and thenceforth. practically the whole of life could be presented by drama. The exhibition of character in process of growth could be made. People of all classes of society could Thus set free, the Ro»‘ be staged, manticists could exhibit “the whole of | a story and trace the origin, the de- velopment and the consequences of a deed, rather than limit themselves to one great crisis or catastroph Accustomed as we now are to the wide latitude given to the playwright and acter, it seems almost incredible that there should have been a time, less than two centuries ago, when | France should have-kept her dramatic literature so narrowed by absurd rules. | Even the forms of versification were confined to certain fixed molds, -and these were completely formulated by Boileau, ‘“the draconic legislator of | Parnassus.” The account of the first performance | of the play of “Hernani,” which took | place in 1830, is an amusing glimpse | into the past: | jm- | It was*a national event and the most portant premiere since the first representation | of Car s 8 " in 1636, The great [s tle of “Hernani,” which was to free the | “rench drama frem the shackles of Classicism | was on in earnest. Both the friends and_ene- | mies of Romanticism as champloned by Hugo | vere well represented in the audience. Instend | f employing the regular claqueurs, or lll-rlwl‘l applauders, Hugo invited the young artists of Paris to help sustain the piece. These youn and enthusiastic suporters of *‘liberalism rt appenred ‘dressed in all sorts of unfashion- | able and incongruous outfits, Conspicuous among | them was Theophile Gautier in scarlet waistcoat | and green trousers. * * ® At the opening of the play the fight began, and continued to the end. Every Infraetion of the rul was hissed by the Classicists and spplauded by the Ro- monticists, and at the most flagrant violation of the Classical rules the uproar was violent and deafening. However, as the play progressed land the beatties became more manifest, the opposition weakened. Some of the most poetic and striking scenes were applanded even by the Classicists, the Jong monalogne of Don Carlos, applauded at almost every line, clinching the first triumph of Romanticism in France, | (American Book Company, New York.) | COLLECTION OF BEST POEMS OF AMERICANS “American Poems” is the simple title given to a new selection of the best verse In our literature, recently made {by Augustus White Long, preceptor in |English at Princeton University. The new book is made, not with the pur- pose of adding yet another to the mul- titude of anthologies, but to be used by students, and is provided with | “notes of explanation and interpreta- |tion which shall illustrate the growth |and spirit of American life as espressed iln literature.” * “The brief critical comments which have been |added to the explanations are meant to |interpret the poems to the student and win interest and sympathy.” The author has divided American |poetry into three periods. The first, ! beginning with Freneau and including | those writers preceding Bryant. It is |claimed that writers of this first period had the traits in common of being, for |the most part, Imitators of English |models and of having their work |marred by sentimentality. The Middle Period, which was one of glorious | greatness, produced thoge seven stars, | Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, | Poe, Holmes and -Lowell. These have |the characteristics of deep feeling and limaginative power. The Later Period, which deals for the most part with |writers who are gtill living, is. de- | scribed as possesing dominant urbanity, humor and grace, and everywhere ais- plays lightness of touch and dextérous- néss of form. “Its deficiencies are ap- narently thosé of a period of waitine.” OF LIFE WHITE. oz 7ol DY 227 ALLEY NEI T | PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS OF TWQ STROYG RECENT NOVELS, AND PiC- TURE, FROM A COLLECTION'OF ¢ IN A KANSAS TOWN, LLEVER CHARACTER UTTEN SKETCHES BY WILLIAM ALLEN From the Later Perfod I quote vou one poem. The author, Frank Demp- ster Sherman, was graduated from Co- lumbia, where he now holds the posi- tion of a professor of architecture. ON A GREEK VASE. Divinely shapen cup, thy lip ~ Unto me seemeth thus to speak: “Behold in me the workmanship, The grace and cunning of a Greek! “Long ages since he mixed the cla: Whose sense of symmetry was The labor of a single day Immortal grew beneath his touch. such “For dreaming while his fingers went Around this slender neck of mine, The form of her he loved was blent With every matchless curve and line. “Her loveliness to me he gave Whe gave unto herself his heart, That love and beauty from the grave Might rise and live again in art” And hearing from thy lips this tale Of love and skill, of art and grace, Thou seem’st to me no more the frail Meménto of an older race: But in thy form divinely wrought And figured o'er with fret and seroll, I dream, by happy chance was caught, And dwelleth now, that maiden’s soul. (Amerijcan Book Company, New York.) SHORT SKETCHES FROM A NEWSPAPER OFFICE A study of human nature when it is done by ene who is wise, kindly and critical, all rolled into one in the due proportions of some sovereign recipe, gives a quality to a book which makes it valuable almost independently of the interest in the story's plot. Such a study of human nature is given by the editor of a country newspaper, William Allen White, in the book called “In Our Town." He is the editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, and his new book is a _series of sketches that were first published In the Saturday BEvening Post. They deéscribe many types of character, and aré the result of very intimate knowledge of these various types dérived from publishing a fami- Uarly friendly papér in a farming town for many years—such & town as s de- scribed in the song where “you know ‘everybody and they all know you.” The volume is amusing and interes ing as a picture of newspaper life in a small town; but it goes far beyond that scope and makes from a very com- prehensiye point of view a portrayal of humahity collected in town life. Here this somewhat enlarged family— of the town community, is observed by its argus-eyed membeér, the office of its newspaper. That argus-eyed member of thé family could not Know néarly so much as it does did it not practice the virtue of knowing much more than it tells; and if it had not sufficient kindli- ness and broadnéss of soul to gain and keep the confidence of the community to which it furnished gossip about its members. AM thig editof-author puts it in his chapter called ‘“Seribes and Phatigeés": 4 Whas 4 man has published s paver u'.? L country community for many years he knows Lis town and its people, their strength and their their joys and their sorvows, their failings and thelr prosperity—or if he docs not know thes¢ things, he is vn the road to failure, for this knowledge mum: be the spirit of his paper. The country or and bis reporters {'Soqner or later pass upon everything thet in- terests their town. William Allen White's paper, the Em- poria Gazette, Is now an important publication, but his beok is a sheaf of | reminiscences of a paper’'s small be- ginnings and of his little village and | compose it. He is said to be the idal |of Emperia, and although it is a small |town, he prefers to live there because | that s where he is beloved. | Evidenced in his writings is that | kindiiness of character which fits him | for the confidence of his fellow towns- |people, and which confidence in turn | fits him to be the competent student of human nature with plenty of the ma- | terial of observation provided for his analysis and synthesis. Sometimes in reading him you natice he is so keen a eritic that you begin to fear he is get- the various tyges of character whlch‘ | by their power of picturing foibles are apt to give one a contempt for human nature, or else a dislike for the beook which seems by an author who sees too clearly the seamy side; but anmen our country editor breaks out in a broad, bright light of all-enveloping charity which seems able to make al- lowance for us all—wheéreupon We read on, reassured that if we are by him to be made wise as serpents we will at the same time be made sweet as coo- ing doves. One of the good sketches is the fourth one, called “As a Breath Into the Wind." It tells the pathetic story of one the workers in the country newspaper office who had grown up with it from a boy. He wi a Welshman, named David Lewlis. “David came to us a stray cat fifteen years ago.' He was too small to wrestle with the forms— being east in the nonpareil mold eof his race—so we put him to carrying papers. to go to school and in summer he put a box on a high steol in the back réom and learned the printer's case and fed the job presses at odd times, and edged onto the pay roll without ever having been formally hired.” Later David learned the linotype and loved it $o that the two chief adora- tions of his life were the linotype and the blonde girl at the Racket stere. He becamé a strange comblnation of the dreamer and the worker—letting neither the wholly practical nor the wholly visionary wholly absorb him. He became a very sensitive and respon- sive subject to some sort of hypnotie or spiritualistic power, the exact nature of which influence neither he nor his most intimate companions could ever fully understand. He had either a double identity or some sort of posses- sion that induced him to write in Latin when using the planchette, although the bhoy had never learned that lan- guage. Once when he was seated by his beloved linotype the machiné wrote of its own accord, automatically, like the pencil; of a posséssed planechette whose fadiiliar devil is invisible. PRI R R R > P keeoigz it molten. Than the ting into the vein of those writers who | In school seasen he seemed | Boy sat at the machine with his hands folded in s lap. gazing dt the empty copy-baider out of lead eyes. n a minute—perhups it was a little longer—a brass matrix slipped from the magazine and clicked down Into the assembler; n a second or two ansther féll, and then very slowly, like the ticks of a great clock. the brasses slipped. slipped. siipped info their places and the steel spaces dropped mto theirs. A line was formed while the boy's bands lay in Mis lap. When it was a fuil line he gral d the Jever that sest the line over to the metal pot to be cast, and his hand fell back in his lap. of the brasses continued The Bine.and "white keys on the board sank and rose, although no finger tonched them. ® * ¢ When the secopd line as cast the reporter broke the silence with: “Well, I'll be damued!” and the voice from David's mouth replied: Very likely." And the clicking of the brasses grew qnicker. The lines thus automatically written by the linotype were in Latin and fore- told that David would go on a long journey, but would return and the whole town should see him and know him, and that he would bring back the |song that was in his heart, and the | townspeople should hear it. | The sadness comes into when young David gets his heart broken by the blonde. “A girl of twenty is so much older than a hoy of twenty-one that the blonde began to assume a maternal attitude toward the | boy.” “A traveling silk salesman, with |a haughty manner and a.two hundred- | | dollar job, saw the blonde in the Racke | atore and began calling at her father’s | home like the captain of an army with {banners,” “All this may seem funny |in the telling, .but to see the little | Welshman's heart breaking in him | was no pleasant matter. The girls in |the ofce pitied the boy, and hoped {the silk drummer would break the iblonde’s heart.” “David fabricated a legend that the blonde was selling her- self for gold.” “As for the blande, it was only nature asserting itself in her. David went with the seldiers to the Philippines and was killed in the skir- mish line before Manila. His body was sent back to hig native town for burial. With it came a letter and a little box with a government frank on it. The box was sent to the newspaper office where David had worked as_a boy, The reporters opened it. The letter said that all David's things would be |found in the box. “In a camera-plate |box was a rose, faded and crumbly, a chip digmond ring, a bangle bracelet, |a woman's glove, and a phatograph This chip diamend ring and the bangle bracelets the blonde had sent back to David after she got the silk drummer for a lover and the new love gave her more costly gifts. Also In the box was |a bunch of keys, and a leng brass lever | which unlocked the music in the b | “Here” said one of the reporters | the last link in our chain.” He went |over to the music box that David had | been so fond of, and put in the lever. | Then the music bezan to come. “It |was strong and clear and powerful, |ana seemed to have a certain passion in it that may have been struck like |flint fire from the time and the place the story and the spirit of the occasion.” It was David's favorite, “Love's Golden Dream.” Thus was the propheey of the spirit-possessed linotype fulfilled. After that pathetic sketch of the broken-hearted Welshman it may be well to turn to one of the amusing |chapters and get the good there is to |be derived from the law of comtrast | and relief. Such a one is chapter XI “The Casting Out of Jimmy Myers. |Jimmy Myers was a both bright and | good boy, and also an excellent re- |porter, save for the sole reason that | bis work was hoodooed more than half | | the time by some cruel fatality which | was no fault ar his, Something so often went wrong with the excellent copy he | handed in that the office, under the stern | necessity of self-pratecting, was at last, | compelled to cast’ him out. As the| | editor said, “It was a cruel thing to do, | but we had to do it.” Myers had good judgment and he tried hard to use it, and nobody ever accused him of being {careless, but “every one areund the office admitted he was unlucky.” { The tale of the number of scrapes | his unluekiness got him and the little | country paper into is sadly laughable; | but only one or two of them will suffice |to suggest the inevitableness of his fate to be victim of a “easting out.” Once he wrote a paid local for a photo- | grapher, eriticising some one who was peddling in the town and taking arders | for enlarged pictures. The item would‘ have been all right but for the un- fortunate circumstance that the person {eriticised proved to be a woman. “She |came with a rawhide and camped in !the office two days waiting for Jimmy, while he came in and eut of the back door, stuck his copy on a hook by | stealth and traveled enly in the alleys |to get his mews.” The artist of the | book has chosen that seene for illus- tration. Another hoodooed itpm was when | Jimmy wrote in a quite legible hand, | | “The hem of her skirt was trimmed | with pink crushed roses,” and “he was | |in no way to blame for the fact that i the printer put an ‘h’ for a ‘k’ in the word ‘skirt’ The woman's husband | | chased Jimmy into a culvert and kept | | ~.m there most of the forenoon." | Se frequently did these little accidents | occur that the people of the town re- fused to believe that “they just hap- | pened”; and as the editor puts.it, they | didn’t happen until Jimmy eame into| the staff. There was quite a series of these happenings, which at last culmi- | nated in Myer's expulsion. | | Jimmy had a habit of writing playful | little itéms about some of the good- |natured townsmen whom he knew | |would take it in good part and laugh | over it. One day he wrote one of these | | playful- skits and, heading with a| | quotation of a foolish little verse from |Kipling, handed in his copy. For the | same issue of the paper Miss Larrabee, | the society editor, had written an an- | | | nouncement of the engagement of two prominent young people of the town. | Miss Larrabee was known to be a de- | tester of village weddings, although | she always wrote them up very prettily | for the paper. Even in the act of pen- ning the complimentary words she would jab down sweet adjectives viciously on the copy paper, while half under her breath she weuld Zibe about the same faets in words wrathfully different from those she wrote. The town's knewl- edge of this trait of hers helped |on this cccasion to get Jimmy into deeper trouble. The foreman of the press room carelessly let the Kipling quotation get misplaced from the head of Myer's playful item so that it came out in the paper at the end of Miss Larrabee’'s society item, . which item read thus: . 5 “This marriage, which will take place at §t, Andrew’s Church, will unite two of the most popular peaple in the town and two of the best-known families in the State. ! young | to dispose of their w | gTound that the story And this ix the seprowful story Hoa1ty e ehee-s T 08 Y The éditer of the country paper exs plains that Jimmy was no more to blame for this than Miss Larrabee, but i many people thought, and think to this day, that Miss Larrabee aid it—and did it on purpose. (McClure, Phillips & Co. New Yors $150.) GOSSIP ABOUT BOOKS AND THEIR AUTHORS Rex E. Beach is a comparatively author, after having passed through a great many -excits ing experiences In a little-known quar- ter of the globe where life flows at full tide, now shows to write stories of unusual vigor and freshness. His first novel, “The Spoilers,” is faking everybody by surprise. He is one of those authors who write in that appar~ ently easy, offhand way which is only possible to the most original, and it Is evident that he will soon be recognized as ameng the foremost novelists, for his stories are destined to be popular; and he has the skill of a born write It is somewhat remarkable that he was able to dispose of the serial, book and dramatie rights of his first novel within who, an ability hree weeks of each other, and tar he has not lacked critical appreciation. Rex E. Beach has had a career so far that compares ior vicissitudes in some degree with that of Mark Twain, and perhaps this resemblanee of ex- perience partly accounts for the gen- uineness of his humor and the grip and reality of his stories. Mr. Beach, who is mow 28 years old. was born farm in Michigan in 1377, but m his youth was spent in Florida, whera he attended college. He went to Chi- dy law, but was swept away in the great wave of excitement over the discovery of gold in the Klondike region. and, giving up his legal pros- pects, sailed for Alaska on four days notice. That was In the late fall of the first season of gold-prospecting in the north, and the Unjted States was filled with horror at the reports of famine and the scarcity of all kinds of things in Alaska Mr. Beach had to travel with scant provisions, both for fina al reasons and because of the necessity for making | haste. he result was,” he says, in speaking of this time, “that all I had when I landed was a toothbrush, a suitcase, with orie shirt and a collar im it. and a mandolin that I had picked up on the way for art’'s sake. With the collar I was emabled to get right into the most exclusive circles of society, because there were only two more like it in the first camp I struek, and in this way I secured entree to the cabins of some of the best bartenders in the sec- tion. My mandolin alse made of me a kind of public utility which the come munity felt bound to safeguard.” Mr. Beach tells how. In order to ree pailr his fortunes, he joined with twe college boys, and began to chop wood for steamers. His partners were honest this time; but after suffering ures from mosquitoes and lack of fresh food, and having “chopped off all the toes they could spare.” they were compelled d at the ruinous price of $10 a cord, although they be- gan by asking $40. Among his other adventures he was shipwrecked on his way to Nome in the early days, and drifte@ on Behring Sea for three days and nights without food. After this he reached suecess, but he suppresses this part of his ography on the of .a man’s sue- cess does mot compare in inter. n the tale of his “hard luck.” Altogether, he was in Alaska five. years, and saw zhed game through from beginaing teo end. “All through that long night of un- natural stillness,” she says, “we heard the fleeing footsteps. It was a horrible sound, that continuous, hurried, strag- gling exodus. The stricken people did not rn—they were toc exhausted by the time they had reached our- quar- ter—but they toiled doggedly op, om out toward the west, toward the cool | eucalyptus forests in the Presidio, out toward the edge of the bay. One man I saw carried with care a brand-new pair of tan shoes. He bad absolutely nothing else, but these he hore on a stick over his shoulder. Women car- ried their babies, their canary birds in cages, their parrots. Next to.a man who trundled all his househeld pes- sesslons on a lawn-mower rode a group of negresses in a ghastly Learse, pulled by stalwart negroes. A .chattering crowd of Chinamen carried pathetie lit- tle bundles of rice, their brightly clad little wives and babies- dragsing mis- erably on behind. - A man and his wife harnessed themselv with ‘ropes to a trunk, and with bowed backs and blis= tered feet went on. It was a fearful procession.”—Miriam Michelson in Har~ per's Weekly. The new volume of the letters of Mrs. Stevenson, the mother of Robert Louis Stevenson, has just been published un- der the titie of “Letters from Samoa.” They are edited and arranged by Marie Clothilde Balfour. who also edited the first book of Mrs. Stevenson's letters, cailed “From Saranac te the Mar- quesas.” In the introduction she says: “To Stevenson lavers there may be some interest in his mother's account of the last happy days they spent together on earth. At the same time it may be frankly confessed that these letters ave published, far less with a desire to fur- i nish a few more details of a life about which so much has already been writ- ten, than to present some memorial of one as well beloved, if less widely knewn. In her own circle Mrs. Steven- son was not in any sense omly ‘the mother of R. L. 8. and it may be said, without injustice te her brilliant sonm, that among these who knew and loved them both she held no secondary place. Personal charm and wit, a bright re- spon. e spirit, extraordinary quickness of sympathy and understanding. and a sterling cammon sense were qualities - as fully shared by mother and son as were their patience and bravery in suf- fering and sorrew, and their amazi cheerfulness of heart. She, ke him, lived to the tune of that most charage teristic of his prayers: g Give us to awake with smilds: Give us 6 labar smillag - - - o’{ooi Buyer . THE PASSING OF DUNBAR, Out ovah de night An' ovah De song ness, = 3w Wid gladness will ring out no mo'. De- Marstah done called dé' sweet singah, o oy Whe wus patient an' true to his art, An' all o' de birds in de foves’ F. Dey's taken his deff to Heart. bleak: silence, day's mad ro’, B t once rung out wid glade De lowly black mammies an’ daddies, De lowly black chillun, tee, - = Wheose lives he has sung of wid-fond: ness 1s a-axin’ “Lawd, what shall we do?* ie skies dey don't seem so happy, De sun it don’t shine so bright— —sSilas X. Floyd in Aoril Lippineetts. b