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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65e89cc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51886 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51886) diff --git a/old/51886-0.txt b/old/51886-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3accc22..0000000 --- a/old/51886-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3381 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Down at Caxton's, by Walter Lecky - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Down at Caxton's - -Author: Walter Lecky - -Release Date: April 29, 2016 [EBook #51886] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN AT CAXTON'S *** - - - - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - -DOWN AT CAXTON’S. - - BY WALTER LECKY, - _Author of “Green Graves in Ireland,” “Adirondack - Sketches,” etc._ - - - BALTIMORE: - JOHN MURPHY & CO. - 1895. - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY WM. A. MCDERMOTT. - - - PRESS OF JOHN MURPHY & CO. - - - - - I DEDICATE - - _THIS SERIES OF SKETCHES_ - - DONE AT ODD MOMENTS STOLEN FROM THE BUSY LIFE OF A COUNTRY - DOCTOR, IN THE WILDEST PART OF THE ADIRONDACKS, TO THAT - DEAR FRIEND, WHO WROTE FOR ME AND OTHER - WANDERERS—IDYLS OF A SUMMER SEA— - - TO - - CHARLES WARREN STODDARD - - OF THE - - CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C. - - - - -CONTENTS - -Transcriber's Note: This table of contents was created by the -transriber. - - MEN. - Richard Malcolm Johnston. - Marion Crawford. - Charles Warren Stoddard. - Maurice Francis Egan. - John B. Tabb. - James Jeffrey Roche. - George Parsons Lathrop. - Rev. Brother Azarias. - - WOMEN. - Katherine Eleanor Conway. - Louise Imogen Guiney. - Mrs. Blake. - Agnes Repplier. - - A WORD. - Literature and Our Catholic Poor. - - - - -MEN. - - - - -RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. - - -In that charming and dainty series of books published under the -captivating title of “Fiction, Fact and Fancy,” and edited by the -gifted son of the prince of American literary critics, there is a -volume with the companionable name of Billy Downs. It is as follows -that Mr. Stedman introduces the creator of Billy Downs and a host of -other characters, mostly types of Middle Georgia life, that shall live -with the language. “So we reach the tenth milestone of our ramble, -and while we are resting by the wayside let us hail the gentleman who -is approaching and ask him for ‘another story.’ We who have heard him -before know that he seldom fails to respond to such a request, and -always, too, in a manner quite inimitable. As he comes nearer you may -observe the dignified, yet courteous and kindly bearing of a gentleman -of the old school. The white hair and moustache, the sober dress, -betoken the veteran, although they are almost contradicted by eyes and -an innate youthfulness in word and thought. It is not difficult to -recognize in Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston the founder of a school -of fiction and the dean of Southern men of letters.” The Colonel is the -founder of a school of fiction, if by that school, we understand those, -who are depicting for us the Georgia life of the ante-bellum days. -In no otherwise can we assent to Mr. Stedman’s phrase. For American -critics to claim the dialect school of fiction as their own in origin, -is on a par with their other critical achievements. Dialect was born -a long time before Columbus took his way westward. The first wave of -mankind leaving the parent stock, in their efforts to survive, carried -with them the germ of dialect. Fiction in its portrayal of men and -manners of a given period, was bound to reproduce it faithfully—the -very least to give us a semblance of that life. This could not be done -in many instances without the use of dialect. To do so were to deprive -the portraiture of individuality. - -Fiction produced on such lines would be worthless. Of late there has -been much cavil against dialect writers. This cavil, strange to say, -emanates from the Realists. - -They lay down the absurd code, that Art is purely imitative. She -plays but a monkey part. Her sole duty is to depict life, paying -leading attention to the portrayal of corns, bunions, and other -horny excrescences, that so often accompany her. Realists will not -be persuaded that such excrescences are abnormal. From a jaundiced -introspection of their own little life, they frame canons of criticism -to guide the world. With these congenial canons lying before them, one -is astonished, if such a phrase may be used in the recent light of that -school’s pyrotechnic display, that they can condemn dialect. Granted, -for the sake of argument, that Art is merely imitative, will not the -first duty of the novelist be to reproduce the exact language, and -that when done by the master-hand of a Johnston carries with it not -only the speaker’s tone, but the power of producing a mental image of -the speaker—the very acme of the Realists’ school? To paint a Georgia -cracker speaking the ordinary Boston-English would be like crowning the -noble brow of a South Sea native with a tall Boston beaver. The effort -would be unartistic, the effect ludicrous. Colonel Johnston believes -in the imitativeness of Art, to the extent of reproducing for us the -peculiar dialect of Middle Georgia. He has informed us that there is -not a phrase in his novels that he has not heard amid the scenes of his -stories. To reproduce these is a distinct triumph of the novelist’s -art, but the Colonel has done more; into his every character has he -breathed a soul. His figures are not the automaton skeletons of the -Realists, but living men and women who have earnestly played life on -the circumscribed stage of Middle Georgia. - -This life is fast passing away. Prof. Shaler, a competent authority, -tells us: “At present the strong tide of modernism is sweeping over the -old slave-holding States with a force which is certain to clear away -a greater part of the archaic motives which so long held place in the -minds of the people. With the death of this generation, which saw the -rebellion, the ancient regime will disappear.” It can never be lost -as long as the novels of Malcolm Johnston are extant. There, in days -to come, by the cheery ingle-nook, will a new generation live over in -his delightful pages the curious life of Georgia. Cuvier asked for a -bone to construct his skeleton. The readers of the Dukesborough tales, -Billy Downs, etc., will not only have the skeleton, but live men and -women preserved for them by the novelist’s elixir. He has known his -country and kept close to mother earth, having in his mind that “no -language, after it has faded into diction, none that cannot suck up -feeding juices secreted for it in the rich mother earth of common folk, -can bring forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor and heartiness of -phrase do not pass from page to page, but from man to man.... There is -death in the dictionary.” That the Colonel’s language has sucked up -feeding juices secreted for it in the rich mother earth of common folk -will be seen on every page. Let us take at random the communication of -Jones Kendrick to his cousin Simeon Newsome, as to S’phrony Miller. Sim -is a farmer lad overshadowed by the overpowering “dictionary use” of -his Cousin Kendrick. Sim has gone a-wooin’ S’phrony. Kendrick hearing -of this and urged by his mother and sister, comes to the conclusion -that he would like to have S’phrony himself. This important fact he -admits to Cousin Sim in the following choice morsel: Sim is overseeing -his hands on the plantation; Kendrick approaches and is met by Sim. -Kendrick speaks: - -“Ma and sister Maria have been for some time specified. They have both -been going on to me about S’phrony Miller in a way and to an extent -that in some circumstances might be called obstropolus, and to quiet -their conscience I’ve begun a kind of a visitation over there, and -my mind has arriv at the conclusion that she’s a good, nice piece -of flesh, to use the expressions of a man of the world, and society. -What do you think, Sim, of the matter under consideration, and what -would you advise? I like to have your advice sometimes, and I’d like -to know what it would be under all circumstances and appearances of a -case which, as it stands, it seems to have, and it isn’t worth while -to conceal the fact that it does have, a tremendous amount of immense -responsibility to all parties, especially to the undersigned, referring -as is well known in books and newspaper advertisements to myself. What -would you say to the above, Sim, in all its parts and parties?” It -may interest the reader to know that Sim acquiesced “in all its parts -and parties,” and that S’phrony became Mrs. Kendrick, while Sim took -another mate. Of further interest to the imaginative young woman is -the fact, that Mrs. Newsome and Mr. Kendrick perishing a few years -later by some sort of quasi-involuntary but always friendly movements, -executed in a comparatively brief time, S’phrony and Sim became one. -In calling Johnston the dean of Southern men of letters, Stedman does -not define his position. Page, the creator of Marse Chan, and one of -the most talented of Southern dialect writers, negatively does so. In -an article that has literary smack, but lacks critical perception, -he rates him below Miss Murfree, James Lane Allen, and Cable. These -three writers Page places at the head of Southern writers of fiction. -Critics nowadays will adduce no proof; they simply affirm. The text of -this discrimination should be the exactness of the character drawing, -the life-like reproduction of environments, and the expertness of the -dialect as a vehicle to convey the local flavor. It will hardly be -gainsaid that Johnston knows his Georgia no less than Cable knows -Louisiana. Johnston is a native of Georgia; the time of life most -susceptible to local impressions was spent there. Cable’s boyhood was -otherwise. It will not be thought of that in the painting of Creole -life, Cable has excelled the painter of Georgia life. In the handling -of dialect, Johnston and Harris touch the high water mark of Southern -fiction. It was an old critical dictum that an author to succeed must -be in sympathy with his subject; this may be affirmed of Johnston. -It is otherwise with Cable, and especially with Lane, whose Kentucky -pictures are often caricatures. Cable poses as the friend of the -colored man. His pose is dramatic. It lends a charm to his New England -recitations. We have a great love for champions of every kind. The most -of Mr. Cable’s pages deal with Creole life, and for that life he has no -sympathy. He paints it as essentially pagan, albeit it was essentially -Catholic. A padre makes him sniff the air and paw ungraciously. The -ceremonies of the church are so many pagan rites. Cable belongs to -the school that contemns what it does not understand. His pictures of -Creole life are untrue, and much as they were in vogue some years ago, -are passing to the bourne of the forgotten. Johnston, although a living -Catholic, fond of his church, and wedded to her every belief, draws -an itinerant preacher of the Methodists with as much enthusiasm and -sympathy as he would the clergy of his own church. He has no dislikes, -nothing that is of man but interests this sunny-hearted romancer of the -old South. - -Strange as it may seem, the knowledge of his wonderful power of -story-telling came late and in an accidental way. It is best described -in his own words. “Story-writing,” said the Colonel, “is the last -thing for me in literature. I had published two or three volumes on -English literature, and in conjunction with a friend had written a -life of Alexander Stephens, and also a book on American and European -literature, but had no idea of story-writing for money. Two or three -stories of mine had found their way into the papers before I left -Georgia. I had been a professor of English literature in Georgia, but -during the war I took a school of boys. I removed to Baltimore and took -forty boys with me and continued my school. There was in Baltimore, in -1870, a periodical called the _Southern Magazine_. The first nine of my -Dukesborough Tales were contributed to that magazine. These fell into -the hands of the editor of _Harper’s Magazine_, who asked me what I got -for them. I said not a cent, and he wanted to know why I had not sent -them to him. ‘Neelers Peeler’s Conditions’ was the first story for -which I got pay. It was published in the _Century_, over the signature -of Philemon Perch. Dr. Holland told Mr. Gilder to tell that man to -write under his own name, adding that he himself had made a mistake in -writing under a pseudonym. Sydney Lanier urged me to write, and said -if I would do so he would get the matter in print for me. So he took -‘Neelers Peeler’s Conditions,’ and it brought me eighty dollars. I was -surprised that my stories were considered of any value. I withdrew from -teaching about six years ago, and since that time have devoted myself -to authorship. I have never put a word in my book that I have not heard -the people use, and very few that I have not used myself. Powelton, -Ga., is my Dukesborough. I was born fourteen miles from there. - -“Of the female characters that I have created, Miss Doolana Lines was -my favorite, while Mr. Bill Williams is my favorite among the male -characters. I started Doolana to make her mean and stingy like her -father, but I hadn’t written a page before she wrenched herself out -of my hands. She said to me, ‘I am a woman, and you shall not make me -mean.’ These stories are all of Georgia as it was before the war. In -the hill country the institution of slavery was very different from -what it was in the rice region or near the coast. Do you know the -Georgia negro has five times the sense of the South Carolina negro? -Why? Because he has always been near his master, and their relations -are closer. My father’s negroes loved him, and he loved them, and if a -negro child died upon the place my mother wept for it. Some time ago I -went to the old place, and an old negro came eight miles, walked all -the way, to see me. - -“He got to the house before five o’clock in the morning, and opened the -shutters while I was asleep. With a cry he rushed into the room. ‘Oh, -Massa Dick.’ We cried in each other’s arms. We had been boys together. -One of my slaves is now a bishop—Bishop Lucius Holsey, one of the most -eloquent men in Georgia.” - -These charming bits of autobiography show us the sterling nature of -Malcolm Johnston, a nature at once cheerful, kind and loving. It is -the object of such natures, in the pessimistic wayfares of life, to -make friends, illuminating them with sunshine and tickling them with -laughter. - - - - -MARION CRAWFORD. - - -In front of the Ara Coeli I stood. A swarthy Italian was telling of -the dramatic death of Cola di Rienzi. His English was lightly worn, -but it seemed to please his audience, and it was for that purpose -they had paid their lire. The crazy-quilt language of the cicerone -and his audacious way of handling history, made him cut an attractive -figure in the eyes of most tourists, whose desires are amusement rather -than study. As a type, to use a phrase borrowed from the school of -psychological novelism, he was a study. To the student Rome is a city -of absorbing interest, to the ordinary American bird of passage a dull -place. It all depends on your point of view. If you are a scholar, a -collector of old lace, or a vandal, Rome is your happy hunting ground. -If these pursuits do not interest you, Roman beggars with all sorts -and conditions of diseases, sometimes by nature, mostly by art, Roman -fleas, and the gaunt ghosts of the Campagna quickly drive you from the -capital of the Cæsars and Popes. A few other annoyances might be added, -such as sour wine, whose mist fumes are not to be shriven by your -bottle-let of eau de Cologne, garlic on the fringe of decay, and the -provoking smell of salt fish in the last stage of decomposition. But -you have come to Rome; it is a name to conjure with, and despite the -drawbacks, you must have a glimpse, an ordinary bowing acquaintance, -with the famed old dame. At the office, an English office, in the -Piazza di Spagna, you have asked for a “droll guide.” Who could listen -to a scholarly one amid such active drawbacks as wine, fleas and fish? -Michael Angelo Orazio Pantacci is your man. What do you care for -good English? Did you not leave New York to leave it behind? What do -you care for Roman history? Pantacci is your man, and his lecture on -Cola di Rienzi is a masterpiece. A stranger joined our little crowd. -Pantacci at that moment had attained his descriptive high-water mark. -His pose and voice were touchingly dramatic. Cola was, as he expressed -it, “to perish.” The stranger smiled and passed on. His smile was a -composite affair. It was easy to see in it Michael Angelo’s historical -duplicity and our ignorant simplicity. The stranger was tall, with the -shoulders slightly stooping, a nose as near an approach to the Grecian -as an American may come, a heavy black mustache, ruddy cheeks, that -whispered of English food mellowed with the glowing Chianti. Who is -that man? I said to my companion, whose eyes had followed the stranger -rather than Pantacci. “That,” said he, “is Marion Crawford, the author -of the Saracenesca books. You remember reading them at Albano.” Tell -me something about him. He is a very clever man. Cola has perished; -let us leave Pantacci. On the way to Cordietti’s tell me something of -his life. He knows how to tell a story, an art hardly to be met with -in contemporary fiction. Fiction has abrogated to herself the whole -domain of life, and thus the art of telling a story for the story’s -sake is lost. Fiction has a mission. She freights herself with all -isms. Scott, Manzoni, even the great wizard of Spanish fiction, could -they live again, were failures. Introspection is the cult, and, happily -for their fame, they knew nothing of it. These great masters told us -how scenes of life were enacted. Why, they left to the inquisitive -and later-day brood of commentators. Since then the all absorbing -scientific spirit prevails, and we moderns brush away the delightful -humor of Dickens for the analytical puzzles of Henry James; the keen -satire of Thackeray for the coxcomberies of George Meredith. Fairy cult -interests none, modern children are ancient men. Scepticism is rampant, -and the cause of it is, in a great manner, due to the modern novelist. -This product of the 19th century world-spirit coolly tells us that -romance lies dead. Realism has taken her place. If we are to believe -the theories of its votaries, it is without an ideal—a mere anatomical -transcript of man. What this theory leads to is well illustrated by -the gutter filth of Zola and Catulle Mendes. It makes novel writing -a trade. One ceases to be astonished at the output, if he thoroughly -grasps the difference between a tradesman and an artist. Trade is a -word much used by realists. Grant Allen, writing of that realistic -necromancer, Guy de Maupassant, has nothing apter to define his -position than the phrase “he knows his trade.” In point of fact, Grant -Allen enunciates a truth in this phrase, one that might be carried -still further, by saying that his whole school are journeymen laborers, -tradesmen, if you prefer, turning out work, tasteless and crude, at the -bidding of the erubescent young person of the period. It is readily -assumed that work of this kind is not, despite the word-jugglery of -their school, realism. It does not deal with the true man, but with -a phrase, and that abnormal. A better phrase in use in speaking of -the works of this school is, “literature of disease.” The artist who -lives must have a model, and that we call the ideal. The nearer he -approaches this the more lasting his work. All the great artists had -ideals. Workmen may be guided by the rule of thumb. The first lesson a -great artist learns is, “The art that merely imitates can only produce -a corpse; it lacks the vital spark, the soul, which is the ideal, and -which is necessary in order to create a living organic reality that -will quicken genius and arouse enthusiasm throughout the ages.” The -gulf between the trade-novelist and the artist-novelist is of vital -importance. The former believes that art is simply imitation, the -latter, that art is interpretation. One is a stone-cutter, the other a -sculptor. - -Crawford’s canon is that art is interpretative, not imitative, and, -moreover, he has a story to tell and tells it for the story’s sake. He -has no affinity with that school so pointedly described by the Scotch -novelist, Barrie, as the one “which tells, in three volumes, how Hiram -K. Wilding trod on the skirt of Alice M. Sparkins without anything -coming of it.” “Cordietti’s,” said my friend, “give the order and I -will tell you what I know of Crawford.” Paulo, said I to the waiter, -some Chianti, and—well, a pigeon. “Crawford,” said my friend, “was born -in Rome about thirty-five years ago. His career has been a strange one, -full of life. His early years were spent in Rome, where his father was -known as a sculptor, his boyhood in the vicinity of Union Square, his -early manhood in England and India. In the latter country he was the -editor, proof-reader, typesetter of a small journal in the natives’ -interest. As such he was a thorn to the notorious freak, Blavatsky. -Crawford is an American by inheritance, an Italian by breeding, an -Englishman by training, an Indian by virtue of writing about India -with the knowledge of a native. In 1873, by the financial panic, Mrs. -Crawford lost her large fortune, and Marion was forced to shift for -himself. He became a journalist, and as such wandered over most of -the interesting part of the globe. On his return to New York, at the -request of his uncle, Sam Ward, the epicurean, who had discerned his -kinsman’s rare power of story-telling, he wrote his first book, Mr. -Isaacs. It was a success. Of the writing of that book, Crawford has -told us it was “very curious. I did not imagine that I possessed a -faculty for story-writing, and I prepared for a career very different -from the career of a novelist. Yet I have found that all my early life -was an unconscious preparation for that work. My boyhood was spent -in Rome, where my parents had lived for many years. There I was put -through the usual classical training—no, it was not the usual one, for -the classics are much better taught in Italy than in this country. A -boy in Italy by the time he is twelve is taught to speak Latin, and his -training is so thorough that he can read it with ease. From Rome I went -to Cambridge, England, and remained at the university several years. -Then I studied for a couple of years at the German universities. During -this time I went in for the sciences, and I expected to devote myself -to scientific work. Finally I went off to the East, where I did a good -deal of observing, and continued my studies of the Oriental languages, -in which I had taken considerable interest. It was while I was in the -East that I met Jacobs, the hero of Mr. Isaacs. Many of the events I -have recorded in Mr. Isaacs were the actual experiences of Jacobs.” - -The writing of his first novel occupied the months of May and June, -1882; it was published the same year, and at once established its -author in the front rank of living American writers of fiction. Since -then Crawford has written twenty volumes of fiction. Crawford is frank -and he tells us how he manages to produce in a few years the amount -of an ordinary lifetime. “By living in the open air, by roughing it -among the Albanian mountaineers, wandering by the sunny olive slopes -and vineyards of Calabria, and by taking hard work and pot luck with -the native sailors on long voyages in their feluccas,” are the means -of the novelist to hold health and make his pen work a laxative -employment. In these picturesque journeys, he lays the foundation of -his stories, makes the plots and evolves the characters. He does not -believe in Trollope’s idea of sitting down, pen in hand, and keep on -sitting until at its own wild will the story takes ink. The story in -these excursions has been fully fashioned, and it becomes but a matter -of penmanship to record it. How quickly this is done may be seen from -the rapid writing of the novelist, which averages 6,000 words the -working day. This rapid composition has its defects, defects that are -in some measure compensated by the photographic views of the life and -manners of the people. These views are in the rough, but they are truer -than when toned down. Poetry needs paring. The greatest novels have -been those that came like Crawford’s, fresh from the brain, and were -hastily despatched to the printer. Scott did not mope over the sheets. -Thackeray’s were written to the tune of “more copy.” Your American -critic, Stoddard, says:—“That Crawford is a man with many talents, and -with great fertility of invention, is evident in every story that he -has written. He has written more good stories and in more diverse ways -than any English or American novelist. It does not seem to matter to -him what countries or periods he deals with, or what kind of personages -he draws, he is always equal to what he undertakes.” It may interest -you, in ending this biographic sketch, to add that he is a convert to -the Catholic Church, and with the American critic’s idea in view, a -cosmopolitan. I was not astonished by the former information. To those -who know Italy and Mr. Crawford’s wonderful drawing of it, there could -be but one opinion, that the faith of the novelist was the same as that -of his characters. No Protestant novelist, no matter how many years he -had lived in Italy, could have drawn the portraits that play in the -Saracenesca pages. One of his friends had this in his mind’s eye when -he wrote of the superiority of the novelist’s writings on Italy over -those of his countrymen. This writer tells us that “Crawford added the -indispensable advantage of being a Catholic in religion, a circumstance -that has not only allowed him a truer sympathy with the life there, -but has afforded him an open sesame to many things which must be -sealed books to Protestants.” As to my friend’s summing up Crawford as -a cosmopolitan, in the every-day meaning of that word, I take issue. -Cosmopolitan novelist is one who can produce a three-volume novel, -whose scenes are laid in all the great centers of commerce, while -he sits calmly in his library. No previous study of his novelistic -surroundings are necessary. Does the age want the beginning of the plot -in Cairo or Venice, half-way at Tokio, and a grand finale beyond the -Gates Ajar? Your novelist is ready to turn out the regulation type -with the greatest ease. Cosmopolitan novel-writing is simply a trade. -The living through of local and artistic impressions, the study of -types in their environment, the color of surroundings are unnecessary. -Imagination, divorced from nature study, is left to guide the way. - -Once Crawford followed this school, and the result was “An American -Politician,” the “worst novel ever produced by an American.” Had -Crawford been a tradesman he might have produced a passable book, but -being an artist, he failed, not knowing what paint to mix in order -to get the coloring. The difference between an artist and tradesman, -the one must go to nature direct, the other takes her secondhand. No -artist can catch the lines of an Italian sunset from a studio window -in London. “Art is interpretive, not imitative.” Crawford is only a -novelist in the true sense when he knows his characters and their -surroundings. This is amply proven in the charming volumes that make -his Saracenesca series. Here he is at home, so to speak. The Rome -of Pius IX, with its struggles, its ambitions, the designs of wily -intriguers, the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy, the rise of -an united Italy, the flocking to Rome of the scourings and outcasts of -the provincial cities, the money-mad schemes of daring but ignorant -speculators, and over all the lovely blue Italian sky, rise before us -in all their minuteness at the biddance of Marion Crawford. His work is -hardly inferior to genuine history; “for it affords that insight into -the human mind, that acquaintance with the spirit of the age, without -which the most minute knowledge is only a bundle of dry and meaningless -facts.” Who that knows Rome of the Popes and Rome of the Vandals will -not feel heavy-hearted at these lines? - -“Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old Rome again. The last breath has -been breathed, the aged eyes are closed forever, corruption has done -its work and the grand skeleton lies bleaching on seven hills, half -covered with the piecemeal stucco of a modern architectural body. The -result is satisfactory to those who have brought it, if not to the rest -of the world. The sepulchre of old Rome in the new capital of united -Italy.” The exclusiveness of the patrician families of Rome, families -that a brood of novelists pretend to draw life-like, is happily hit by -the painter Gouache. - -Gouache, long resident in Rome, being asked what he knows of Roman -families, replies, “Their palaces are historic. Their equipages are -magnificent. That is all foreigners see of Roman families.” Who that -has seen the great Leo carried through the grand sala, a vision of -intellectual loveliness, will not recall it as he reads? “The wonderful -face that seemed to be carved out of transparent alabaster, smiled and -slowly turned from side to side as it passed by. The thin, fragile hand -moved unceasingly, blessing the people.” “True,” said my friend, “his -pages are delicious bits of the dead past. At every sentence we halt -and find a memory. He has the sense of art, if Maupassant’s definition -of it as ‘the profound and delicious enjoyment which rises to your -heart before certain pages, before certain phrases’ be correct.” - -Dinner was finished. A check, Paulo. We rose and went. - - - - -CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. - - -Venice, that lovely city by the sea, has been described a thousand -times by the painter’s brush, by the poet’s pen. It is the last bit of -poetry left to us, in the ever increasing dulness of this world—the -only place that one would expect to meet a goblin or a genial Irish -fairy. It is not the intention of this paper to describe the queenly -city. More than a thousand kodak fiends are daily doing that work, -with the eagerness of a money-lender and the artistic sense of a -fence painter. A city may, however, have many attractions, other than -its magic beauty; nay, even a dull uninteresting place may become -interesting from some great historic event that happened there, or -from some impression caught and treasured in memory’s store-house. -Venice has a charm for me other than the poetry that lurks in its every -stone; it was there that I first dipped into one of those rare hooks -whose charms grow around the heart soft and green as a vine-tendril. - -A professor of mine, one of those men who hugs one saying in life, -thereon building a false reputation for wisdom, was in the habit -of saying, “Accidents are the spice of life.” As it is his only -contribution approaching the threshold of the philosopher’s goddess -that I heard in the five years of his weary cant, I willingly record -it. To me it expresses a truth, albeit five years is a long hunt. -Illustrations sometimes improve the text, and this brief paper, by the -way, is but a design to enhance the professor’s. It was an accident, -pure and simple, that made me wend my way to the Rialto, there to lean -against the parapet watching some probably great unknown painting, -something that might be anything the imagination cared to conjure up. -It was an accident that made an English divine ask me in sputtering -French what the painter was working on. It was an accident that made -me inform him in common American English that my telescope, by some -accidental foresight, was at my lodgings. The divine was a genial -man, one of those breaths of spring that we sometimes meet in life. -Invited to my lodgings, he fancied a few tiny volumes of the apostle -of “sweetness and light” to pass those hours that hang heavily, in all -lands save Eden. In my pocket he thrust, as he remarked, “a no ordinary -book, one that will hold you as in a vice.” This proceeding was rather -remarkable, had he not in the same breath invited me to take a gondola -to one of the isles, and there enjoy the pocketed volume. It is -delightful to meet a genuine man, speaking your mother-tongue, after -weary months of Italian delving. To the little isle we went, an isle -known to readers of Byron, as the place where he labored long under -Armenian monks to learn their guttural tongue, the monks say “with -success.” I knew nothing, in those days, of destructive criticism. -After a tour in the monastery, of the ordinary Italian type, I lay down -on the green sward under the beneficent shade of a huge palm, wrapped -in the odors of a thousand flowers that sleepily nodded to the music -of the creamy breakers on the rocky shore. Books have their atmosphere -as well as men. Deprive them of it, and many a charm is lost. I drew -the little volume from my pocket, and there in that atmosphere, akin to -the one in which it was begot, I read of life in summer seas, life that -floats along serene and sweet as a bell-note on a calm, frosty night, -life - - “Where the deep blue ocean never replies - To the sibilant voice of the spray.” - -My Anglican friend was unable to give any clue to the author’s -identity, other than what the meagre title-page afforded. The -title-page was of that modest kind that says, “Enter in and see for -yourself.” It had none of the tricks of book-making, and none of the -airs of a _parvenu_. Under other skies than Italian I learned that -the author of “South Sea Idyls,” Charles Warren Stoddard, poet and -traveller, was one of the kindest and most modest of men. In truth, -that it was the combination of these rare qualities that had kept him -from the crowd when lesser men made prodigious sales of their wares. -To the man of mediocrity, it is a tickling sensation to float with the -current to the music of the shore-rabble, who shout from an innate -desire to hear their voices. With the possessor of that rare gift, -genius, the mouthings of the present count little; it is for a future -hold on man, that he toils. It is to do something, to paint a face, -to carve a bust whose glorious shape shall hand to the ages a form -of beauty, to weave a snatch of melody that shall go down the stream -of time consoling dark souls. Mediocrity is mortal, genius immortal. -The common mind, without bogging in metaphysics or transcendentalism, -subjects so dear to American critics, may readily grasp the destination -by a comparison in poetry of the “Proverbial Philosophy” with “In -Memoriam,” in prose “Barriers Burned Away,” with “Waverly.” Another -point for mediocrity, perhaps from its possessor’s view the best: -it is well recompensed in this life. The very reverse is the case -with genius. If then the author of the “South Sea Idyls” is not as -popular with the crowd as the writers of short stories who revel in -analysis, whether it be a gum-boil or the falling of my lady’s fan, -he can have no fear. It is but his badge of superiority. The few great -men, who are the literary arbiters of each century, have spoken, and -their verdict is the verdict of posterity. “One does these things but -once,” say they, “if one ever does them, but you have done them once -for all; no one need ever write of the South Sea again.” Here, it is -well to impress on the casual reader, in the light of this verdict, a -great historic truth cobwebbed over by critical spiders; that it was -not the Italians that gave the chaplet to Dante, nor the Spaniards to -Cervantes, nor the Portuguese to Camoëns, nor the Germans to Goethe, -but the great cosmopolitan few, scattered over the world, guardians of -the garden of immortality. - -Charles Warren Stoddard was born in Rochester, N. Y., 7th August, 1843. -At an early age he left his native state, with his family and emigrated -to California, that fertile foster-mother of American literary men. -In that delightful state, region of plants and flowers, was passed his -boyhood, a boyhood rich in promise, strengthened by a good education. -With a natural bent for travel, fed by the tales of travellers and the -waters of romance, it was his happy luck, at the age of twenty-three -to find himself appointed to that really bright journal, the _San -Francisco Chronicle_, as its correspondent. The commission was a roving -one, and the young correspondent was left free to contribute sketches -in his own inimitable way. Let us believe that the editor well knew -the choice mind he had secured in the young writer, and so knowing was -unwilling to put restrictions of the common newspaper kind in his way. -How could such a correspondent be harnessed in the dull statistics -and ribald gossip of these days? It was otherwise, as we his debtors -know. He was to wander at his own sweet will. The slight vein of sweet -melancholy that came with his life, drove him far from the grimy haunts -of civilization, far from the sickening thud of men thrown against the -cobble-stones of poverty. He sailed away with not a pang of sorrow to -those golden isles embedded in summer seas, where the moon - - “Seems to shine with a sunny ray, - And the night looks like a mellowed day. - - Isles where all things save man seem to have grown hoar in calm. - In calm unbroken since their luscious youth.” - -To a man of Stoddard’s genius and delicate perception, one thing could -have been foreseen. These lands yet warm with the sunshine of youth -would play melodies on his soul, as the winds on Æolian harps; melodies -hitherto unknown to the jaded working world. That he could catch these -airs and give them a tangible form, was not so sure. Others had heard -these siren airs, but failed to yoke them to speech. Melville, now and -then, had reproduced a few notes; notes full of dreamy beauty, making -us long for the master who was to give the full and perfect song. That -master was found in Stoddard. He produced, as Howells so finely has -said, “the lightest, sweetest, wildest, freshest things that ever were -written about the life of that summer ocean,” things “of the very make -of the tropic spray,” which “know not if it be sea or sun.” Whether you -open with a prodigal in Tahiti and see for yourself “that there are -few such delicious bits of literature in the language,” or follow the -writer, who, thanking the critics, prefers to find out for himself the -worth of a writer, commences at the beginning with the charming tale -of “Kana-ana,” you will be in company with the acute critic who has -pronounced the life of the summer sea, “once done,” by Stoddard, “and -that for all time.” What should we look for in such a book? “Pictures -of life, for melody of language, for shapes and sounds of beauty;” -and these are to be found without stint in the “South Sea Idyls.” The -form of Kana-ana haunts me, “with his round, full girlish face, lips -ripe and expressive, not quite so sensual as those of most of his -race; not a bad nose, by any means; eyes perfectly glorious—regular -almonds—with the mythical lashes that sweep.” Kana-ana, who had tasted -of civilization, finding it hollow, pining for his own fair land, and -when restored to the shade of his native palms, wasting away, dying -delirious, in his tiny canoe, rocked to death by the spirit of the -deep. Or is it Taboo—“the figure that was like the opposite halves -of two men bodily joined together in an amateur attempt at human -grafting, whose trunk was curved the wrong way; a great shoulder -bullied a little shoulder, and kept it decidedly under; a long leg -walked right around a short leg that was perpetually sitting itself -down on invisible seats, or swinging itself for the mere pleasure of -it,” meeting him by the enchanting cascade. Or is it Joe of Lahaina, -whose young face seemed to embody a whole tropical romance. Joe, his -bright scape-grace, met with months after in that isle of lost dreams -and salty tears, the leper-land of Molokai. Who shall forget the end of -that tale, where the author steals away in the darkness from the dying -boy? - -“I shall never see little Joe again, with his pitiful face, growing -gradually as dreadful as a cobra’s, and almost as fascinating in its -hideousness. I waited, a little way off in the darkness, waited and -listened, till the last song was ended, and I knew he would be looking -for me to say good night. But he did not find me, and he will never -again find me in this life, for I left him sitting in the dark door of -his sepulchre—sitting and singing in the mouth of his grave—clothed all -in Death.” - -It matters little whether it be Kana-ana, Taboo or Joe of Lahaina, -the hand of a master was at their birth, the spell of the wizard is -around them. The full development of Stoddard’s genius is not found -in character-drawing, great as that gift undoubtedly is, but in his -wonderful reproduction of the ever-changing hues of land and sea, under -the tropical sun. What description is better fitted to fill the eye -with beauty, the ear with melody, than these lines from the very first -page of his “South Sea Idyls?” - -“Once a green oasis blossomed before us—a garden in perfect bloom, -girdled about with creamy waves; within its coral cincture pendulous -boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced -airs stole down upon us; above all the triumphant palm trees clashed -their melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very -gates of this paradise a changeful current swept us onward, and the -happy isle was buried in night and distance.” - -It is not easy to make extracts from this charming book. It is a -mosaic, to be read as a whole. A tile, no matter how beautiful it may -be, can give no adequate conception of the mosaic of which it forms a -part. It may, however, stimulate us to procure it. These extracts taken -at random, would that they might have the same effect. The book, once -so rare, is now within the easy reach of all. The new edition lately -published by the Scribners is all that one could ask, and is a fitting -home for the undying melodies of the summer seas. To read it is to be -reminded of the opening lines of Endymion. - - “A thing of beauty is a joy forever, - Its loveliness increases; it will never - Pass into nothingness; but will keep - A bower quiet for us and a sleep, - Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.” - -Stoddard’s other works are a volume of poems, San Francisco, 1867; -“Mashallah,” a work that produces, as no other work written in English, -the Egypt of to-day. In this work his touch is as light as that of -Gautier, while his eyes are as open as De Amicis; and a little volume -on Molokai. At present he is the English professor at the Catholic -University. - -With the quoting of a little poem, “In Clover,” a poem full of his -delicate touches, I close this sketch of a writer to whom I am much -indebted for happy hours under Italian skies and in Adirondack camps. - - “O Sun! be very slow to set; - Sweet blossoms kiss me on the mouth; - O birds! you seem a chain of jet, - Blown over from the south. - - O cloud! press onward to the hill, - He needs you for his falling streams - The sun shall be my solace still - And feed me with his beams. - - O little humpback bumble bee! - O smuggler! breaking my repose, - I’ll slily watch you now and see - Where all the honey goes. - - Yes, here is room enough for two; - I’d sooner be your friend than not; - Forgetful of the world, as true, - I would it were forgot.” - - - - -MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN. - - -The poet-critic Stedman, in his book on American poetry, gives a few -lines to what he terms the Irish-American school. His definition is a -little misleading, as some of the poets he cites were more American -than the troop of lesser bards that grace his polished pages. It -is rather a strange notion of American critics that Prof. Boyesen, -having cast aside the language of Norseland to sport in the larger -waters of our English tongue, is metamorphosed into a true American, -while the literary sons and daughters of Irish parents, born and -striking root in American soil, are marked with a foreign brand. It -is the old story of English literary prejudice reproduced by American -critics. American _modistes_ go to Paris for their fashions, American -critics to the Strand for their literary canons. It is pleasant to -know that the bulk of the people stay at home. In this Irish-American -school one meets with the name of Maurice Francis Egan. “A sweet and -true poet” is Stedman’s criticism. Coming from a master in the art -of literary interpretation, it must occupy a place in all coming -estimates of Mr. Egan’s poetry. This criticism is, nevertheless, -short and unsatisfactory, it gives no true idea of the poet’s place -in the letters of his country. It merely, if one is inclined to agree -with Stedman, establishes that Mr. Egan has a place among the bards. -In the hall of Parnassus, however, there are so many stalls that the -ordinary reader prefers to have the particular place assigned to each -bard pointed out. The author of this sketch, while not accredited to -the theatre of Parnassus, may be able to give to those who are not -under the guidance of a uniformed usher some hints whereby Mr. Egan’s -particular place may be discerned; that place is among the minor poets. -The major stalls are all empty, waiting for the coming men, so glibly -prophesied about by the little makers of our every-day literature. - -Maurice Francis Egan, poet, essayist, novelist, journalist, and -all-round literary man, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., May 24, 1852. -His first instructors were the Christian Brothers, at their well-known -La Salle College in that city. From La Salle he went to Georgetown -College, as a professor of English. After leaving Georgetown he edited -a short-lived venture, _McGee’s Weekly_. In 1881 he became assistant -editor of the _Freeman’s Journal_, and remained virtually at the head -of that paper until the death of its founder and the passing of the -property to other hands. The founding of the Catholic University, and -the acceptance of its English professorship by Warren Stoddard, made -a vacancy in the faculty of Notre Dame University. This vacancy was -offered to and accepted by Mr. Egan. - -There are few places better fitted as a poet’s home than Notre Dame. -Beautiful scenery to fill the eye, brilliant society to spur the -mind, and a spacious library freighted with the riches of the past. -In comparison with the majority of the Catholic writers, the poet’s -journey in life has been comparatively smooth, though far from what it -should have been. He has published the following volumes:—“That Girl of -Mine,” 1879; “Preludes,” 1880; “Song Sonnets,” London, 1885; “Theatre,” -1885; “Stories of Duty,” 1885; “Garden of Roses,” 1886; “Life Around -Us,” 1886; “Novels and Novelists,” 1888; “Patrick Desmond,” 1893; -“Poems,” 1893. To this list must be added innumerable articles in -magazines and weekly journals. Judged by the signed output, it is safe -to write that the English professor of Notre Dame is a very busy man. -The wonder is that a mind so occupied by so many diverse things can -write entertainingly of each. - -The poet’s first book, a few sonnets and poems, was for “sweet -charity’s sake,” and had but a limited circulation. It is safe to say -that every first book of a genuine poet, despite its crudities, will -show the seeker signs of things to come. Egan’s book was not without -promises, but in truth these promises are only partly fulfilled in his -latest volume of verse. There may be many reasons adduced for this -disparity between promise and fulfilment. One of them is the haste -with which poetry is published. Horace’s dictum of using the file has -been long since forgotten. The rabble calls for poetry, and, like the -Italian and his lentils, care little for the quality. If the poet -harkens to the calls (and who among the contemporary bards has laughed -it to scorn?) he exchanges perpetuity for the present, notoriety for -fame. Nor will the rabble leave the poet freedom in choosing his -material. He is simply a tradesman, and must use what is placed at his -disposal. Things great and grand must be left unto that day when the -poet, untrammelled by worldly care, shall write his heart’s dream. If -the time ever comes, the poet learns in sorrow that his dreams will -never float into human speech, for the hand has lost its cunning. So -the days of youth and manhood pass, blowing bubbles or decorating -platitudes. Death snatches the poetling, and oblivion is his coverlid. -The songs he sang died with the rabble. The new generation asked for -a poet that could drill into the human heart and bring forth its -secrets—a listener to nature, her interpreter to man. To such a one the -vocabulary of a minor bard is useless. Another reason, more applicable -to our author, is that he has been unfortunate to be a pioneer in -Catholic American literature. His poems, appealing, as they do, to -a distinct class, and that far from being a book-buying one, will -fail to attract the lynx-eyed critic who cares only for the general -literary purveyor. From such a source, the poet’s chance of corrective -criticism has been slight. The class to which Mr. Egan belongs has -no criticism to offer its literary food givers. If an author’s book -sells, his name is blazoned forth in half a hundred headless petty -journals. His most glaring defects become through their glasses mystic -beauty spots. He is invited to lecture on all kinds of subjects. A -clique grows around him, whose duty it is to puff the master. The -reasons, frankly adduced, have limited the scope and dwarfed the really -fine genius of Maurice Egan. His latest volume, while containing many -poems that reveal hidden powers, has much of the crudity and faults of -earlier work. These poems speak of better things that will be fulfilled -by the poet if he will consecrate himself wholly to his art, shutting -his mind to the rabble shout and eulogious criticism. Then may he hear -the rhythms and cadences of that music whose orchestra comprises all -things from the shells to the stars, all beings from the worm to man, -all sounds from the voice of the little bird to the voice of the great -ocean. To these translations men will cling to the last, and in their -clinging is the poet’s fame. In his shorter poems, and notably in his -sonnets, Mr. Egan is at his best. Here his scope is broader, his touch -is firmer. The mastery of musical expression, lacking in his longer -poems, is here to be met with in the fulness of its beauty. As a writer -of sonnets, Mr. Egan has had great success. In this line of writing -he is easily at the head of the younger American school of poets. “A -Night in June” is a charming piece of word painting, full of beauty -and power. The reader of this exquisite sonnet will feel how deftly -the poet has put in words the silent magic of such a night, when air -and earth have songs to sing. In the sonnet to the old lyric master -Theocritus, the poet’s graceful interpretative touch is equally felt. - - Daphnis is mute, and hidden nymphs complain, - And mourning mingles with their fountain’s song; - Shepherds contend no more, as all day long - They watch their sheep on the wide, cyprus plain: - The master-voice is silent, songs are vain; - Blithe Pan is dead, and tales of ancient wrong - Done by the gods, when gods and men were strong, - Chanted to reeded pipes, no prize can gain. - O sweetest singer of the olden days, - In dusty books your idyls rare seem dead; - The gods are gone, but poets never die; - Though men may turn their ears to newer lays, - Sicilian nightingales enrapturéd - Caught all your songs, and nightly thrill the sky. - -The sonnet “Of Flowers” gives a happy setting to a beautiful thought: - - There were no roses till the first child died, - No violets, no balmy-breathed heartsease,— - No heliotrope, nor buds so dear to bees, - The honey-hearted suckle, no gold-eyed - And lowly dandelion, nor, stretching wide - Clover and cowslip cups, like rival seas, - Meeting and parting, as the young spring breeze - Runs giddy races, playing seek and hide. - For all Flowers died when Eve left Paradise, - And all the world was flowerless awhile, - Until a little child was laid in earth. - Then, from its grave grew violets for its eyes, - And from its lips rose-petals for its smile; - And so all flowers from that child’s death took birth. - -To those who have lovingly lingered over the pages of Maurice de -Guerin, pages that breathe the old Greek world of thought, the -following sonnet, that paints that modern Grecian with a few masterly -strokes, will be keenly relished. It is the fine implications of these -lines that is the life of our hope for the poet and the future. - -MAURICE DE GUERIN. - - The old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes - Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair, - Unseen by others; to him maiden-hair - And waxen lilacs and those birds that rise - A-sudden from tall reeds, at slight surprise, - Brought charmed thoughts; and in earth everywhere, - He, like sad Jacques, found a music, rare - As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise. - A Pagan heart, a Christian soul, had he, - He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed, - Till earth and heaven met within his breast! - As if Theocritus, in Sicily, - Had come upon the Figure crucified, - And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest. - -As an essayist, Mr. Egan has touched many subjects, and always in an -entertaining vein. Some of his essays are remarkable for their plain -speaking. He has studied his race in their new surroundings, knows -equally well their virtues and failings. If he can take an honest -delight in the virtues, he is capable of writing with no uncertain -sound on the failings, failings that have been so mercilessly used -by the vulgarly comic school of American playwrights. His essays are -corrective and should find their way into every Irish-American home. -They would tend to correct many abuses and aid in the detection of -those bunions so sacredly kept on the feet of the Irish race—last relic -of the Penal times. A recent essay throws a series of blue lights—the -color so well liked by Carlyle—on our shallow collegiate system. Will -it be read by our Catholic educators? That is a question that time will -answer. If they read it aright they will be apt to change their system -of teaching the classics parrot-like, an empty word translation. They -will transport their pupils from the bare class-room to the sunny skies -of Greece and Rome, and under these skies see the religious dogmas, -the philosophical systems, the fine arts, the entire civilization of -those ancient thought giving nations. “What professor,” says de Guerin, -“reading Virgil and Homer to his pupils, has developed the poetry -of the Iliad or Æneid by the poetry of nature under the Grecian and -Italian skies. Who has dreamt of showing the reciprocal relation of the -poets to the philosophers, the philosophers to the poets, and these in -turn to the artists—Plato to Homer, Homer to Phidias? It is a want of -this that makes the classics so dull to youth, so useless to manhood.” - -Mr. Egan, as a novelist, has written many books, dealing mostly with -Irish-American life. These novels are filled with strong, manly -feeling, and Catholic pictures beautiful enough to arrest the attention -of the most fastidious. In these days of romance readers such books -must serve as an antidote to the subtle poison that permeates the -fictive art. They are pleasant and instructive, and that is a high -tribute in these days of dulness and spiced immorality. Take him all in -all, perhaps the most acceptable tribute is, that whatever may be his -gifts in the various rôles he has essayed, heavy or slight, they have -been ungrudgingly used for his race and religion. - - - - -JOHN B. TABB. - - -A friend once wrote to me: “What do you know about a poet who signs his -name John B. Tabb, his poems are delicious?” My answer was, that I knew -nothing of his personal history, but that his poems had found their way -into my aristocratic scrap-book. Here I might pause to whisper that -the adjective aristocratic, in my sense, has nothing haughty about -it. When joined to the noun scrap-book, a good commentator—they are -scarce—would freely translate the phrase the indwelling of good poetry. -Since then my personal knowledge of the poet has grown slowly, a slight -stock and no leaves. Even that, like my old coat, is second-handed. -Such material, no matter how highly recommended by the keepers of the -golden balls, is usually found to be a poor bargain. But here it is, -keeping in mind that rags are better than no clothing, and that older -proverb—half a loaf is better than no bread. - -“John B. Tabb, (I quote) was born in Virginia, when or where I know -not. Becoming a Catholic he studied for the priesthood and was -ordained.” Here my data fails me. At present he is the professor of -literature in St. Charles’ College, Maryland. It is something in his -favor, this scanty biographical fare. Where the biography is long, -laudatory, and in rounded periods, it is approached as one would a -snake in the grass, with a kind of fear that in the end you may be -bitten. “May I be skinned alive,” said that master of word-selection -and phrase-juggler, Flaubert, “before I ever turn my private feelings -to literary account.” And the reader, with the stench of recent -keyhole biography in his nostrils, shouts “bravo.” Flaubert’s phrase -might easily have hung on the pen of the retiring worshipper of the -beautiful, “the Roman Catholic priest, who drudges through a daily -round of pedagogical duties in St. Charles’ College.” This quoted -phrase may stand. Pedagogy, at best, is a dull pursuit for a poet. It -is not congenial, and I have held an odd idea that whatever was not -congenial, disguise it as you may, is drudgery. And all this by way of -propping the quoted sentence. The strange thing is that in the midst -of this daily round of drudgery the poet finds time to produce what a -recent critic well calls “verse-gems of thought.” These verse-gems, -if judged by intrinsic evidence, would argue an environment other -than a drudgery habitation. In truth, it is hard to desecrate them by -predicating of them any environment other than a spiritual one. - -This brings us to write of Fr. Tabb’s poetry that it is elusive, from -a critical point of view. When you bring your preconceived literary -canons to bear upon it, they are found wanting—too clumsy to test the -delicacy, fineness of touch, and the permeated spiritualism embodied in -the verse-gem. It is well summarized in the saying that “it possesses -to the full a white estate of virginal prayerful art.” One might define -it by negatives, such as the contrary of passion poetry. The point -of view most likely to give the clearest conception would be found -in the sentence: an evocation from within by a highly spiritualized -intelligence. The poet has caught the higher music, the music of a soul -in which dwell order and method. In other words, he has assiduously -cultivated to its fullest development both the spiritual sense and the -moral sense. - -It is easy to trace in Fr. Tabb’s poetry the influence of Sidney -Lanier. It has been asserted, and with much truth, that Lanier’s -influence has strangely fascinated the younger school of Southern -poets. Sladen, in his book on Younger American Poets, tells us that -“Lanier differs from the other dead poets included in his book, in that -he was not only a poet but the founder of a school of poetry.” To his -school belongs Fr. Tabb, a school following the founder whose aim is to -depict - - “All gracious curves of slender wings, - Bark mottlings, fibre spiralings, - Fern wavings and leaf flickerings. - - Yea, all fair forms and sounds and lights, - And warmths and mysteries and mights, - Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights.” - -The defects of this school are best seen in the founder. He was a -musician before a poet, and helplessly strove to catch shades by -words that can only be rendered by music. Fr. Tabb has learned -this limitation of his school. For the glowing semi-pantheism of -Lanier he has substituted the true and no less beautiful doctrine of -Christianity. All his verse-gems are redolent of his faith. They are -religious in the sense that they are begotten by faith and breathe the -air of the sanctuary. To read them is to leave the hum and pain of -life behind, and enter the cloister where all is silent and peaceful, -where dwelleth the spirit of God. Of them it is safe to assert that -their white estate of virginal, prayerful art shall constitute their -immortality. Fr. Tabb has not, as yet, thought fit to give them a -more permanent form than they have in the current magazines. Catholic -literature, and especially poetry, is so meagre that when a true -singer touches the lyre it is not to be wondered at that those of his -household should desire to possess his songs in a more worthy dwelling -than that of an ephemeral magazine. In the absence of the coming -charming volume I quote from my scrap-book a few of the verse-gems, -thereby trusting to widen the poet’s audience and in an humble way gain -lovers for his long-promised volume. - -What could illustrate the peculiar genius of our poet better than the -delicious gem that he has called - -“THE WHITE JESSAMINE.” - - I knew she lay above me, - Where the casement all the night - Shone, softened with a phosphor glow - Of sympathetic light, - And that her fledgling spirit pure - Was pluming fast for flight. - - Each tendril throbbed and quickened - As I nightly climbed apace, - And could scarce restrain the blossoms - When, anear the destined place, - Her gentle whisper thrilled me - Ere I gazed upon her face. - - I waited, darkling, till the dawn - Should touch me into bloom, - While all my being panted - To outpour its first perfume, - When, lo! a paler flower than mine - Had blossomed in the gloom! - -“Content” is another gem of exquisite thought and workmanship. - -CONTENT. - - Were all the heavens an overladen bough - Of ripened benediction lowered above me, - What could I crave, soul-satisfied as now, - That thou dost love me? - - The door is shut. To each unsheltered blessing - Henceforth I say, “Depart! What wouldst thou of me?” - Beggared I am of want, this boon possessing, - That thou dost love me. - -“Photographed” may well make the trio in the more fully illustrating -his genius:— - -PHOTOGRAPHED. - - For years, an ever-shifting shade - The sunshine of thy visage made; - Then, spider-like, the captive caught - In meshes of immortal thought. - - E’en so, with half-averted eye, - Day after day I passed thee by, - Till, suddenly, a subtler art - Enshrined thee in my heart of heart. - -“Not even the infinite surfeit of Columbus literature of the last six -months can deprive Fr. Tabb’s tribute in Lippincott’s of its sweetness -and light,” says the _Review of Reviews_: - - With faith unshadowed by the night, - Undazzled by the day, - With hope that plumed thee for the flight - And courage to assay, - God sent thee from the crowded ark, - Christ bearer, like the dove, - To find, o’er sundering waters dark, - New lands for conquering love. - -As a final selection, we may well conclude these brief notes on -a poet with staying powers by quoting a poem, contributed to the -_Cosmopolitan_, called “Silence;” a poem permeated with his fine -spiritual sense: - - Temple of God, from all eternity - Alone like Him without beginning found; - Of time, and space, and solitude the bound, - Yet in thyself of all communion free. - Is, then, the temple holier than he - That dwells therein? Must reverence surround - With barriers the portal, lest a sound - Profane it? Nay; behold a mystery! - - What was, remains; what is, has ever been: - The lowliest the loftiest sustains. - A silence, by no breath of utterance stirred— - Virginity in motherhood—remains, - Clear, midst a cloud of all-pervading sin, - The voice of Love’s unutterable word. - - - - -JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. - - -In this age of rondeaus and other feats in rhyme, it is pleasant -to meet with a little book that abhors all verse tricks of the -fin-de-siècle poets, and judiciously follows the old masters. Such -a little book peeps at me from a corner in my library, marked in -capitals, “Poems Worth Reading.” It was given to me years ago by its -author, and as a remembrance, a few lines from the poem that appealed -most to my intellect in those days, was written on its fly-leaf. It was -its author’s first book, and was put forth with that shrinking modesty -that has heralded all meritorious work. Of preface, that relic of -egotism, there was none. - -It was dedicated to one who was close to his heart, to - - “JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY, - - My very dear friend, and an honorable gentleman.” - -It had O’Reilly’s warm word to speed and gain it a hearing, a word that -would have remained unwritten were it not that the little volume, of -its own worth, demanded that the word but expressed its merit. Since -those days, it has travelled and found a ready home. Its gentle humor -has made it quotable in the fashionable salons, its quaintness tickled -the lonely scholar, stinging notes against wrong and its brilliant -biting to the very core of silk-dressed sham, bespoke a hearty welcome -in the haunts of the poor and oppressed. - -The volume was one of promise and large hope. Of it O’Reilly wrote: -“Not for years has such a first book as this appeared in America.” -This recognition was but a truth. The author is a true poet, not a -rhyme trickster or a cherry-stone filer, that brood so thoroughly -detested by O’Reilly. He has something to say, a genuine, poetical -impression to give in each poem. His genius, as that of most poets of -Celtic blood, is essentially dramatic. This may best be seen in that -fine, man-loving poem, “Netchaieff.” Netchaieff, a Russian Nihilist, -was condemned to prison for life. Deprived of writing materials, he -allowed his fingernail to grow until he fashioned it into a pen. With -this he wrote, in his blood, on the margin of a book, the story of -his sufferings. Almost his last entry was a note that his jailer had -just boarded up the solitary pane which admitted a little light into -his cell. The “letter written in blood” was smuggled out of prison and -published, and Netchaieff died very soon after. The poet’s opening -lines, relating to the Czar, Netchaieff’s death in prison, show that -the human interest of this poet swallows up all other interests. The -human alone can heat his blood and rouse in impassioned verse his -indignation. How finely conceived is the satire in these lines: - - “Netchaieff is dead, your Majesty. - You knew him not. He was a common hind, - Who lived ten years in hell, and then he died— - To seek another hell, as we must think, - Since he was rebel to your Majesty.” - -There are many startling lines in this poem, lines that would give -our fairy-airy school of poets material for a dozen sonnets. “For the -People” is another poem that shows the ink was not watered. It is full -of truth, unpleasant to the ears of the well-fed and easy living, but -truth nevertheless, painted with a bold and masterly hand. It is the -critic’s way to call poems of this kind passionate unreasonableness, -while an irregular ode to a cat or a ballade of the shepherdess is -filled with passionate reasonableness. All which proves that these -amusing gentlemen are unconsciously sitting by the volcano’s side. -They have eyes and they see not; they have ears and they hear not. The -prophetic voice of the poets who will sing from their inner seeing, -caring not whether the age listens or hurries on, is lost on these -so-called literary interpreters. The tocsin blast dies on the breeze, -or speaks to a few lonely thinkers who catch its notes for future -warning; the reed’s soft sensuous music is hugged and repeated by the -critics and the commonplace. When the lava tumbles forth, then the -singer whose songs were a part of him, passionate, conceived in the -white heat of truth, may have the diviner’s crown. The critics and -commonplace, in their suffering, remember the warning in these burning -lines: - - “There’s a serf whose chains are of paper; there’s a king with - a parchment crown, - There are robber knights and brigands in factory, field and town; - But the vassal pays his tribute to a lord of wage rent; - And the baron’s toll is Shylock’s, with a flesh and blood per cent. - - “The seamstress bends to her labor all night in a narrow room, - The child, defrauded of childhood, tiptoes all day at the loom, - The soul must starve, for the body can barely on husks be fed; - And the loaded dice of a gambler settle the price of bread. - - “Ye have shorn and bound the Samson, and robbed him of learning’s - light; - But his sluggish brain is moving, his sinews have all their might, - Look well to your gates of Gaza, your privilege, pride and caste! - The Giant is blind and thinking, and his locks are growing fast.” - -“Netchaieff” and “For the People” are poems with a meaning. Their -author is a thinker, a keen student of the social problems that -convulse our every-day life. He walks the city’s streets, and sees -sights and hears ominous murmuring. He uses the poet’s right to -translate these scenes and sights into his own impassioned verse. -This done, his duty done. The Creator must give brains to the -reader. If that has been done, the poet’s lines will fall fresh -and thought-provoking on his ears. It will take him from Mittens, -Marjorie’s Kisses, April Maids and the school of fantastic littleness, -to man’s inhumanity to man, the burning wrong of our day. An Adirondack -climb, but then the point of view repays the exertion. It is generally -written that the author of Songs and Satires is a comic poet. A -half-way truth is expressed. If by comic is meant humor, yes; all poets -who are worth looking into have in a greater or less degree that -precious gift. It is a distinct gain if the author is an artist and -knows how to use it, dangerous to the commonplace, who put it on with a -white-wash brush. It is a nice line that divides humor from buffoonery. -Our author is a humorist of that school whose genius has been used to -alleviate human suffering. Its shafts are not forged by the hammer of -spleen on the anvil of malice, but the workmanship of love mourning -for misery. His spirit is akin to Hood’s. His touch is light, but his -poniard is a Damascene blade well pointed. Cant has no foil to set it -off. “A Concord Love Song” is a charming bit of satire. I can well -remember the effect it had on a teacher of mine, a proud sage of that -school of word-twisting and transcendental gush. He sniffed and pawed -viciously, a sure sign that the poet’s dart was safely lodged in the -bull’s eye. Those who have, as a sleep seducer, read some of the -Concord fraternity’s vapid musings on the pensive Here and the doubtful -Yonder, will deliciously relish such lines as these: - - “Ah, the joyless fleeting - Of our primal meeting, - And the fateful greeting - Of the How and Why! - Ah, the Thingness flying - From the Hereness, sighing - For a love undying - That fain would die. - - “Ah, the Ifness sadd’ning, - The Whichness madd’ning, - And the But ungladd’ning - That lie behind! - When the signless token - Of love is broken - In the speech unspoken, - Of mind to mind.” - -It is to his later and serious poems that the critic must go to find -the poet at his best. “At Sea” is a poem with a memory, inasmuch as -it is the “embodiment of as beautiful a story of brotherly love as the -world makes record.” The poet’s brother, Mr. John Roche, pay-clerk in -the United States Navy, died a hero’s death in the Samoan disaster of -March, 1889. Doubtless it was from this loved brother that the poet -took his love for the sea, and the gallant deeds of our young navy. -Here he is in his own field. “The Fight of the Armstrong Privateer” -shows genuine inspiration. It has color and passion. The reader feels -the swing of the graphic lines and a quickness in his own blood, while -the tale of daring rapidly and gracefully unfolds itself. - -James Jeffrey Roche was born at Mount Mellick, Queens county, Ireland, -forty-six years ago. His father was a schoolmaster, and to him the poet -is indebted for his early education. At a suitable age he entered St. -Dunstan’s College, Charlottetown, Prince Edward’s Island, the family -having emigrated there in the poet’s infancy. Here he finished his -classics and showed his literary bent by the publishing of a college -journal. Having the valedictory assigned to him, he hopelessly broke -down. The present year he returned to St. Dunstan’s the orator of -Commencement day, as he wittily remarked, to finish the valedictory -that had overtaxed his strength as a small boy. After leaving college -the poet came to Boston, entered commercial life, remaining in that -hardly genial business for sixteen years. During these years his pen -was busy at the real vocation of his life. He was for several years the -Boston correspondent of the _Detroit Free Press_, and had been long an -editorial contributor to the _Pilot_, before he took the position of -assistant editor on it, in 1883. As a journalist Mr. Roche has few -equals. His keen mind easily grapples the questions of the day, while -his good sense in their discussion never deserts him. In a few lines -he goes to the core. If his trenchant sarcasm punctures the bubble, -his humor will not fail to make it ridiculous. It is not the windy -editorial in our day that tortures the quacks, but the bright, pointed -dart of a paragraph. It is so easy to remember, may be stored in the -reader’s brain so readily, and used with deadly effect at any moment. A -writer who knows him well has this to say: “As a journalist he combines -two qualities not often found together, discretion and brilliancy. The -former quality was well exemplified in his editorial course during the -recent crisis in the history of the Irish National movement. He handles -political topics ably, and in the treatment of the still broader social -and economic questions, writes with the strength and spirit worthy of -the associate and successor of that apostle of human liberty and human -brotherhood, John Boyle O’Reilly.” - -In truth, the one thing most essentially felt in this writer, whether -in prose or poetry, is his sanity. There is no buncombe in the former, -no mawkishness nor pedantic prettiness in the latter. His genius has -no pose. So much the better for his fame and future. Mr. Roche’s -prose works are: “The Story of the Filibusters,” a subject dear to a -poet’s heart, and the “Life of John Boyle O’Reilly,” his chief and -friend. This volume was the work of ten weeks, and that in the hours -free from his editorial charge. It was a feat that few men could so -successfully achieve. It had to be done. No sacrifice was too great -for Roche to make for his dead friend. That his health did not give -way after the sleeplessness, work and worry of those ten weeks, is -the wonder of those who stood near to him. Despite the limited time -allowed to Mr. Roche, his biography shows few signs of haste. It is -well and interestingly written, a lasting memorial and a deep tribute -of affection to one of the most lovable characters of the century. -O’Reilly rises from this book as he was. Friendship, while giving -what was his due, restrains all affections that might mar the truth -of the portrait. His stature was felt to be large enough, without any -additions that crumble to time. - -There are those of us who hope that the poet, with greater leisure, -will give to O’Reilly’s race a monograph to be treasured and read by -each household, a monograph where the best in O’Reilly’s character -shall be emphasized, and so lovingly set that those who read shall take -heed and learn, while blessing him who gave the setting. The book as -it is costs too much and is hardly compact enough for those who need -the strong lessons of such a life as O’Reilly’s. In a smaller compass -and at less cost, done in that delightful way so thoroughly shown in -his art of paragraphing, the little book would be a guide-post to many -a struggling lad and lass. And to the young of our race must we look -and to the exiled part for the full flowering. As the poet, so is -the man, cheery, unaffected, kindly and man-loving. He has no airs, -lacks the melodramatic of the airy-fairy school. He does not pretend -that the gift of prophecy is his, nor hint that it sleeps amid verbal -ingenuities. He has a song to sing, a tale to tell, and he does it with -all the craft that is in him. In person Mr. Roche is of the medium -height, well-built, rather dark complexioned, with abundant jet-black -hair and brilliant hazel eyes. - -In concluding this sketch of a genuine man and true poet, I am tempted -to quote the little poem he so graciously wrote in the fly-leaf of his -“Songs and Satires:” - - “They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone; - The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own; - The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone, - Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her, - Ye left her there alone! - - “My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain; - The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main; - But lo! a light is breaking, of hope for thee again; - ’Tis Perseus’ sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming, - Across the Western main. - O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain.” - - - - -GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. - - -In the footsore journey through Mexico, when dinner gladdened our -vision, poor Read would solemnly remark, “dinners are reverent things.” -Society accepted this definition. I use society in the sense that -Emerson would. “When one meets his mate,” writes the Concord sage, -“society begins.” Read was mine, and to-day his quaint remark haunts me -with melancholy force. Thoughts of a dinner with the subject of this -sketch, George Parsons Lathrop, and one whose fair and forceful life -has been quenched, flit through my mind. It was but yesterday that I -bade the gentle scholar farewell, unconsciously a long farewell, for -Azarias has fled from the haunts of mortality. - - “This is the burden of the heart, - The burden that it always bore; - We live to love, we meet to part, - And part to meet on earth no more.” - -Colonel Johnson had read one of his charming essays. Brother Azarias -and George Parsons Lathrop had listened with rapt attention to the most -loveable writer of the New South. After the lecture I was asked to -join them, for, as the author of Lucille asks, “where is the man that -can live without dining?” That dinner, now that one lies dead, enters -my memory as reverent and makes of Read’s remark a truth. Men may or -may not appear best at dinner. Circumstances lord over most dinners. -As it was the only opportunity I had to snap my kodak, you must accept -my picture or seek a better artist. Kodak-pictures, when taken by -amateurs, are generally blurred. And now to mine. - -A man of medium height, strongly built, broad shouldered, the whole -frame betokening agility; face somewhat rounded giving it a pleasant -plumpness, with eyes quick, nervous and snappy, lighting up a more -than ordinary dark complexion—such is Parsons Lathrop, as caught by -my camera. His voice was soft, clear as a bell-note, and, when heard -in a lecture hall, charming; a slight hesitancy but adds to the -pleasure of the listener. In reading he affects none of the dramatic -poses and Delsarte movements that makes unconscious comedians of our -tragic-readers. It is pleasant to listen to such a man, having no fear -that in some moving passage, carried away by some quasi-involuntary -elocutionary movement, he might find himself a wreck among the -audience. The lines of Wordsworth are an apt description of him: - - “Yet he was a man - Whom no one could have passed without remark, - Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs, - And his whole figure, breathed intelligence.” - -Mr. Lathrop was born in Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, August 25, 1851. -It was a fit place for a poet’s birthplace, “those gardens in perfect -bloom, girded about with creaming waves.” He came of Puritan stock, -the founder of his family being the Rev. John Lathrop, a Separatist -minister, who came to Massachusetts in 1634. Some of his kinsmen have -borne a noble part in the creation of an American literature, notably -the historian of the Dutch and the genial autocrat, Wendell Holmes. -His primary education was had in the public schools of New York; from -thence he went to Dresden, Germany, returning in 1870 to study law -at Columbia College. Law was little to his liking. The dry and musty -tomes, wherein is written some truth and not a little error, sanctioned -by one generation of wiseacres to be whittled past recognition by -another generation of the same species, could hardly hope to hold in -thraldom a mind that had from boyhood browsed in the royal demesne of -literature. Law and literature, despite the smart sayings of a few -will not run in the same rut. In abandoning law for literature, he but -followed the law of his being. What law lost literature gained. On a -trip abroad a year later he met Rose Hawthorne, the second daughter -of the great Nathaniel, wooed, and won her. This marriage was by far -the happiest event in his life, the crowning glory of his manhood, a -fountain of bliss to sustain his after life. Years later, in a little -poem entitled, “Love that Lives,” referring to the woman that was his -all, he addresses her in words that needed no coaxing by the muses, but -had long been distilled by his heart, ready for his pen to give them a -setting and larger life. - - “Dear face—bright, glinting hair— - Dear life, whose heart is mine— - The thought of you is prayer, - The love of you divine. - - In starlight, or in rain; - In the sunset’s shrouded glow; - Ever, with joy or pain, - To you my quick thoughts go.” - -And summing up, he tells us the kind of a bond that holds them. It is -the - - “Love that lives; - Its spring-time blossoms blow - ’Mid the fruit that autumn gives; - And its life outlasts the snow.” - -In 1875 he became assistant editor of that staid and stately magazine -the _Atlantic Monthly_, thereby adding to his fame, while it brought -him into intimate relationship with the best current thought of the -time. Few American literary men have not, at some time of their career, -been closely allied with the press. Mr. Lathrop has been no exception. -For two years, from ’77 to ’79, his brilliant pen guided the destinies -of the _Boston Courier_. In 1879 he purchased Hawthorne’s old home, -“The Wayside,” in Concord, Mass., making it his home until his removal -to New York in 1883. His present residence is at New London, Conn., -where a beautiful home, with its every nook consecrated to books and -paintings, tells of an ideal literary life and companionship. Mr. -Lathrop’s genius is many sided. This is often a sign of strength. Men, -says a recent critic, with a great and vague sense of power in them are -always doubtful whether they have reached the limits of that power, and -naturally incline to test this in the field in which they feel they -have fewer rather than more numerous auguries of success. Into many -fields this brilliant writer has gone, and with success. In some he -has sowed, in others reaped a golden harvest. He was a pioneer in that -movement which rightfully held that an author had something to do with -his brain-work. It seems strange that in this nineteenth century such -a proposition should demand a defender. Sanity, however, is not so -widespread as the optimists tell. The contention of those that denied -copyright was, “Ideas are common property.” So they are, says our -author, but granting this, don’t think you have bagged your game? How -about the form in which those ideas are presented? Is not the author’s -own work, wrought out with toil, sweat and privation—is not the labor -bestowed upon that form as worthy of proper wage as the manual skill -devoted to the making of a jumping jack? Yet no one has denied that -jumping-jacks must be paid for. This was sound reasoning and would have -had immediate effect, had Congress possessed a ha’penny worth of logic. -As it was, years were wasted agitating for a self-evident right, men’s -energies spent, and at length a half-loaf reluctantly given. - -In another field Mr. Lathrop has been a worker almost single-handed, -that of encouraging a school of American art. A few years ago a daub -from France was valued more than a marvellous color-study of John La -Farge, or a canvas breathing the luminous idealism of Waterman. Critics -sniffed at American art, while they went into rhapsody over some -foreign little master. Our author, whose keen perception had taught him -that the men who toiled in attics, without recompense in the present, -and dreary prospects for the future, for the sake of art, were not to -be branded as daubers, but as real artists, the fathers of American -art, became their defender. He pointed out the beauties of this new -school, its strength, and above all, that whatever it might have -borrowed from foreign art, it was American in the core. Men listened -more for the sake of the writer than interest in his theme. Gradually -they became tolerant and admitted that there was such a thing as -American art. - -It was natural that the son-in-law of America’s greatest story-teller -should try his strength in fiction. His first novels show a trace of -Hawthorne. They are romantic, while the wealth of language bewilders. -This, as a critic remarks, was an “indication of opulence and not of -poverty.” The author was feeling his way. His later works bear no -trace of Hawthorne; they are marked by his own fine spiritual sense. -The plots are ingenious, poetically conceived and worked out with -a deftness and subtlety that charms the reader. There is an air of -fineness about them totally foreign to the pyrotechnic displays of -current American fiction. The author is an acute observer, one who -looks below the surface, an ardent student of psychology. His English -is scholarly, has color and dramatic force. His novels are free from -immoral suggestions, straining after effect, overdoing the pathetic -and incongruous padding, the ordinary stock of our _fin de siècle_ -novelists. The reading of them not only amuses, a primary condition of -all works of fiction, but instructs and widens the reader’s horizon -on the side of the good and true. In poetry Mr. Lathrop has attained -his greatest strength. Some of his war-poems are full of fine feeling -and manly vigor. He is no carver of cherry-stones or singer of inane -sonnets and meaningless rondeaus, but a poet who has something to say; -none of your humanity messages, but songs that are human, songs that -find root in the human heart. Of his volumes “Rose and Rooftree,” -“Dreams and Days,” a critic writes: - -“There are poems in tenderer vein which appeal to many hearts, and -others wrought out of the joys and sorrows of the poet’s own life, -which draw hearts to him, as “May Rose” and the “Child’s Wish Granted” -and “The Flown Soul,” the last two referring to his only son, whose -death in early childhood has been the supreme grief of his life. The -same critic notes the exquisite purity and delicacy of these poems, and -that “in a day when the delusion is unfortunately widespread that these -cannot co-exist with poetic fervor and strength.” - -In March of 1891 Mr. Lathrop, after weary years of aimless wandering -in the barren fields of sectarianism found, as Newman and Brownson had -found, that peace which a warring world cannot give, in the bosom of -the Catholic Church. Where Emerson halted, shackled by Puritanism and -its traditional prejudice towards Catholicism, Lathrop, as Brownson, -in quest of new worlds of thought, critically examined the old church -and her teachings, finding therein the truth that makes men free. This -step of Lathrop’s, inexplicable to many of his friends, is explained -in his own way, in the manly letter that concludes this sketch. Such a -letter must, by its truthfulness, have held his friends. “May we not,” -says Kegan Paul, “carry with us loving and tender memories of men from -whom we learn much, even while we differ and criticise?” - -“Humanly speaking, I entered into Catholicity as a result of long -thought and meditation upon religion, continuing through a number of -years. But there must have been a deeper force at work, that of the -Holy Spirit, by means of what we call grace, for a longer time than -I suspected. Certainly I was not attracted by ‘the fascinations of -Rome,’ that are so glibly talked about, but which no one has ever been -able to define to me. Perhaps those that use the phrase refer to the -outward symbols of ritual, that are simply the expressive adornment of -the inner meaning—the flower of it. I, at any rate, never went to Mass -but once with any comprehension of it, before my conversion, and had -seldom even witnessed Catholic services anywhere; although now, with -knowledge and experience, I recognize the Mass—which even that arch, -unorthodox author, Thomas Carlyle, called ‘the only genuine thing of -our times’—as the greatest action in the world. Many Catholics had been -known to me, of varying merit; and some of them were valued friends. -But none of these ever urged or advised or even hinted that I should -come into the Church. The best of them had (as large numbers of my -fellow-Catholics have to-day) that same modesty and reverence toward -the sacred mysteries that caused the early Christians also to be slow -in leading catechumens—or those not yet fully prepared for belief—into -the great truths of faith. My observations of life, however, -increasingly convinced me that a vital, central, unchanging principle -in religion was necessary, together with one great association of -Christians in place of endless divisions—if the promise made to men -was to be fulfilled, or really had been fulfilled. When I began to ask -questions, I found Catholics quite ready to answer everything with -entire straightforwardness, gentle good-will, yet firmness. Neither -they nor the Church evaded anything. They presented and defended the -teaching of Christ in its entirety, unexaggerated and undiminished; -the complete faith, without haggling or qualification or that queer, -loose assent to every sort of individual exception and denial that is -allowed in other organizations. I may say here, too, that the Church, -instead of being narrow or pitiless toward those not of her communion, -as she is often mistakenly said to be, is the most comprehensive of -all in her interpretation of God’s mercy as well as of his justice. -And, instead of slighting the Bible, she uses it more incessantly than -any of the Protestant bodies; at the same time shedding upon it a -clear, deep light that is the only one that ever enabled me to see its -full meaning and coherence. The fact is, those outside of the Church -nowadays are engaged in talking so noisily and at such a rate, on -their own hook, that they seldom pause to hear what the Church really -says, or to understand what she is. Once convinced of the true faith, -intellectually and spiritually, I could not let anything stand in the -way of affirming my loyalty to it.” - - - - -REV. BROTHER AZARIAS. - - -It is delicious in this age of hurried bookmaking, to run across a -thinker. It gives one the same kind of sensation that comes to the -sportsman, when a monarch of the glen crosses his path. Bookmakers -are as many as leaves of the Adirondacks after the hasty gallop of a -mountain storm; thinkers are scarce. When, then, amid the leafy mass, -one discovers the rare bird hiding from vulgar gaze, an irresistible -desire to find his lurking place seizes the observer. This lurking -place may be old to many; it was only the other day that I discovered -it,—when a friend placed in my hands “Phases of Thought and Criticism,” -by Brother Azarias. This book, the sale of which has been greater -in England than on this side of the water, is one of suggestive -criticism—a criticism founded on faith. The author holds with another -thinker, that “Religion is man’s first and deepest concern. To be -indifferent is to be dull or depraved, and doubt is disease.” Each -chapter of his book expresses a distinct social and intellectual force. -Each embodies a verifying ideal; for, continues the author, “the -criticism that busies itself with the literary form is superficial, for -food it gives husks.” - -While the author will not concede that mere literary form is the all -in all that our modern masters claim, yet he would not be found in the -ranks of M. de Bonniers, who declares that an author need not trouble -himself about his grammar; let him have original ideas and a certain -style, and the rest is of no consequence. The author of “Phases of -Thought,” believes first in the possession of ideas, for without them -an author is a sorry spectacle. He also believes that an attractive -style will materially aid in the diffusion of these ideas. Many good -books fall still-born from the press, for no other reasons than their -slovenly style. Readers now-a-days will not plod along poor roads, -when a turnpike leads to the same destination. The grammar marks the -parting of ways. Brother Azarias rightfully holds that good grammar is -an essential part of every great writer’s style. Classics are so, by -correct grammar as well as by original ideas. This easy dictum of the -slipshod writers—that if an idea takes you off your feet you must not -trouble yourself about the grammar that wraps it, is but a specious -pleading for their ignorance of what they pretend to despise. - -The great difference between this book and the many on similar subjects -is in the manner of treatment. It starts from a solid basis; that -basis the creed of the Catholic Church. The superstructure of lofty -thought reared on this basis is in a style at once pellucid and crisp. -The author is not only a thinker rare and original; he is a scholar -broad and masterly. - -Believing that his Church holds the keys of the “kingdom come,” and as -a consequence, a key to all problems moral and social that can move -modern society, he grapples with them, after the manner of a knight of -old, courteously but convincingly. His teaching is that, outside the -bosom of the Catholic Church jostle the warring elements of confusion -and uncertainty. In her fold can man find that rest, that sweet -peace promised by the Redeemer. Her philosophy is the wisdom worth -cherishing, the curing balm that philosophers vainly seek outside her -pale. To the weary and thought-stricken would this great writer bring -his often and beautifully taught lesson, that the things of this world -are not the puppets of chance, nor lots of the pantheistic whole, but -parts of a well-ordered system, governed by a paternal being, whom -we, His children, address in that touching prayer, “Father, who art -in Heaven.” From that Father came a Son, not mere man, not only a -great prophet, not only a law-giver, but the true Son of God, equal -to the Father, from all eternity, whose mission was, to teach all men -that would listen, the way that leads to light. That this identical -mission is, and will be continued to the consummation of the ages by -the Catholic Church. That in the truth of these things, all men, who -lovingly seek, will be confirmed, not that mere intellect alone could -be the harbinger of such truths, for, as he has so well put it:—“Human -reason and human knowledge, whether considered individually or -collectively in the race are limited to the natural. Knowledge of the -supernatural can come only from a Divine Teacher.” - -One may be convinced of every truth of revealed religion, and yet not -possess the gift of faith. That gift is purely gratuitous. If, however, -the seeker humbly and honestly desires the acquisition of these truths, -and knocks, the door of the chamber of truth shall be opened unto him, -for this has the Saviour promised. That door once opened, the Spirit of -God breathes on the seeker, it opens the eyes of the soul, it reveals -beyond all power of doubt or cavil, or contradiction, the supernatural -as a fact, solemn, universal, constant throughout the vicissitudes of -the age. While the author fashions these lofty truths on the anvil of -modern scholarship, the reader finds himself, like the school children, -in Longfellow’s poem, looking in through the artist’s open door full -of admiration, fascinated by burning sparks. Pages have been written -about the ideal, defining it, in verbiage fatiguing and elusive. - -It is a trick of pretended scholarship, to hide thought with massive -word-boulders. What a difference in the process of this rare scholar? - -A flying spark from his anvil lights up the dullest intellect. It is -a stimulus to the weary brain, after wading through essays as to what -constitutes an ideal, to have the gentle scholar, across the blazing -pine logs, on a winter’s night, say: “A genius conceives and expresses -a great thought. The conception so expressed delights. It enters men’s -souls; it compels their admiration. They applaud and are rejoiced that -another masterpiece has been brought into existence to grace the world -of art and letters. The genius alone is dissatisfied. Where others -see perfection, he perceives something unexpressed; beyond the reach -of his art. Try as best he may, he cannot attain that indefinable -something. Deep in his inner consciousness he sees a type so grand and -perfect that his beautiful production appears to him but a faint and -marred copy of that original. That original is the ideal; and the ideal -it is that appeals to the aesthetic and calls forth men’s admiration.” -What a divining power has this student, in plummeting the vagaries of -modern culture! - -“Every school of philosophy has its disciples, who repeat the sayings -of their masters with implicit confidence, without ever stopping to -question the principles from which those sayings arise or the results -to which they lead.” These chattering disciples will affect to sneer -at the Christian belief, while they lowly sit at the feet of one of -their mud gods singing “thou art the infallible one.” They will not -question their position simply because “these systems are accepted not -so much for truth’s sake as because they are the intellectual fashions -of the day.” Such men change their philosophy as quickly as a Parisian -dressmaker his styles. It may yet be shown by some mighty Teuton that -vagaries in philosophy and dress are closely allied, and that the -synthetic philosophy of Herbert Spencer is responsible for the coming -of crinoline. What a delightful thrust at that school of criticism -that singles out an author or a book as the very acme of perfection, -seeing wisdom in absurdities and truth in commonplace fiction, is given -in these lines: “Paint a daub and call it a Turner, and forthwith -these critics will trace in it strokes of genius.” With a twinkle in -his eye he asks, “Think you they understand the real principles of -art criticism?” You will be easily able to answer that question when -you have mastered this pithy definition of true criticism, be it of -literature or of art, “that it is all-embracing.” It has no antagonism -to science so long as she travels in her rightful domain. When “science -has her superstitions and her romancings as unreal and shadowy as those -of the most ephemeral literature, then it is the duty of criticism to -administer the medicine of truth and purge the wayward jade of her -humors.” - -To such a mind as that of the author of “Phases of Thought,” with its -thorough knowledge of the art of criticism and its perfect equipment, -the separating of the chaff from the meal of an author becomes not -only a pleasure but a duty. This is best seen by a perusal of Chapter -III, dealing with Emerson and Newman as types. With a few masterly -strokes the real Emerson, not the phantom or brain figment of Burroughs -and Woodberry and the long line of fad disciples, passes before us. -Not an inch is taken from his stature. His intellectual beauties and -defects, so strongly drawn, but confirm the reader in the truth of the -portraiture. One catches not only a glimpse of the man, but the springs -of his soul-struggles. Emerson in his hungry quest for intellectual -food, ranged through the philosophies of the east and west, purposely -ignoring that of the Catholic Church. This sin cost him whole worlds of -thought hidden from his vision. Newman had the same hunger to appease, -but where Emerson turned away Newman, ever in search for truth, kept -on, and found it in the Catholic Church. The analysis of these two -minds is done in a masterly way. Azarias has no prejudices. If he puts -his fingers on defects and descants on their nature and treatment, he -will, no less, point out beauties and lovingly linger among them. He is -a knight in the cause of truth, and would not herd with the carping -critics. He will tell you that Emerson’s mind was like an Æolian harp. -“It was awake to the most delicate impressions, and at every breath -of thought it gave out a music all its own,” and that the reading of -him with understanding “is a mental tonic bracing for the cultured -intellect as is Alpine air for the mountaineer.” The pages of this book -teem with thought clothed in language whose sparkling beauty is all the -author’s own. From such a book it is difficult to select. Emerson has -well said, “No one can select the beautiful passages of another for -you. Do your own quarrying.” I abide by this quotation, and should ask -every lover of the beautiful and true to buy this fecund book. - -Patrick Francis Mullaney, better known as Brother Azarias, was born -in Killenaule County, Tipperary, Ireland, June 29th, 1847. Like the -majority of eminent men that his country has given birth to, he came -of its noble peasantry. The old tale was here enacted. The parents -left the land of their birth in search of a home in our better land. -This found, Azarias joined them. At the age of fifteen he joined the -Christian Brothers. That great Order gave free scope to his fine -abilities. In 1866 he was chosen professor of mathematics and English -literature at Rock Hill College, Maryland. He continued in this -position for ten years. At the expiration of his professorship he -travelled a year through Europe, collecting materials and writing his -“Development of Old English Thought.” On his return he became president -of Rock Hill College, holding that position until recalled to Paris by -his Superior in 1866. After an absence of three years Brother Azarias -returned to the States as professor of English literature at the De -La Salle Institute, New York. This is not only an important position, -but it gives leisure, and that ready access to the great libraries, so -prized by literary men. - - - - -WOMEN. - - - - -KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY. - - -“Next room to that of Roche’s,” said the dear O’Reilly, showing me his -nest of poets, “is a gentle poetess.” - -The door was wide open. It is a question with my mind if the room ever -knew a door. Be this as it may, there sat, with her chair close drawn -to her desk, a frail, delicate-looking woman. The ordinary eye might -see nothing in a face that was winsome, if not handsome; yet, let the -dainty mouth curve in speech, and at once a subtle attraction, lit up -by lustrous eyes, permeated the face. One characteristic that made -itself felt, in the most sparse conversation with this woman, was her -humility, a rare virtue among American literary women. I have known -not a few among that irritable class who, no sooner had they sipped the -most meagre draught of fame, than they became intoxicated with their -own importance, and for the balance of life wooed that meretricious -goddess, Notoriety. In fiery prose and tuneful song they told of the -dire misfortunes that had been heaped upon their sex by that obstinate -vulgar biped, man. Their literature—for that is the name given to -the crudest offspring of the press in these days—is noisy, and, says -a witty writer, a noisy author is as bad as a barrel organ,—a quiet -one is as refreshing as a long pause in a foolish sermon. Clergymen, -who have listened to a brother divine on grace, will be the first to -see the point. Our authoress—(a female filled with the vanity that -troubled Solomon says I should write female author)—is a quiet and -unobtrusive writer. Of the tricks that catch and the ways that are -crooked in literature, she knows nothing, and what is better, no amount -of tawdry fame could induce her to swerve a jot from the hard stony -road that leads to enduring success, the only goal worth striving for -in the domain of letters. I am well aware that in the popular list of -women-writers mouthed by the growing herd of flippant readers that have -no other use for a book than as a time-killer,—a herd to whom ideas -are as unpalatable as disestablishment to an English parson—you will -fail to find the name of Katherine Conway. The reason is simple. She -has no fads to air in ungrammatical English, no fallacies to adduce -in halting metre. It was a Boston critic who echoed the dictum of -the French critic—that grammar has no place in the world of letters. -Only have ideas, that is, write meaningless platitudes, grandiose -nothings, something that neither man, the angels above nor the demons -down under the sea, may decipher, and this illusive verbiage will -make you famous. A school of critics will herald your work with such -adjectives as “noble, lofty, absorbing, soul-inspiring;” nay, more, -a pious missionary friend may be found to to translate the verbiage -into Syriac, as a present for converts. Borne on the tide of such -criticism, not a few women writers have mistaken the plaudits of -notoriety, that passing show, for fame. It was a saying of De Musset’s -that fame was a tardy plant, a lover of the soil. Be this as it may, -it is safe to assert that its coming is not proclaimed by far-fetched -similes, frantic metaphors, sensuous images, ranting style, ignorance -of metre, want of grammar; the dishes are not of the voluptuous, morbid -or the monstrous kind. Its thirst is not slaked at sewers of dulness -spiced with immorality. These symptoms savor of one disease known -to all pathologists as notoriety. In an age of this dreaded disease -it is surely refreshing to meet with works that breathe gentleness -and repose,—a beautiful trust in religion, and a warm, natural heart -for humanity. These traits will the reader find in abundance in the -pages of Katherine Conway. “What kills a poet,” says Aldrich, “is -self-conceit.” Of all the forms self-conceit may assume none is more -foolish or detrimental, especially to a woman-poet, than the pluming -of oneself as the harbinger of some renovating gospel, some panacea -for human infirmities. What is the burden of your message? says the -critic to the young poet. Straightway the poet evolves a message, -and as messages of this kind ought to be mysterious, the poet wraps -them in a jargon as unintelligible as Garner’s monkey dialect. Thus -in America has risen a school of woman poetry, deluded by false -criticism, calling itself a message to humanity, dubbed rightly the -school of passion, and one might add, of pain. This school may ask, “Am -I to be debarred from treating of the passions on the score of sex.” -By no means; the passions are legitimate subjects. Love, one of them, -is your most attractive theme, but as Lilly has it, love is not to you -what it is to the physiologist, a mere animal impulse which man has -in common with moths and molluscs. Your task is to extract from human -life, even in its commonest aspects, its most vulgar realities, what it -contains of secret beauty; to lift it the level of art, not to degrade -art to its level. Few American writers more fully realized these -great artistic truths than the master under whose fatherly tuition -Miss Conway had long been placed. Boyle O’Reilly was a Grecian in his -love for nature. As such it was his aim to seek the beautiful in its -commonest aspects, its most vulgar realities. No amount of claptrap or -fine writing could make him mistake a daub for a Turner. In the bottom -of his soul he detested the little bardlings who had passed nature by, -without knowing her, who wove into the warp and woof of their dulness -the putridity of Zola and morbidity of Marie Bashkirtseff. Under such -a guide, the poetic ideal set before Miss Conway has been of the -highest, and the highest is only worth working for. This ideal must -be held unswervingly, even if one sees that books that are originally -vicious are “placarded in the booksellers’ windows; sold on the street -corners; hawked through the railroad trains; yea, given away, with -packages of tea or toilet soap, in place of the chromo, mercifully -put on the superannuated list.” These books are but foam upon the -current of time, flecking its surface for a moment, and passing away -into oblivion, while what Miss Conway happily calls the literature of -moral loveliness, or what might as aptly be called the literature of -all time, remains our contribution to posterity. Its foundations, to -follow the thought of Azarias, are deeply laid in human nature, and -its structure withstands the storms of adversity and the eddies of -events. For such a literature O’Reilly made a life struggle; his pupil -has closely followed his footsteps in the charming, simple, melodious -volume that lies before me, “A Dream of Lilies.” Rarely has a Catholic -book had a more artistic setting, and one might add, rarely has a -volume of Catholic verse deserved it more. Here the poetess touches -her highest point, and proves that years of silence have been years of -study and conscientious workmanship. In her poem “Success” may be found -the key to this volume; - - “Ah! know what true success is; young hearts dream, - Dream nobly and plan loftily, nor deem - That length of years is length of living. See - A whole life’s labor in an hour is done; - Not by world-tests the heavenly crown is won, - To God the man is what he means to be.” - -“Dream nobly and plan loftily” has been the guiding spirit of this -volume. It is a book of religious verse in the true sense, not in the -general acceptance of modern religious verse, which is generally dull -twaddle, egotism, mawkishness, blind gropings and haunting fears. The -gentle spirit of Christ breathes through it, making an atmosphere of -peace and repose. There is no bigotry to jar, no narrowness to chafe -us, but the broad upland of Christian charity and truth. Nor has our -author forgotten that even truth if cast in awkward mould may be passed -over. To her poems she has given a dainty setting without sacrificing -a jot of their strength. After reading such a book a judicious bit of -Miss Conway’s prose comes to my mind. “And as that Catholic light, the -only true vision, brightens about us, we realize more and more that -literary genius, take it all and all, has done more to attract men -to good than to seduce men to evil; that the best literature is also -the most fascinating, and even by its very abundance is more than a -match for the bad; that time is its best ally; that it is hard, if -not impossible, to corrupt the once formed pure literary taste; and, -finally, that as makers of literature or critics or disseminators -of it, it is our duty to believe in the best, hope in the best, and -steadfastly appeal to the best in human nature; for we needs must love -the highest when we see it.” - -Katherine Eleanor Conway was born of Irish parents, in Rochester, on -the 6th of Sept., 1853. Her early studies were made in the convent -schools of her native city. From an early age she had whisperings of -the muse. These whisperings at the age of fifteen convinced her that -her true sphere of action was literature. In 1875 she commenced the -publication of a modest little Catholic monthly, contributing poems and -moral tales, under the _nom-de-plume_ of “Mercedes,” to other Catholic -journals, in the spare hours left from editing her little venture and -teaching in the convent. In 1878 she became attached to the Buffalo -_Union and Times_. To this journal she contributed the most of the -poems to be found in her maiden volume,—“On the Sunrise Slope,”—a -volume whose rich promise has been amply fulfilled in the “Dream of -Lilies.” Her health failing, she sought a needful rest in Boston. Her -fame had preceded her, and the gifted editor of the _Pilot_, ever on -the lookout for a hopeful literary aspirant of his race, held out a -willing hand to the shy stranger. “Come to us,” he said, in a voice -that knew no guile, “and help us in the good fight.” That fight—the -crowning glory of O’Reilly’s noble life—was to gain an adequate -position for his race and religion from the puritanism of New England. -How that race and religion were held before his coming, may be best -told in the language of Miss Conway, taken from a heart-sketch of her -dead master and minstrel:— - -“Notwithstanding Matignon and Cheverus, and the Protestant Governor -Sullivan, Catholic and Irish were, from the outset, simply -interchangeable terms—and terms of odium both—in the popular New -England mind; in vain the bond of a common language, in vain the -Irishman’s prompt and affectionate acceptance of the duties of American -citizenship. To but slight softening of prejudice even his sacrifice of -blood and life on every battle-field in the Civil War, in proof of the -sincerity of his political profession of faith. He and his were still -hounded as a class inferior and apart. They were almost unknown in the -social and literary life of New England. Their pathetic sacrifices -for their kin beyond the sea, their interest in the political -fortunes of the old land, were jests and by-words. Their religion was -the superstition of the ignorant, vulgar and pusillanimous; or, at -best, motive for jealous suspicion of divided political allegiance -and threatened “foreign” domination. Their children suffered petty -persecutions in the public schools. The stage and the press faithfully -reflected the ruling popular sentiment in their caricatures of the -Catholic Irishman.” - -She accepted O’Reilly’s call and stood by his side with Roche, Guiney, -Blake, until the hard fought battle against the prejudice to Irishism -and Catholicism, planted in New England by the bigoted literature of -Old England, was abated, if not destroyed; until its shadows, if cast -now, are cast by the lower rather than the higher orders in the world -of intellect and refinement. “And the shortening of the shadow is proof -that the sun is rising,” proof that her work has been far from vain. -And when from the grey dawn of prejudice will come forth the white -morrow of charity and truth, the singer and her songs will not be -forgotten. - - - - -LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. - - -In speaking with the author of a “Dream of Lilies,” I casually -mentioned the name of another Boston poetess, “one of the _Pilot_ -poets,” as the gifted Carpenter was wont to speak of those whose genius -was nursed by Boyle O’Reilly. For a few years previous to my coming, -little waif poems, suggestive of talent and refinement, had seen light -in the columns of that brilliant journal. They had about them that -something which makes the reader hazard a bet that the youngster when -fully fledged would some day leave the lowlands of minor minstrelsy -for a height on Parnassus. From this singer Miss Conway had that -morning received a notelet. It was none of the ordinary kind, a little -anarchistic, if one might judge from the awkward pen-sketch of a -hideous grinning skeleton-skull held by cross-bones which served as an -illustration to the bantering text that followed, in a rather cramped -girlish hand. The notelet was signed Louise Imogen Guiney. - -“Are you not afraid, Miss Conway,” said I, “to receive such warning -notes?” “It is from the best girl in America,” was the frank reply; -“read it.” A perusal of the few dashing lines was enough, and my -generous host, reading my eyes, gave me the coveted notelet. That -notelet begot an interest in the writer; an interest fully repaid -by the strong, careful work put forth under her name. Louise Imogen -Guiney, poet, essayist, dramatist, was born in Boston, that city of -“sweetness and light,” in January, 1862. Her parents were Irish. Her -father, Patrick Guiney, came from the hamlet of Parkstown, County -Tipperary, at an early age. He was a man of the most blameless and -noble character. During the civil war, as Col. Guiney of the Irish -Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, his heroism on behalf of his adopted -country won him the grateful admiration of all lovers of freedom. This -admiration at the close of the war was substantially shown by his -election as Judge of Probate. Constant suffering from an old wound, -received at the battle of the Wilderness, gave the old soldier but few -years to enjoy honors from his fellow-citizens. His death was mourned -by all who loved virtue and honor. Of him a Boston poet sang: - - “Large heart and brave! Tried soul and true! - How thickly in thy life’s short span, - All strong sweet virtues throve and grew, - As friend, as hero, and as man. - Unmoved by thought of blame or praise, - Unbought by gifts of power and pride, - Thy feet still trod Time’s devious ways - With Duty as thy law and guide.” - -Good blood, you will say, from whence our poet came, and blood counts -even in poetry. I have no anecdotes to relate of Miss Guiney’s early -years. I am not sure that there were any. Anecdotes are usually -manufactured in later life, if the subject happens to become famous. -Her education was carefully planned, and intelligently carried out. -She was not held in the dull routine of the school-room, but was -allowed to emancipate herself in the works of the poets. What joy must -have been her’s, scampering home after the study of _de omni scibili_, -the ordinary curriculum of any American school, to a quiet nook and -the dream of her poets. Amid these dreams came the siren whisperings -of the muse, telling her of the poet within struggling for life and -expression. These struggles begot a tiny little volume happily named -“Songs at the Start.” The great American reviewer, who, ordinarily, - - “Bolts every book that comes out of the press, - Without the least question of larger or less,” - -on this occasion, by some untoward event, stumbled on a truth when he -informed us, with the air of one who rarely touches earth, that the -book bore signs of promise. The people, by all means a better critic, -were more apt in their judgment of the young singer. A few years -later they asked her to write the memorial poem for the services in -commemoration of General Grant. Thus honored by her native city, in -an easy way she was led to climb the ladder of fame. In 1885 appeared -her first volume of essays, “Goose Quill Papers;” in 1887 a volume -of poems bearing the fanciful name of “White-Sail;” in 1888 a pretty -book for children; in 1892 “Monsieur Henri, a Foot-note to French -History.” It us something to be noted in regard to a “Foot-note to -French history,” that the novelist Stevenson, in his far-off home in -Samoa, was publishing at the same time a work which bore a decided -likeness to her title. Stevenson’s book was published as “A Foot-Note -to History.” In 1893 appeared her latest volume of verse, being a -selection of poems previously published in American magazines. This -selection (the poet has a genuine knack for tacking taking names to -her volumes) is quaintly named “A Wayside Harp,” and dedicated to a -brace of Irish poets, the Sigerson sisters. The graceful dedication -as well as many of its strongest and most artistic poems, were the -outcome of a trip to Great Britain and Ireland. The author travelled -with open eyes, and brought back many a dainty picture of the scenes -she had so lovingly witnessed. This volume fulfils the early promise, -and what is more, gives indubitable signs that the poet possesses a -reserve force. Not a few women poets write themselves out in their -first volume. Not so with Miss Guiney, every additional volume shows -greater strength and more complete mastery of technique. After the -surfeit of twaddle passing current as poetry, such a book as “A Wayside -Harp” should find a waiting audience, Miss Guiney has the essentials of -a poet, which I take to be color, music, perfume and passion. In their -use she is an artist. In her first book an excess of these everywhere -prevailed; it was from this excess, however, that the prudent critic -would have hazarded a doubt as to her fitness to join the company of -the bards. Since then she has been an ardent student. This study has -not only taught her limitations, a thing that saves so much after -pruning, but that other lesson, forgotten by so many bardlets, that -the greatest poetic effects are the result of the masterful mixing of -a few simple colors. It is well that she has learned these lessons at -the outset of her career. Let not the fads and fancies of this _fin de -siècle_ and the senseless worship of those poetasters who scorn sense -while they hug sound lead her from the true road of song. No amount -of meaningless words airily strung together, no amount of gymnastic -rhyming feats can produce a poet. They are the badges of those wondrous -little dunces that pass nature with a frown, alleging in the language -of the witty Bangs that “Nature is not art.” Guiney’s friend and -faithful mentor, O’Reilly, had taught her to abhor all those who spent -their waking hours chiselling cherry stones. To him it was a poet’s -duty to aim high, attune his lyre, not to the petty, but the manly -and hopeful; never to debase the lyre by an utterance of selfishness, -but to consecrate it with the strains of liberty and humanity. If -Guiney follows the teachings of her early friend—teachings which are -substantially sound, she will yet produce poems that the world will -not willingly let die. That Rosetti fad of hiding a mystic meaning -in a poem, now occupying the brains of our teeming songsters, is now -and then to be met with in our poet. It is a trade-trick. Poetry is -sense—common-sense at that, and you cannot rim common-sense things -with mystical hues. Abjuring these trade-tricks, and shaking off the -trammels of her curious and extensive reading and evolving from herself -solely, she has, says Douglas Sladen, a great promise before her. As an -instance of this promise let us quote that fine poem, “The Wild Ride,” -which is full of genuine inspiration, and which may be the means of -introducing to some the most thoroughly gifted Catholic woman writer of -our country. - - -THE WILD RIDE. - - I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, - All day, the commotion of sinewy mane-tossing horses; - All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing, - Cowards and laggards fall back but alert to the saddle, - Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion, - With a stirrup cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him. - The road is thro’ dolour and dread, over crags and morasses! - There are shapes by the way, there are things that appall or entice us! - What odds! We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding! - I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, - All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses; - All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing, - We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm wind; - We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil, - Thou leadest! O God! All’s well with thy troopers that follow. - -It was only natural that the daughter of an Irish patriot should -sing of her father’s land, and that in a style racy of that land. -It was a hazardous experiment, as many an Irish American singer has -learned in sorrow. That Miss Guiney has come out of the trying ordeal -successfully, may be seen in the following little snatch, full of the -aroma of green Erin: - - -AN IRISH PEASANT SONG. - - I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while; - Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile; - Yet when I walk alone, and think of naught at all, - Why from me that’s young should the wild tears fall? - - The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams, - They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams; - And yonder ivy fondling the broken castle wall, - It pulls my heart, till the wild tears fall. - - The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill, - And far as Leighlin cross the fields are green and still; - But once I hear a blackbird in Leighlin hedges call, - The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall! - -Miss Guiney possesses a charming personality. Her manner is -“unaffected, girlish and modest.” There is about her none of the -curtness and prudishness of the blue-stocking. Success has not turned -her head, literary homage has not made her forget that they who will -build for time must need work long and patiently, using only the best -material. By so doing may it be written of her work, as she has -written of Brother Bartholomew’s: - - “Wonderful verses! fair and fine, - Rich in the old Greek loveliness; - The seer-like vision, half divine; - Pathos and merriment in excess, - And every perfect stanza told, - Of love and of labor manifold.” - - - - -MRS. BLAKE. - - -Boston is a charming city. It is the whim of the passing hour to -sneer at the modest dame. Henry James has done so. Is not the author -of “Daisy Miller” and other interminable novels a correct person to -follow? The disciples of the Mutual Admiration Society in American -Letters will vociferously answer “yes.” Old-fashioned people may have -another way. Scattered here and there possibly a few there are who -hold that Hawthorne was a better novelist than Howells is, that Holmes’ -poetry is as good as Boyesen’s, and that Emerson’s criticisms are more -illuminative than James’. Be this as it may, Boston is a charming place -to all those who had the good fortune to have been welcomed by its -warm-hearted citizen, Boyle O’Reilly. To those who knew his struggles, -and the earnest striving, until his weary spirit sought its final home, -for Catholic literature in its true sense, the charm but increases. - -It was owing to his kindness that I found myself one blustery, raw day, -ringing the door-bell of an ordinary well to-do brick house. Houses -now and then carry on their fronts an inkling of their occupants. A -door was opened, my card handed to a feminine hand; the aperture was -not as yet wide enough to catch a glimpse of the face. The card was a -power. “Come in,” said a woman’s voice, and the door was wide open. I -followed the guide, and was soon in a plain, well furnished room, in -presence of a motherly-looking woman. She was knitting; at least that -is part of my memory’s picture. Near her hung a mocking-bird, whose -notes now and then were peculiarly sad. Despite the graceful lines of -the Cavalier Lovelace, iron bars do a prison make for bird and man. And -the songs sung behind these bars are but bits of the crushed-out life. -I was welcomed, and during busy years have held the remembrance of -that visit with its hour of desultory chat and a mocking-bird’s broken -song. The motherly-looking woman, with her strong Celtic face freshly -furrowed by sorrow in the loss of beloved children, was a charming -talker and a good listener, things rarely found in your gentle or fiery -poetess. She had just published, under the initials M. A. B., a volume -of children’s verse, and, as is natural with an author who had finished -a piece of work, was full of it. The pretense of some authors that they -are bored to speak of their own books is a sly suggestion to praise -them for their humility. Mrs. Blake—for that is the motherly-looking -woman’s name—spoke of her work without any hiccoughing gush or false -modesty. Her eyes lit up, and the observer read in them honesty. She -was deeply interested, as all thinking women must be, in the solution -of the social problems that have arisen in our times, and will not be -downed at the biddance of capitalist or demagogue. With her clear-cut -intellect she was able to grasp a salient point, purposely hidden by -the swarm of curists with their panacea remedies, that these problems -must be solved in the light of religion. Man must return to Christ, -not the “cautious, statistical Christ” paraded in the social show, not - - “The meteor blaze - That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind, - More dark and helpless far, than if it ne’er had shined,” - -but the Christ of the Gospels, the Bringer of peace and good-will—the -Bearer of burdens, the soul-guider—Christ, loving and acting, as found -in the Catholic Church. Hecker had begun the preface of his wonderful -book with a truth, “The age is out of joint.” Problems to be solved, -and lying around them millions of broken hearts. “The age is out of -joint.” Who will bring the light and rightify the age? Mrs. Blake -has but one answer. Bring the employers and the employed nearer the -Christ of the Catholic Church. This was O’Reilly’s often expressed -and worked-for idea. It is the key-note of much of his poetry. It is -the germ of his “Bohemia.” It was impossible to live, as Mrs. Blake -did, on the most friendly terms with such a man and not be smitten -with his life-thought. In not a few published social papers Mrs. Blake -has thrown out valuable and suggestive hints as to the best means of -bringing the weary world under the sweet sway of religion. Her voice, -it is true, is but one voice in the social wilderness, but individual -efforts must not be thwarted, for is not a fresh period opening in -which the individuality, the personality, of souls acting under the -direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, will take up all that is good in -modern ideas, and the cords of our tent be strengthened and its stakes -enlarged? “What we have to dread is neither ‘historical rancor’ nor -‘philosophical atheism,’” “nor the instinct of personal freedom.” It -is, in the words of Dr. Barry, that we should set little store by that -“freedom wherewith Christ has made us free,” and that being born -into a church where we may have the grandest spiritual ideas for the -asking, we should fold our hands in slumber and be found, at length, -“disobedient to the heavenly vision.” Against such perils Hecker, the -noblest life as yet in our American church, made a life-fight. On his -side was Boyle O’Reilly, Roche, Mrs. Blake, Katherine Conway and Louise -Guiney. Nor pass such lives in vain. - -Mrs. Blake was born in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, Ireland. In childhood -she was brought to Massachusetts. In 1865 she was married to Dr. J. -G. Blake, a leading physician of Boston. She has made that city her -home, and is highly esteemed in its literary and social circles. Among -her published books may be mentioned “Poems,” Houghton, Mifflin & Co., -1882, dedicated to her husband; “On The Wing,” a pretty volume of -Californian sketches; “Rambling Talk,” a series of papers contributed -to the Boston journals. - -Her sketches are the agreeable jottings of a highly cultivated woman; -seeing nature in the light of poetry rather than science, she has made -a series of charming pictures out of her wanderings. They are not free -from sentiment,—illusions if you will, but that is their greatest -charm. “The world of reality is a poor affair.” So many books of travel -are annually appearing,—books that have no excuse for being other than -to prove how widespread dulness and incapacity is, that a trip with a -guide like Mrs. Blake has but one failing,—its shortness. Neither in -her travels nor in her literary articles does Mrs. Blake body forth her -best prose utterance. These must be found in her earnest social papers, -where her woman’s heart, saddened by the miseries of its fellows, pours -out its streams of consolation and preaches (all earnest souls must be -preachers now-a-days) the only and all sufficient cure—the Church. - -An extract from one of these papers will best show her power. She is -portraying the Church manifesting itself in the individual as well -as the family life, pleading for the central idea of her system. -“Jesus Christ is the complement of man,”—the restorer of the race. The -Catholic Church is the manifestation of Jesus Christ. - -“There are, alas! too many weaknesses into which thoughtlessness and -opportunity lead one class as well as the other. But still there is -to be seen almost without exception, among practical Catholics, young -wives, content and happy, welcoming from the very outset of married -life the blessed company of the little ones who are to guard them -as do their angels in heaven; proud like Cornelia of their jewels; -gladly accepting comparative poverty and endless care; while their -sisters outside the Church buy the right to idleness and personal -adorning at the expense of the childless homes which are a disgrace and -menace to the nation. There is the honor and purity of the fireside -respected; the overpowering sweetness and strength of family ties -acknowledged; the reverential love that awaits upon the father and -mother shown. There are sensitive and refined women bearing sorrow -with resignation and hardship without rebellion; combating pain with -patience and fulfilling harsh duty without complaint. In a tremendous -over-proportion to those who attempt to live outside its helpfulness, -and in exact ratio to their practical devotion to the observances -of the Church, they find power of resisting temptation in spite of -poverty, and overcoming impulse by principle. Can the world afford to -ignore an agency by which so much is accomplished? - -“So much for the practical side, which is the moral that particularly -needs pointing at this moment. Of the spiritual amplitude and -sustaining which the Church gives there is little need to speak. Only a -woman can know what Faith means in the existence of women. The uplift -which she needs in moments of great trial; the sustaining power to -bear the constant harassment of petty worries; the outlet for emotions -which otherwise choke the springs, the tonic of prayer and belief; the -assurance of a force sufficiently divine and eternal to satisfy the -cravings of human longing—what but this is to make life worth living -for her? And where else, in these days of scepticism, is she to find -such immortal dower? It is a commentary upon worldly wisdom, that -it has attempted to ignore this necessity, and left woman under the -increased pressure of her new obligations, to rely solely upon such -frail reeds as human respect and conventional morality. She needs the -inspiration of profound conviction and practical piety a hundredfold -more than ever before. The woman of the old time, secluded within -the limits of the household, surrounded by the material safeguard of -custom, might lead an untroubled existence even if devotion and faith -were not vital principles with her. The woman of to-day, harassed, -beset, tempted, driven by necessity, drawn this way and that by bad -advice and worse example, is attempting a hopeless task when she tries -the same experiment.” - -The poetry of Mrs. Blake is rational and wholesome. She knows her gifts -and is content to use them at their best, giving us songs in a minor -key, that if they add little to human thought, yet make the world -better from their coming. In the poems of childhood she is particularly -happy. She knows children, their joys and sorrows, has caught their -ways. Her’s is a heart that has danced in the joy of motherhood and -been stricken when the “dead do not waken.” She is our only intelligent -writer of children’s poems. The assertion may be controverted. A -hundred Catholic poets for children may be cited writers “of genius -profound,” of “exquisite fancy,” “whose works should grace every parish -library.” I quote a stereotyped criticism, a constant expression with -Catholic reviewers. I laugh, in my hermitage, and blandly suggest, to -all whom it may concern, that insanity in jingles is not relished by -sane children. I speak from experience, having perpetrated a selection -from the one hundred on a class of bright boys and girls. Peaceful -sleep, and, let us hope, pleasant dreams, came to their aid. Shall I -ever, Comus, forget their faces in the transition moment from dulness -to delight? Let us cease cant and rapturous criticism. Catholic -literature, to survive the time that gave it birth, must be built on -other foundations. Hasty and unconscious productions must be branded -as such. We must have, as the French so well put it, a horror of -“pacotille” and “camelotte.” “If my works are good,” said the sculptor -Rude, “they will endure; if not, all the laudation in the world would -not save them from oblivion.” The same may well be written of Catholic -literature. Whether for children or grown-up men or women, as a -Catholic critic, whose only aim has been to gain an audience for my -fellow Catholic writers whose works can bear a favorable comparison -with the best contemporary thought, I ask that the best shall be -given, and that given, it shall be joyfully received; that trash shall -not fill the book-cases, lie on the parlor-tables, be puffed in our -weeklies, and genius and sacrifice be forgotten. I ask that the works -of Stoddard, Johnston, Egan, Roche, Azarias, Lathrop, Tabb, Miss -Repplier, Guiney, Katherine Conway, Mrs. Blake, find a welcome in each -Catholic household, and that the Catholic press make their delightful -personalities known to our rising generation. Of their best they have -given. Shall they die before we acknowledge it? - - - - -AGNES REPPLIER. - - -A friend of mine, a dweller in the city, a lover of red bricks, one to -whom the sound of the dray-cart merrily grinding on the pavement is -sweeter music than a burst of woodland song, has tardily conceded that -the Adirondacks, on a summer day, is pleasant. I value his testimony -and record it with pleasure. Let us be thankful for small favors when -cynics are the donors. For me these woods, lakes and crystal streams -hold an indescribable charm. They are the true abode of man. Here is -liberty, while the city is but a cage, with its thousands uttering the -plaintive cry of Sterne’s prisoned starling, “I cannot get out.” For -the hum of wheels we have the songs of birds, the music of waterfalls, -the purr of mountain brooks and the harmonies of the winds playing -through the thousand different species of trees, each one differing in -melody, but combining in one grand symphony. Orchestras are muffled -music when compared to nature’s lute. The pipes of Pan is but a poet’s -struggle to embody in speech such a symphony. For the city’s smells, -that not even a Ruskin could paint, albeit they are far from elusive, -we have the mountain air that has dallied with the streams and stolen -the fragrance of a thousand clover fields. Every man to his taste. -There is no disputing of this. Lamb loved bricks and Wordsworth such -scenes as ours; yet, Lamb would be as sadly missed from our libraries -as Wordsworth. Swing my hammock in the shade of yonder pines, good -Patsy. A robin is piping his sweetest notes to his brooding spouse, -the Salmon river runs at my feet, biting the sandy shore, laughing -loud when a saucy stone falls in its current. From over the hills -comes the scent of new-mown hay; bless me! this is pleasant. To add -to this enjoyment you have brought a book—something bright, you tell -me. I’ll soon see. And gliding into my hammock, I said my first good -morning to Agnes Repplier. It was a breezy good morning, one of those -where the hand unconsciously goes out as much as to say: Old fellow, -you don’t know how glad I am to see you. There was no friend with a -white cravat standing on the first page to introduce us, and tell us -that the authoress bore in her book a fecund message to struggling -humanity, and that the major part of that same humanity could not see -it; hence it was his duty to stand at the portal and solve the riddle. -There was no begging for recognition on the score of ancestors, fads -or isms. I am Agnes Repplier, said the book; how do you like me? A -few pages perused, and my own voice amusingly fell on my ears, saying -first class. Here was a woman who thought—not the trivial thought that -nauseates in the books of so many literary women—but virile aggressive -thought, that provokes, contradicts, and, like Hamlet’s ghost, will not -be downed. This thought is folded in a garment, whose many hues quicken -the curiosity and make her pages a continual feast of wit, droll irony, -and illuminative criticism all curiously and harmoniously blended. Her -pages are rich in suggestion, apt in quotation. You are constantly -aroused, put on your guard, laughingly disarmed, and that in a way -that Lamb would have loved. She has no awe in the presence of literary -gods. Lightly she trips up to them with her poniard, shows by a pass -that they are made of mud, and that the aureole that encircles them is -but the work of your crude imagination. Clearing away your shreds and -patches she puts the author in a plain suit before you, and, how you -wonder, that with all your boasted knowledge you have called for years -a jackdaw a peacock! - -How delightful to watch this critic armed _cap-a-pie_, demolishing -some fad, that has masqueraded for years as genuine literature. Is -it little Lord Fauntleroy, a character sloppy, inane, impossible to -real life, yet hugged to the heart by the commonplace. Miss Repplier -keenly surveys her ground, as an artist would the statue of his rival, -notes the foibles, cant, false poses, and crazy-quilt jargon used to -deck pet characters. Experience has taught her that you cannot combat -seriously the commonplace. “The statesman or the poet,” says Dudley -Warner, “who launches out unmindful of this, will be likely to come to -grief in his generation.” Sly humor, pungent sarcasm, are the weapons -effectively used. The little Lord is unrobed, and the life that seemed -so full of charity and virtue, becomes but a mixture of hypocrisy and -snobbery. Yet, if some of our critics could, “all the dear old nursery -favorites must be banished from our midst, and the rising generation -of prigs must be nourished exclusively on Little Lord Fauntleroy, and -other carefully selected specimens of milk and water diet.” The dear -land of romance, in its most charming phase, that phase represented -by Red Riding Hood, Ali Baba, Blue Beard, and the other heroes of our -nurseryhood must be eliminated, for children are no longer children, -in the old sense of believing “in such stuff” without questioning. -American children, at any rate, are too sensitively organized to -endure the unredeemed ferocity of the old fairy stories, we are told, -and it is added, “no mother nowadays tells them in their unmitigated -brutality.” These are the empty sayings of the realists, who would have -every child break its dolls to analyze the sawdust. The most casual -observer of American homes knows that our children will not be fed on -such stuff as realists are able to give, but will turn wistfully back -to those brave old tales which are their inheritance from a splendid -past, and of which no hand shall rob them. As Miss Repplier so well -puts it, “we could not banish Blue Beard if we would. He is as immortal -as Hamlet, and when hundreds of years shall have passed over this -uncomfortably enlightened world, the children of the future—who, -thank Heaven, can never, with all our efforts, be born grown-up—will -still tremble at the blood-stained key, and rejoice when the big -brave brothers come galloping up the road.” Ferocity, brutality, if -you will, may couch on every page, but this is much better than the -sugared nothingness of Sunday school tales, and beats all hollow, as -the expression goes, the many tricks perpetrated on children by the -school of analytical fiction. Children will read Blue Beard, and thank -Heaven, as grown-up men, for such a childish pleasure, adding a prayer -for her who wrote the “Battle of the Babies.” Bunner and others have -accused Miss Repplier of ignoring contemporary works, of rudely closing -in their face her library door and saying he who enters here must -have outgrown his swaddling clothes, must have rounded out his good -half-century. This may be one of Bunner’s skits. Even if it were not, -there is more than one precedent to follow. Hazlitt, in his delightful -chat on the “Reading of Old Books,” begins his essay, “I hate to read -new books.” This author has the courage of his convictions; you do not -grope in the dark to know why. Here is the reason, and it is easier to -assent to it than to deny it. “Contemporary writers may generally be -divided into two classes—one’s friends or one’s foes. Of the first we -are compelled to think too well, and of the last we are disposed to -think too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure from the perusal, or -to judge fairly of the merits of either. One candidate for literary -fame, who happens to be of our acquaintance writes finely, and like -a man of genius; but unfortunately has a foolish fad, which spoils a -delicate passage;—another inspires us with the highest respect for -his personal talents and character, but does not come quite up to -our expectation in print.” All these contradictions and petty details -interrupt the calm current of our reflections. These are sound reasons; -as if to clinch them he adds, “but the dust, smoke, and noise of -modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of -immortality.” - -Miss Repplier, an admirer of Hazlitt, and if one may hazard a guess, -her master in style, would not go so far. She believes in keeping up -with a decent portion of current literature, and “this means perpetual -labor and speed,” whereas idleness and leisure are requisite for the -true enjoyment of books. To read all the frothings of the press for -the sake of being called a contemporary critic were madness. She -concurs with another critic that reading is not a duty, and that no -man is under any obligation to read what another man wrote. When Miss -Repplier stumbles across an unknown volume, picking it up dubiously, -and finds in it an hour of placid but genuine enjoyment, although it -is a modern book, wanting in sanctifying dust, she will use all her -art to make in other hearts a loving welcome for the little stranger. -“A By-Way in Fiction” tells in her own way, of a recent book born of -Italian soil and sunshine, “The Chevalier of Pensieri Vani.” It is -the essayist’s right to read those books, ancient or modern, that -are to her taste, and it is a bit of impertinence in any writer to -particularly recommend to Miss Repplier a list of books, which she is -naturally indisposed to consider with much kindness, thrust upon her -as they are, like paregoric or porous plaster. “If there be people who -can take their pleasures medicinally, let them read by prescription -and grow fat.” Our authoress can do her own quarrying. One of the -darts thrown at this charming writer is, that she would have children -pore through books at their own sweet, wild will, unoppressed by that -modern infliction—foot-notes. That, when a child would meet the word -dog, an asterisk would not hold him to a foot-note occupying a page -and giving all that science knows about that interesting animal. This -is precisely the privilege that your modern critic will not allow. He -will have his explanations, his margins, “build you a bridge over a -rain-drop, put ladders up a pebble, and encompass you on every side -with ingenious alpen-stocks and climbing irons, yet when perchance you -stumble and hold out a hand for help, behold! he is never there to -grasp it.” What does a boy, plunging into Scott or Byron, want with -these atrocities? The imagery that peoples his mind, the music that -sweeps through his soul, these, and not your stilted erudition, are the -milk and honey of boyhood. “I once knew a boy,” says Miss Repplier, -in that sparkling defense, ‘Oppression of Notes,’ “who so delighted -in Byron’s description of the dying gladiator that he made me read it -to him over and over again. He did not know—and I never told him—what -a gladiator was. He did not know that it was a statue, and not a real -man described. He had not the faintest notion of what was meant by -the Danube, or the Dacian mother or a Roman holiday; historically and -geographically, the boy’s mind was a happy blank. There was nothing -intelligent, only a blissful stirring of the heartstrings by reason -of strong words and swinging verse, and his own tangle of groping -thoughts.” Had the reader stopped the course of the swinging verse -to explain these unknown words, boyish happiness would have flown, -oppression become complete, and let us hope sleep would have rescued -the bored boy from such an ordeal. - -Cowley, full of good sense, is on the side of our essayist. In his -essay “On Myself” he relates the charm of verse, falling on his boyish -ear, without comprehending fully its purport. “I believe I can tell -the particular little chance that filled my head first with such -chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there. For I remember -when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont -to lie in my mother’s parlor (I know not by what accident, for she -herself never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there -was wont to lie Spenser’s works; this I happened to fall upon, and -was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, giants, and -monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there (though my -understanding had little to do with all this), and by degrees with the -tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had -read him all over, before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a -poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.” The charm of Miss -Repplier’s pages lies in their good sense. She is a lover of the good -and beautiful, a hater of shams and shoddies. Everything she touches -becomes more interesting, whether it be Gastronomy, Old Maids, Cats, -Babies, or the New York Custom House. Like Lamb and Hazlitt, a lover of -old books, finding in them the pure silent air of immortality, she will -welcome graciously any new book whose worth is its passport. - -Agnes Repplier was born in the city of brotherly love more than thirty -years ago. Her father was John Repplier, a well-known coal merchant. -Her earliest playmates were books. Her mother a brilliant and lovable -woman, fond of books, and, as a friend of her’s informed me, a writer -of ability, watched over and directed the education of her more -brilliant daughter. Under such a mother, amid scenes of culture, Agnes -grew up, finding in books a solace for ill-health that still continues -to harry her. When she entered the arena of authorship, by training and -study she was well equipped. At once she was reckoned as a sovereign -princess of “That proud and humble ... Gipsey Land,” one of the very -elect of Bohemia. She came, as Stedman says, “with gentle satire -or sparkling epigram to brush aside the fads and fallacies of this -literary _fin de siècle_, calling upon us to return to the simple ways -of the masters.” Her charming volumes should be in the hands of every -student of literature as a corrective against the debasing theories and -tendencies of modern book-making. The student will find that if she -does not know all things in heaven and on earth, she may plead in the -language of Little Breeches: - - “I never ain’t had no show; - But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir - On the handful o’ things I know.” - - - - -A WORD. - - - - -LITERATURE AND OUR CATHOLIC POOR. - - -We are told, with some show of truth, that this age shall be noted in -history as one given to the study of social problems. The contemporary -literature of a country is a good index to what people are thinking -about. Magazines are, as a rule, for their time, and deal with the -forces upward in men’s minds. The most cursory glance at their contents -will show the predominance of the Social Problem treated from some -phase or other. The best minds are engaged as partisans. Social -science may be said to be the order of the day. It has crushed poetry -to the skirts of advertising, romance is its happy basking ground. -The drama has made it its own. There are some, fogies of course, so -says your sapient scientist, who believe that the social science so -spasmodically treated in current literature is but a passing fad, and -that poetry shall be restored to her old quarters, romance amuse as of -old, and the drama be winnowed of rant, scenic sensation, and bestial -morality. These dreams may be vain, but then even fogies have their -hopes. A branch of this science—the tree is overshadowing—treats of the -literature and the masses. Anything about the masses interests me. - -When I read the other day, “Literature and the Masses; a Social Study,” -among the contents of a _fin de siècle_ magazine, I would have pawned -my wearing apparel rather than go home without it. Its reading was -painful, as all reading must be where the author knows less about his -subject than the ordinary reader. Later, another article fell in my -way, dealing with the same subject. Its author had more material, but -his use of it was clumsy. It was while reading this article, that I -noted the utter stupidity with which things Catholic are treated by the -ordinary literary purveyor. These ephemeral pen-wielders seem to hold -the most fantastic notions of the Church. What Azarias says of Emerson -is true of them: “They seek truth in every religious and philosophical -system outside of the teachings of the Catholic Church.” They will not -drink from Rome. To correct all this author’s errors is not my plan. In -this paper I restrict myself to a part of the same subject, Literature -and Our Catholic Poor. I prefer an independent study to patchwork. It -is the usual thing in such studies to present credentials. I present -mine. Five years’ life in the tenement districts of New York and other -great cities of the Union, in full contact, from the peculiarity of my -position, with the poor. During these years I was led to make a study -of their reading. This study, to be intelligible, must be prefaced by -a few hints on their life and environment. It is useless to deny the -often-repeated assertion that their lot in the great cities is hard -and crushing. It is a continual struggle for nominal existence. The -children commence work at a premature age. Their education is meagre -and broken. Marriage is entered in early life, without the slightest -provision. To these marriages there is little selection. The girls have -been brought up in factories, household restraint frets their soul. Of -household economy, so necessary to the city toiler, they know nothing. -If ends meet it is well. If not, there is trust and sorrow. The day -of their marriage means a few stuffy rooms, badly ventilated, filled -with the most bizarre and useless furniture put in by shylock, who -will, in the coming years, exact ten times their value. Thus started, -children are born, puny and sickly, prey of physician and druggist. -If these children survive, at an early age they follow the father and -mother by entering foundries and factories to toil life’s weary round -away. When they die the family is pauperized for years. It is a common -plaint of the tenements that “I would have been worth something if my -boy had not died.” Every death is not only a drain on the immediate -family, but on their friends, who are supposed to turn out and give -“the corpse a decent burial.” The decent burial means coaches, flowers -and whiskey. The most casual observer must notice the giant part liquor -plays, in the lives of the poor. Liquor and its concomitant, tobacco, -in the deadly form of cigarettes, are known to the boy. He has been -brought up in that atmosphere. His father has his cheap, ill-smelling -cigar and frothy pint for supper. His mother and a few gossiping -friends have chased the heavy day with a few pints “because they were -dry.” He delights in being the Mercury of the “growler.” Hanging by -the balustrade he sips the beer, “just to taste it.” That taste, alas, -lingers through life. As he grows older it becomes more refined. His -teachers are the sumptuous, dazzling bar-rooms guarding each city -corner, while betraying the nation. The owners of these vice palaces -are wise in their generation. For his stuffy home, broken furniture and -cheerless aspects, they show him wide, airy rooms, polished furniture, -bevelled glass mirrors, dazzling light, music, gaiety, companionship, -and the illusive charm of revelry. The reading matter in such places is -on a par with the other attractions. It is sensational. Its authors are -skilled in the base development of the passions. It smacks obscenity, -and early dulls the intellect to finer things. To be enmeshed in its -threads is the greatest sorrow of a young life. When the bar-room -does not allure, there is another siren to be taken into account. It -is the promiscuous gathering at the neighbor’s house who has been so -unfortunate as to find a music dealer to trust him with a piano at -three times its price. Here gather the Romeos and Juliets to - - “Sing and dance - And parley vous France, - Drink beer Alanna - And play on the grand piano.” - -The songs are of no literary value, sometimes comic, sometimes -sentimental, more often with an ambiguity that is more suggestive -than downright obscenity. Of the so-called comic, “McGinty” was a -great hit, while “After the Ball” was its equal in the sentimental -line. It is a strange sight to see pale, flaccid, worn-out Juliet -thrum the indifferent piano, while near her in a dramatic posture, -learned from some melo-dramatic actor, stands twisted Romeo, singing -some sentimental song, balancing his voice to the poor performer, -and indifferent piano. To hear such stuff—I speak from auricular -demonstration—is no small affliction. After songs come dances, weary -night flies quickly away. Work comes with the morrow. Sleepy and tired -they buckle on their armor and go out uncomplainingly to tear and -wear the sickly body. Thus generation after generation passes to the -tread-mill and beyond. It is not to be expected that the literature of -such people would be of a high grade. To say that they have no time -to read were a fallacy, inasmuch as they do read. Here the question -arises, what do they read? I answer that they possess a literature of -their own, both in weekly journals and published volumes. They support, -strange as it may seem, a school of novelists for their delectation. -These journals are a medley of blood-and-thunder stories, far-fetched -jokes, sporting news, etiquette as she is above stairs, marriage hints, -palmistry, dress making, now and then a page of original topical music -hemmed with fake advertising. The point to be noted in these journals, -a shrewd business one, they are never beyond the reader’s intelligence. -Their novels must be simple and amusing. That is, their author must -know how to spin a story. He must amuse. Each weekly instalment must -have its comic as well as tragic denouement. The hero must be a -villain of the most approved type, neither wanting in courage nor in -cunning. The heroine must be on the side of the angelic, mesmerized -by the prowess of her hero. A vast quantity of supers are constantly -on hand, in case of emergency. Murders, suicides, broken hearts and -lesser afflictions are of frequent occurrence. The hero may perish -at any moment, provided a more reckless devil takes his place. Half -a dozen heroines may come to grief in one serial. An author must be -lavish. Provided he is, style is not reckoned, and bad grammar but -adds a taking flavor. Woe be to the editor who would inflict on his -readers a novel of the school of Henry James or Paul Bourget. The -masses hold that the primary condition of fiction is to amuse. They -are right. These journals are carried in ladies’ satchels, they stick -out of young men’s pockets. On ferry-boats, in street cars, in their -stuffy rooms, in the few minutes snatched from the dinner hour they -are eagerly read. They may be crumpled and thrust into the pocket at -any moment. No handwashing is necessary to handle them. Their cost is -light, five cents a week. By a system of interchange a club of five -may for that cost peruse five different story papers. This system is -in general practice. The greatest amount for the least money strongly -appeals to the poor. The novels in book form are of a much lower grade -than the serials. Written by profligate men and women, in a vile style, -their only object is to undermine morality. Falsity to the marriage -vows, deception, theft, the catalogue of a criminal court, is strongly -inculcated as the right path. These novels, generally in paper covers, -are showy and eye-catching. A voluptuous siren on the cover, with an -ambiguous title allures the minor to his ruin. I have known not a few -book-sellers who passed as eminently respectable, do a thriving trade -in this class of books. The fact that they kept the stock in drawers -in the rear of their stores told of their conscious complicity in the -destruction and degradation of our youth. These novels are cheap, -within the reach of the poor, a point to be noted. The question -arises, what can be done to counteract this spread of pernicious -literature among our Catholic poor? There is but one answer on the -lips of those who should be heard; fight it with good literature—yet -literature not beyond their understanding. Put in their hands good -novels, whose primary purpose is to amuse. The good-natured gentleman -who would put into the hands of the poor as a Christmas gift Fabiola, -Callista, Pauline Seward, etc., would make a great mistake. These books -would become playthings for greasy babies or curled paper to light the -“evening smoke.” The bread winners will not be bored. They have worked -hard all day, and at evening want some kind of amusement. The book -must be nervy, a tonic. Dictionaries are scarce in the haunts of the -poor. Footnotes are an abomination. The author must whisk the reader -along. A rapid canter, only broken by hearty laughter or honest pity. -Have we any Catholic novels that will do this? It is the plaint of the -know-nothing scribes, tossing their empty skulls, to write a capital -No. From experience I answer yes. The novels of that true writer of -boys’ stories, Father Finn, are just the thing for the poor. They -want to read of boys that are not old men, none of your goody-goody -little nobodies. A boy is no fool. In real life he would not chum with -your sweet little Toms, your praying, psalm-singing Jamies, and your -dying angelic Marys. Nor shall he in books, thank heaven. Father Finn -has drawn the boy as he is. His books would be joyfully welcomed, if -published in a cheap paper form, say at twenty-five cents per copy. -List to the wail of the fattening Catholic publisher, who will read -that idea. It is, however, a sane one. If Protestants can make cheap -books, thereby creating the market, why not Catholics? Until this is -done it is useless to cry out, as authors do, nobody will buy my books. -Yes, your books will be bought if they are reasonable in price, and -properly placed before the public. As it is, your books are snuffed -out by the immense amount of trash handled by the ordinary Catholic -bookseller, and you help this by writing deep-dyed hypocrisy of the -trash-makers. Azarias mildly expresses my idea in one of his posthumous -papers: “Catholic reviewers must plead guilty to the impeachment of -having been in the past too laudatory of inferior work.” The stories -of that sterling man, Malcolm Johnston, called Dukesborough Tales, I -once gave to a wretched family. On visiting them a week after, what -delight it was to hear the health-giving laughter they had found in -them. To another family I gave Billy Downs. Asking how they liked them, -I was told that they were as “fine as silk.” A youth of fourteen, his -face decidedly humorous, volunteered the criticism that “Billy had -no grit.” During the illness of four or five patients of mine I read -the assembled family “Chumming With a Savage,” “Joe of Lahaina.” When -I came to the final sentence in Joe, where Charlie Stoddard leaves -him “sitting and singing in the mouth of his grave—clothed all in -death,” two of the youngsters burst into tears, while the father much -agitated, said, “Doctor, I don’t see how he had the heart to leave -him.” They were so much attached to the book that, although it had -been my choice old chum in many a land, I gave it to them. Lately I -gave “Life Around Us,” a collection of stories by Maurice F. Egan. -It was a great success. Egan has the true touch for the masses when -he wishes. Another little story much prized was Nugent Robinson’s -“Better Than Gold.” To these might be added in cheap form those of -Marian Brunowe, May Crowley, Helen Sweeney, a promising young writer, -and Lelia Bugg. How to reach the poor with these books presents few -obstacles. Cardinal Vaughan has solved the difficulty in England. -Attach to every parish church in city and country a library of well -selected interesting Catholic books. Let their circulation be free of -charge. The great majority of Catholic poor attend some of the Sunday -Masses. If the library is open, they will gladly take a book home. The -reading of this book will instil a taste. They will tell their friends -of it. It will be the subject of many a chat. If it is cheap, not a -few of the neighbors will wish to purchase it. Their criticism, always -racy and generally correct, will, as Birrell has pointed out in one -of his essays, be its sure pass to success. After a year’s friendly -intercourse the library will become a necessity, and they will gladly -pay a fee for their week’s delight. The author that has won their -hearts will be on their lips, his new books, on account of old ties, -will be eagerly purchased and loudly proclaimed. - -Families that are shy and backward as church-members, might be visited -and literature left. This I hold is priestly work. If they come not to -Christ, let us, as the teachers of old, bring Christ to them. It will -be read. After your footsteps can be no longer heard curiosity will -come to your assistance. The little maid will pick it up, the parents -will read. I have again and again left those charming temperance -manifestoes of Father Mahony in homes of squalor and misery, the -outcome of weekly drunks. These stray leaves, I am happy to write, in -many cases marked the beginning of better things. - -To counteract the serials is, to use an expression, a horse of another -color. Our weeklies are, as a general rule, dull. The poor take a -squint at some of the dailies. This squint gives them the gist of their -world. They do not care, as they will tell you, “to be reading the same -thing over twice.” Our weeklies are too often a rehash of the dailies. -Another remark that I often heard among them is, “that our weeklies -have too much Irish news.” They are not wanting in patriotism to the -home of many of their fathers, yet what interest could they be supposed -to take in the long-winded personal rivalries of Irish statesmen, -or the rank rant of the one hundred orators that strut that unhappy -isle. A bit of McCarthy, or Sexton, will be welcomed, but they rightly -draw the line at page after page of rhodomontade. If, instead of this -stuff, living articles were written, short stories, poems, biographies -of eminent Catholics, their Church and her great mission made known, -then would the poor read, and a powerful weapon against the serials -be placed in our hands. There are some of our weeklies that cannot be -classed under this criticism. They are few. - -The Ave Maria, founded and conducted by one who is thoroughly capable, -could be easily made a great favorite with the poor. Its contents -are varied and replete with good things. I have used it with effect. -Another and later venture is the Young Catholic, by the Paulists, which -will fill a want. Its editor is full of sane ideas. Boys’ stories, -full of adventure, spirited pictures, will win it a way to all young -hearts. These papers may never reach the poor, if folding our arms we -stand idly by, expecting the masses by intuition to know their value. -Could not parish libraries have cheap editions for free distribution -among the poorer denizens? To defray expenses, a collection might be -taken up twice a year. No good Catholic will begrudge a few cents, -when he knows that it will go to brighten the hard life of his less -fortune-favored brother. The critic who does nothing in life but sneer -may call this Utopian. It is the old cuckoo call, known to every man -that tries to help his fellows. Newman, Barry, Lilly, Brownson, Hecker, -Ireland, Spalding, all the glittering names on our rosary have heard -it, and went their way, knowing full well that if the finger of God -traces their path, human obstacles are of little weight. The plan, -however, is eminently practical. In one of the poorest parishes in the -diocese of Ogdensburgh, it has been tried and with abundant success. I -remember well last summer with what pleasure I heard a mountain urchin -ask his pastor, “Father, can I have the _Pilot_?” This urchin had made -the acquaintance of James Jeffrey Roche and Katherine E. Conway. He was -in good company. Infidelity is going to our poor. Her weapon is the -printing press. The pulpit is well, but its arm is too short. - -Shall we stand idly by and lose our own, or shall we buckle on the -armor of intelligent methods as mirrored in this paper, thereby not -only delivering our own from its coarseness and petrifaction, but -carrying the kindly light to those who know us not? Let us remember -in these days, when socialism claims the poor, that our Church is not -alone for the cultured, it is pre-eminently her duty to lead and guide -the masses. This, to a great extent, must be done by the newspaper and -book-stall. - -Our Church must man the printing press with the same zeal which -animated the Jesuit scholars, explorers and civilizers of three -hundred years ago; “then will our enemies be as much surprised as -disheartened.” - - - - -GREEN GRAVES IN IRELAND. - -BY WALTER LECKY, - -_Author of “Adirondack Sketches,” “Down at Caxton’s,” etc._ - - -PRESS COMMENTS: - -A new beam, a new factor in American Literature.—_Maurice F. Egan._ - -Charming essays.—_C. Warren Stoddard._ - -They deserve book form.—_Brother Azarias._ - -Destined to win early recognition.—_R. Malcolm Johnston._ - -Lecky imitates himself. He is pungent, witty, humorous and -epigrammatic, with dashes of occasional eloquence.—_Eugene Davis in -Western Watchman._ - -“Green Graves in Ireland,” by Walter Lecky, is a delightful little -book.—_Western Watchman._ - -It is a well written, and pathetic tribute to the heroes who suffered -in the holy cause of freedom.—_Donahoe’s Magazine._ - -There is mingled pathos and humor in the volume.—_Ave Maria._ - -The author’s style is bright and pungent; and this literary flavor -he preserves throughout the pages of this very attractive book. He -understands the spirit and sparkle of the Irish mind, and he has caught -a good deal of it in his jaunting car excursions about the Irish -capital.—_Catholic World._ - -A clever monograph. Walter Lecky has written exquisitely.—_Catholic -News, N. Y._ - -The book will interest all who really love the country of the bards, -and will be an excellent stimulus to young persons inclined to forget -the fame of their ancestors.—_Boston Pilot._ - -Large literary ability.—_Union Times._ - -An important and valuable addition to the growing literature of -America.—_True Witness._ - -The paper and type of the little volume are excellent; surprisingly -so, for the low price at which it may be procured. For the rest we can -say that Mr. Lecky’s style invests his subject with a charm which, we -think, will induce the most unwilling reader who has opened his little -book to persevere through its entire contents.—_American Ecclesiastical -Review._ - -Walter Lecky is comparatively a new name in literature, but it is -one destined to stand for good and beautiful things, especially the -Catholic readers. His Adirondack sketches in the Catholic World are one -of the brightest features of that excellent magazine.—_Boston Pilot._ - - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Note: Text uses “her’s” where most would expect “hers.” -Additionally, many of the quotation marks do not match. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Down at Caxton's - -Author: Walter Lecky - -Release Date: April 29, 2016 [EBook #51886] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN AT CAXTON'S *** - - - - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<h1 class="faux">DOWN AT CAXTON’S.</h1> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 498px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="498" height="800" alt="cover" /> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - - - - - - -<div class="maintitle">DOWN AT CAXTON’S.</div> - -<div class="center"><br /><br /><br />————————————<br /><br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">By</span> <span class="author">WALTER LECKY,</span><br /> -<span class="authorof"><i>Author of “Green Graves in Ireland,” “Adirondack<br /> -Sketches,” etc.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<br />————————————<br /><br /><br /> -<small>BALTIMORE:</small><br /> -JOHN MURPHY & CO.<br /> -1895.<br /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="copyright"> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1895, by Wm. A. McDermott.</span><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -<small>PRESS OF JOHN MURPHY & CO.</small><br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - - -<div class="center"> -I DEDICATE<br /> -<br /> -<i>THIS SERIES OF SKETCHES</i><br /> -<br /> -<small>DONE AT ODD MOMENTS STOLEN FROM THE BUSY LIFE OF A COUNTRY<br /> -DOCTOR, IN THE WILDEST PART OF THE ADIRONDACKS, TO THAT<br /> -DEAR FRIEND, WHO WROTE FOR ME AND OTHER<br /> -WANDERERS—IDYLS OF A SUMMER SEA—</small><br /> -<br /> -<small>TO</small><br /> -<br /> -<big>CHARLES WARREN STODDARD</big><br /> -<br /> -<small>OF THE</small><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap"><small>Catholic University, Washington, D. C.</small></span><br /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - - - -<h2>Contents</h2> -<div class="tnote"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b> This table of contents was created by the -transcriber.</div> -<p> <br /></p> - -<div class="center"> -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> -<tr><td align="left"><a href="#MEN">MEN.</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#RICHARD_MALCOLM_JOHNSTON">Richard Malcolm Johnston.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MARION_CRAWFORD">Marion Crawford.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CHARLES_WARREN_STODDARD">Charles Warren Stoddard.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MAURICE_FRANCIS_EGAN">Maurice Francis Egan.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#JOHN_B_TABB">John B. Tabb.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#JAMES_JEFFREY_ROCHE">James Jeffrey Roche.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#GEORGE_PARSONS_LATHROP">George Parsons Lathrop.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#REV_BROTHER_AZARIAS">Rev. Brother Azarias.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><a href="#WOMEN">WOMEN.</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#KATHERINE_ELEANOR_CONWAY">Katherine Eleanor Conway.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOUISE_IMOGEN_GUINEY">Louise Imogen Guiney.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#MRS_BLAKE">Mrs. Blake.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#AGNES_REPPLIER">Agnes Repplier.</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><a href="#A_WORD">A WORD.</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LITERATURE_AND_OUR_CATHOLIC">Literature and Our Catholic Poor.</a></span></td></tr> -</table></div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a><br /><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="MEN" id="MEN">MEN.</a></h2> - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a><br /><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="RICHARD_MALCOLM_JOHNSTON" id="RICHARD_MALCOLM_JOHNSTON">RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.</a></h2> - - -<p>In that charming and dainty series of -books published under the captivating title -of “Fiction, Fact and Fancy,” and edited -by the gifted son of the prince of American -literary critics, there is a volume with the -companionable name of Billy Downs. It -is as follows that Mr. Stedman introduces -the creator of Billy Downs and a host of -other characters, mostly types of Middle -Georgia life, that shall live with the language. -“So we reach the tenth milestone -of our ramble, and while we are resting by -the wayside let us hail the gentleman who -is approaching and ask him for ‘another -story.’ We who have heard him before -know that he seldom fails to respond to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -such a request, and always, too, in a manner -quite inimitable. As he comes nearer -you may observe the dignified, yet courteous -and kindly bearing of a gentleman of the -old school. The white hair and moustache, -the sober dress, betoken the veteran, although -they are almost contradicted by -eyes and an innate youthfulness in word -and thought. It is not difficult to recognize -in Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston the -founder of a school of fiction and the dean -of Southern men of letters.” The Colonel -is the founder of a school of fiction, if by -that school, we understand those, who are -depicting for us the Georgia life of the -ante-bellum days. In no otherwise can -we assent to Mr. Stedman’s phrase. For -American critics to claim the dialect school -of fiction as their own in origin, is on a par -with their other critical achievements. Dialect -was born a long time before Columbus -took his way westward. The first wave of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -mankind leaving the parent stock, in their -efforts to survive, carried with them the -germ of dialect. Fiction in its portrayal -of men and manners of a given period, -was bound to reproduce it faithfully—the -very least to give us a semblance of that -life. This could not be done in many instances -without the use of dialect. To -do so were to deprive the portraiture of -individuality.</p> - -<p>Fiction produced on such lines would be -worthless. Of late there has been much -cavil against dialect writers. This cavil, -strange to say, emanates from the Realists.</p> - -<p>They lay down the absurd code, that -Art is purely imitative. She plays but a -monkey part. Her sole duty is to depict -life, paying leading attention to the portrayal -of corns, bunions, and other horny -excrescences, that so often accompany her. -Realists will not be persuaded that such -excrescences are abnormal. From a jaundiced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -introspection of their own little life, -they frame canons of criticism to guide the -world. With these congenial canons lying -before them, one is astonished, if such a -phrase may be used in the recent light of -that school’s pyrotechnic display, that they -can condemn dialect. Granted, for the -sake of argument, that Art is merely imitative, -will not the first duty of the novelist -be to reproduce the exact language, -and that when done by the master-hand -of a Johnston carries with it not only the -speaker’s tone, but the power of producing -a mental image of the speaker—the very -acme of the Realists’ school? To paint -a Georgia cracker speaking the ordinary -Boston-English would be like crowning -the noble brow of a South Sea native with -a tall Boston beaver. The effort would -be unartistic, the effect ludicrous. Colonel -Johnston believes in the imitativeness of -Art, to the extent of reproducing for us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -the peculiar dialect of Middle Georgia. -He has informed us that there is not a -phrase in his novels that he has not heard -amid the scenes of his stories. To reproduce -these is a distinct triumph of the -novelist’s art, but the Colonel has done -more; into his every character has he -breathed a soul. His figures are not the -automaton skeletons of the Realists, but -living men and women who have earnestly -played life on the circumscribed stage of -Middle Georgia.</p> - -<p>This life is fast passing away. Prof. -Shaler, a competent authority, tells us: -“At present the strong tide of modernism -is sweeping over the old slave-holding -States with a force which is certain to clear -away a greater part of the archaic motives -which so long held place in the minds of the -people. With the death of this generation, -which saw the rebellion, the ancient regime -will disappear.” It can never be lost as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -long as the novels of Malcolm Johnston -are extant. There, in days to come, by the -cheery ingle-nook, will a new generation -live over in his delightful pages the curious -life of Georgia. Cuvier asked for a bone -to construct his skeleton. The readers of -the Dukesborough tales, Billy Downs, etc., -will not only have the skeleton, but live -men and women preserved for them by -the novelist’s elixir. He has known his -country and kept close to mother earth, -having in his mind that “no language, -after it has faded into diction, none that -cannot suck up feeding juices secreted for -it in the rich mother earth of common folk, -can bring forth a sound and lusty book. -True vigor and heartiness of phrase do -not pass from page to page, but from man -to man.... There is death in the dictionary.” -That the Colonel’s language has -sucked up feeding juices secreted for it in -the rich mother earth of common folk will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -be seen on every page. Let us take at -random the communication of Jones Kendrick -to his cousin Simeon Newsome, as to -S’phrony Miller. Sim is a farmer lad overshadowed -by the overpowering “dictionary -use” of his Cousin Kendrick. Sim has gone -a-wooin’ S’phrony. Kendrick hearing of -this and urged by his mother and sister, -comes to the conclusion that he would like -to have S’phrony himself. This important -fact he admits to Cousin Sim in the following -choice morsel: Sim is overseeing his -hands on the plantation; Kendrick approaches -and is met by Sim. Kendrick -speaks:</p> - -<p>“Ma and sister Maria have been for -some time specified. They have both been -going on to me about S’phrony Miller in a -way and to an extent that in some circumstances -might be called obstropolus, and to -quiet their conscience I’ve begun a kind of -a visitation over there, and my mind has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -arriv at the conclusion that she’s a good, -nice piece of flesh, to use the expressions -of a man of the world, and society. What -do you think, Sim, of the matter under -consideration, and what would you advise? -I like to have your advice sometimes, and -I’d like to know what it would be under all -circumstances and appearances of a case -which, as it stands, it seems to have, and -it isn’t worth while to conceal the fact that -it does have, a tremendous amount of immense -responsibility to all parties, especially -to the undersigned, referring as is -well known in books and newspaper advertisements -to myself. What would you -say to the above, Sim, in all its parts and -parties?” It may interest the reader to -know that Sim acquiesced “in all its parts -and parties,” and that S’phrony became -Mrs. Kendrick, while Sim took another -mate. Of further interest to the imaginative -young woman is the fact, that Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -Newsome and Mr. Kendrick perishing a -few years later by some sort of quasi-involuntary -but always friendly movements, -executed in a comparatively brief -time, S’phrony and Sim became one. In -calling Johnston the dean of Southern men -of letters, Stedman does not define his -position. Page, the creator of Marse Chan, -and one of the most talented of Southern -dialect writers, negatively does so. In an -article that has literary smack, but lacks -critical perception, he rates him below Miss -Murfree, James Lane Allen, and Cable. -These three writers Page places at the -head of Southern writers of fiction. Critics -nowadays will adduce no proof; they simply -affirm. The text of this discrimination -should be the exactness of the character -drawing, the life-like reproduction of environments, -and the expertness of the dialect -as a vehicle to convey the local flavor. -It will hardly be gainsaid that Johnston<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -knows his Georgia no less than Cable -knows Louisiana. Johnston is a native of -Georgia; the time of life most susceptible -to local impressions was spent there. -Cable’s boyhood was otherwise. It will -not be thought of that in the painting of -Creole life, Cable has excelled the painter -of Georgia life. In the handling of dialect, -Johnston and Harris touch the high water -mark of Southern fiction. It was an old -critical dictum that an author to succeed -must be in sympathy with his subject; -this may be affirmed of Johnston. It is -otherwise with Cable, and especially with -Lane, whose Kentucky pictures are often -caricatures. Cable poses as the friend of -the colored man. His pose is dramatic. -It lends a charm to his New England -recitations. We have a great love for -champions of every kind. The most of -Mr. Cable’s pages deal with Creole life, -and for that life he has no sympathy. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -paints it as essentially pagan, albeit it was -essentially Catholic. A padre makes him -sniff the air and paw ungraciously. The -ceremonies of the church are so many -pagan rites. Cable belongs to the school -that contemns what it does not understand. -His pictures of Creole life are untrue, and -much as they were in vogue some years -ago, are passing to the bourne of the forgotten. -Johnston, although a living Catholic, -fond of his church, and wedded to her -every belief, draws an itinerant preacher -of the Methodists with as much enthusiasm -and sympathy as he would the clergy of -his own church. He has no dislikes, nothing -that is of man but interests this sunny-hearted -romancer of the old South.</p> - -<p>Strange as it may seem, the knowledge -of his wonderful power of story-telling -came late and in an accidental way. It is -best described in his own words. “Story-writing,” -said the Colonel, “is the last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -thing for me in literature. I had published -two or three volumes on English -literature, and in conjunction with a friend -had written a life of Alexander Stephens, -and also a book on American and European -literature, but had no idea of story-writing -for money. Two or three stories of mine -had found their way into the papers before -I left Georgia. I had been a professor of -English literature in Georgia, but during -the war I took a school of boys. I removed -to Baltimore and took forty boys -with me and continued my school. There -was in Baltimore, in 1870, a periodical -called the <i>Southern Magazine</i>. The first -nine of my Dukesborough Tales were contributed -to that magazine. These fell into -the hands of the editor of <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, -who asked me what I got for them. -I said not a cent, and he wanted to know -why I had not sent them to him. ‘Neelers -Peeler’s Conditions’ was the first story for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -which I got pay. It was published in the -<i>Century</i>, over the signature of Philemon -Perch. Dr. Holland told Mr. Gilder to -tell that man to write under his own name, -adding that he himself had made a mistake -in writing under a pseudonym. Sydney -Lanier urged me to write, and said if I -would do so he would get the matter in -print for me. So he took ‘Neelers Peeler’s -Conditions,’ and it brought me eighty dollars. -I was surprised that my stories were -considered of any value. I withdrew from -teaching about six years ago, and since -that time have devoted myself to authorship. -I have never put a word in my -book that I have not heard the people use, -and very few that I have not used myself. -Powelton, Ga., is my Dukesborough. I -was born fourteen miles from there.</p> - -<p>“Of the female characters that I have -created, Miss Doolana Lines was my favorite, -while Mr. Bill Williams is my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -favorite among the male characters. I -started Doolana to make her mean and -stingy like her father, but I hadn’t written -a page before she wrenched herself out of -my hands. She said to me, ‘I am a woman, -and you shall not make me mean.’ These -stories are all of Georgia as it was before -the war. In the hill country the institution -of slavery was very different from -what it was in the rice region or near -the coast. Do you know the Georgia negro -has five times the sense of the South -Carolina negro? Why? Because he has -always been near his master, and their -relations are closer. My father’s negroes -loved him, and he loved them, and if a -negro child died upon the place my mother -wept for it. Some time ago I went to the -old place, and an old negro came eight -miles, walked all the way, to see me.</p> - -<p>“He got to the house before five o’clock -in the morning, and opened the shutters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -while I was asleep. With a cry he rushed -into the room. ‘Oh, Massa Dick.’ We -cried in each other’s arms. We had been -boys together. One of my slaves is now -a bishop—Bishop Lucius Holsey, one of -the most eloquent men in Georgia.”</p> - -<p>These charming bits of autobiography -show us the sterling nature of Malcolm -Johnston, a nature at once cheerful, kind -and loving. It is the object of such natures, -in the pessimistic wayfares of life, -to make friends, illuminating them with -sunshine and tickling them with laughter.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<h2><a name="MARION_CRAWFORD" id="MARION_CRAWFORD">MARION CRAWFORD.</a></h2> - - -<p>In front of the Ara Coeli I stood. A -swarthy Italian was telling of the dramatic -death of Cola di Rienzi. His English was -lightly worn, but it seemed to please his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -audience, and it was for that purpose they -had paid their lire. The crazy-quilt language -of the cicerone and his audacious -way of handling history, made him cut an -attractive figure in the eyes of most tourists, -whose desires are amusement rather -than study. As a type, to use a phrase -borrowed from the school of psychological -novelism, he was a study. To the student -Rome is a city of absorbing interest, to the -ordinary American bird of passage a dull -place. It all depends on your point of -view. If you are a scholar, a collector of -old lace, or a vandal, Rome is your happy -hunting ground. If these pursuits do not -interest you, Roman beggars with all sorts -and conditions of diseases, sometimes by -nature, mostly by art, Roman fleas, and -the gaunt ghosts of the Campagna quickly -drive you from the capital of the Cæsars -and Popes. A few other annoyances might -be added, such as sour wine, whose mist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -fumes are not to be shriven by your bottle-let -of eau de Cologne, garlic on the fringe -of decay, and the provoking smell of salt -fish in the last stage of decomposition. -But you have come to Rome; it is a name -to conjure with, and despite the drawbacks, -you must have a glimpse, an ordinary -bowing acquaintance, with the famed old -dame. At the office, an English office, in -the Piazza di Spagna, you have asked for -a “droll guide.” Who could listen to a -scholarly one amid such active drawbacks -as wine, fleas and fish? Michael Angelo -Orazio Pantacci is your man. What do -you care for good English? Did you not -leave New York to leave it behind? What -do you care for Roman history? Pantacci -is your man, and his lecture on Cola di -Rienzi is a masterpiece. A stranger joined -our little crowd. Pantacci at that moment -had attained his descriptive high-water -mark. His pose and voice were touchingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -dramatic. Cola was, as he expressed it, “to -perish.” The stranger smiled and passed -on. His smile was a composite affair. It -was easy to see in it Michael Angelo’s -historical duplicity and our ignorant simplicity. -The stranger was tall, with the -shoulders slightly stooping, a nose as near -an approach to the Grecian as an American -may come, a heavy black mustache, ruddy -cheeks, that whispered of English food -mellowed with the glowing Chianti. Who -is that man? I said to my companion, -whose eyes had followed the stranger -rather than Pantacci. “That,” said he, -“is Marion Crawford, the author of the -Saracenesca books. You remember reading -them at Albano.” Tell me something -about him. He is a very clever man. -Cola has perished; let us leave Pantacci. -On the way to Cordietti’s tell me something -of his life. He knows how to tell a story, -an art hardly to be met with in contemporary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -fiction. Fiction has abrogated to -herself the whole domain of life, and thus -the art of telling a story for the story’s -sake is lost. Fiction has a mission. She -freights herself with all isms. Scott, Manzoni, -even the great wizard of Spanish -fiction, could they live again, were failures. -Introspection is the cult, and, happily for -their fame, they knew nothing of it. These -great masters told us how scenes of life -were enacted. Why, they left to the inquisitive -and later-day brood of commentators. -Since then the all absorbing scientific -spirit prevails, and we moderns brush away -the delightful humor of Dickens for the -analytical puzzles of Henry James; the -keen satire of Thackeray for the coxcomberies -of George Meredith. Fairy cult interests -none, modern children are ancient -men. Scepticism is rampant, and the cause -of it is, in a great manner, due to the -modern novelist. This product of the 19th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -century world-spirit coolly tells us that -romance lies dead. Realism has taken her -place. If we are to believe the theories -of its votaries, it is without an ideal—a -mere anatomical transcript of man. What -this theory leads to is well illustrated by -the gutter filth of Zola and Catulle Mendes. -It makes novel writing a trade. One ceases -to be astonished at the output, if he thoroughly -grasps the difference between a -tradesman and an artist. Trade is a word -much used by realists. Grant Allen, writing -of that realistic necromancer, Guy de -Maupassant, has nothing apter to define -his position than the phrase “he knows -his trade.” In point of fact, Grant Allen -enunciates a truth in this phrase, one that -might be carried still further, by saying -that his whole school are journeymen laborers, -tradesmen, if you prefer, turning -out work, tasteless and crude, at the bidding -of the erubescent young person of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -period. It is readily assumed that work of -this kind is not, despite the word-jugglery -of their school, realism. It does not deal -with the true man, but with a phrase, and -that abnormal. A better phrase in use in -speaking of the works of this school is, -“literature of disease.” The artist who -lives must have a model, and that we -call the ideal. The nearer he approaches -this the more lasting his work. All the -great artists had ideals. Workmen may -be guided by the rule of thumb. The first -lesson a great artist learns is, “The art -that merely imitates can only produce a -corpse; it lacks the vital spark, the soul, -which is the ideal, and which is necessary -in order to create a living organic reality -that will quicken genius and arouse enthusiasm -throughout the ages.” The gulf -between the trade-novelist and the artist-novelist -is of vital importance. The former -believes that art is simply imitation, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -latter, that art is interpretation. One is a -stone-cutter, the other a sculptor.</p> - -<p>Crawford’s canon is that art is interpretative, -not imitative, and, moreover, he -has a story to tell and tells it for the story’s -sake. He has no affinity with that school -so pointedly described by the Scotch novelist, -Barrie, as the one “which tells, in -three volumes, how Hiram K. Wilding -trod on the skirt of Alice M. Sparkins -without anything coming of it.” “Cordietti’s,” -said my friend, “give the order and -I will tell you what I know of Crawford.” -Paulo, said I to the waiter, some Chianti, -and—well, a pigeon. “Crawford,” said my -friend, “was born in Rome about thirty-five -years ago. His career has been a -strange one, full of life. His early years -were spent in Rome, where his father was -known as a sculptor, his boyhood in the -vicinity of Union Square, his early manhood -in England and India. In the latter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -country he was the editor, proof-reader, -typesetter of a small journal in the natives’ -interest. As such he was a thorn to the -notorious freak, Blavatsky. Crawford is -an American by inheritance, an Italian by -breeding, an Englishman by training, an -Indian by virtue of writing about India -with the knowledge of a native. In 1873, -by the financial panic, Mrs. Crawford lost -her large fortune, and Marion was forced to -shift for himself. He became a journalist, -and as such wandered over most of the interesting -part of the globe. On his return -to New York, at the request of his uncle, -Sam Ward, the epicurean, who had discerned -his kinsman’s rare power of story-telling, -he wrote his first book, Mr. Isaacs. -It was a success. Of the writing of that -book, Crawford has told us it was “very -curious. I did not imagine that I possessed -a faculty for story-writing, and I -prepared for a career very different from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -the career of a novelist. Yet I have found -that all my early life was an unconscious -preparation for that work. My boyhood -was spent in Rome, where my parents had -lived for many years. There I was put -through the usual classical training—no, it -was not the usual one, for the classics are -much better taught in Italy than in this -country. A boy in Italy by the time he is -twelve is taught to speak Latin, and his -training is so thorough that he can read it -with ease. From Rome I went to Cambridge, -England, and remained at the university -several years. Then I studied for -a couple of years at the German universities. -During this time I went in for the -sciences, and I expected to devote myself -to scientific work. Finally I went off to -the East, where I did a good deal of observing, -and continued my studies of the -Oriental languages, in which I had taken -considerable interest. It was while I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -in the East that I met Jacobs, the hero of -Mr. Isaacs. Many of the events I have -recorded in Mr. Isaacs were the actual -experiences of Jacobs.”</p> - -<p>The writing of his first novel occupied -the months of May and June, 1882; it was -published the same year, and at once established -its author in the front rank of -living American writers of fiction. Since -then Crawford has written twenty volumes -of fiction. Crawford is frank and he tells -us how he manages to produce in a few -years the amount of an ordinary lifetime. -“By living in the open air, by roughing it -among the Albanian mountaineers, wandering -by the sunny olive slopes and vineyards -of Calabria, and by taking hard work -and pot luck with the native sailors on -long voyages in their feluccas,” are the -means of the novelist to hold health and -make his pen work a laxative employment. -In these picturesque journeys, he lays the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -foundation of his stories, makes the plots -and evolves the characters. He does not -believe in Trollope’s idea of sitting down, -pen in hand, and keep on sitting until at -its own wild will the story takes ink. The -story in these excursions has been fully -fashioned, and it becomes but a matter of -penmanship to record it. How quickly -this is done may be seen from the rapid -writing of the novelist, which averages -6,000 words the working day. This rapid -composition has its defects, defects that are -in some measure compensated by the photographic -views of the life and manners of -the people. These views are in the rough, -but they are truer than when toned down. -Poetry needs paring. The greatest novels -have been those that came like Crawford’s, -fresh from the brain, and were hastily -despatched to the printer. Scott did not -mope over the sheets. Thackeray’s were -written to the tune of “more copy.” Your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -American critic, Stoddard, says:—“That -Crawford is a man with many talents, and -with great fertility of invention, is evident -in every story that he has written. He -has written more good stories and in more -diverse ways than any English or American -novelist. It does not seem to matter -to him what countries or periods he deals -with, or what kind of personages he draws, -he is always equal to what he undertakes.” -It may interest you, in ending this biographic -sketch, to add that he is a convert -to the Catholic Church, and with the American -critic’s idea in view, a cosmopolitan. -I was not astonished by the former information. -To those who know Italy and Mr. -Crawford’s wonderful drawing of it, there -could be but one opinion, that the faith of -the novelist was the same as that of his -characters. No Protestant novelist, no -matter how many years he had lived in -Italy, could have drawn the portraits that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -play in the Saracenesca pages. One of his -friends had this in his mind’s eye when he -wrote of the superiority of the novelist’s -writings on Italy over those of his countrymen. -This writer tells us that “Crawford -added the indispensable advantage of being -a Catholic in religion, a circumstance that -has not only allowed him a truer sympathy -with the life there, but has afforded him -an open sesame to many things which must -be sealed books to Protestants.” As to my -friend’s summing up Crawford as a cosmopolitan, -in the every-day meaning of that -word, I take issue. Cosmopolitan novelist -is one who can produce a three-volume -novel, whose scenes are laid in all the great -centers of commerce, while he sits calmly in -his library. No previous study of his novelistic -surroundings are necessary. Does -the age want the beginning of the plot in -Cairo or Venice, half-way at Tokio, and a -grand finale beyond the Gates Ajar? Your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -novelist is ready to turn out the regulation -type with the greatest ease. Cosmopolitan -novel-writing is simply a trade. The living -through of local and artistic impressions, -the study of types in their environment, -the color of surroundings are unnecessary. -Imagination, divorced from nature study, -is left to guide the way.</p> - -<p>Once Crawford followed this school, and -the result was “An American Politician,” -the “worst novel ever produced by an -American.” Had Crawford been a tradesman -he might have produced a passable -book, but being an artist, he failed, not -knowing what paint to mix in order to get -the coloring. The difference between an -artist and tradesman, the one must go to -nature direct, the other takes her secondhand. -No artist can catch the lines of an -Italian sunset from a studio window in -London. “Art is interpretive, not imitative.” -Crawford is only a novelist in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -true sense when he knows his characters -and their surroundings. This is amply -proven in the charming volumes that make -his Saracenesca series. Here he is at home, -so to speak. The Rome of Pius IX, with -its struggles, its ambitions, the designs of -wily intriguers, the fall of the temporal -power of the Papacy, the rise of an united -Italy, the flocking to Rome of the scourings -and outcasts of the provincial cities, -the money-mad schemes of daring but ignorant -speculators, and over all the lovely -blue Italian sky, rise before us in all their -minuteness at the biddance of Marion -Crawford. His work is hardly inferior to -genuine history; “for it affords that insight -into the human mind, that acquaintance -with the spirit of the age, without -which the most minute knowledge is only -a bundle of dry and meaningless facts.” -Who that knows Rome of the Popes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -Rome of the Vandals will not feel heavy-hearted -at these lines?</p> - -<p>“Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old -Rome again. The last breath has been -breathed, the aged eyes are closed forever, -corruption has done its work and the grand -skeleton lies bleaching on seven hills, half -covered with the piecemeal stucco of a -modern architectural body. The result is -satisfactory to those who have brought it, -if not to the rest of the world. The sepulchre -of old Rome in the new capital -of united Italy.” The exclusiveness of -the patrician families of Rome, families -that a brood of novelists pretend to draw -life-like, is happily hit by the painter -Gouache.</p> - -<p>Gouache, long resident in Rome, being -asked what he knows of Roman families, -replies, “Their palaces are historic. Their -equipages are magnificent. That is all -foreigners see of Roman families.” Who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -that has seen the great Leo carried through -the grand sala, a vision of intellectual -loveliness, will not recall it as he reads? -“The wonderful face that seemed to be -carved out of transparent alabaster, smiled -and slowly turned from side to side as it -passed by. The thin, fragile hand moved -unceasingly, blessing the people.” “True,” -said my friend, “his pages are delicious -bits of the dead past. At every sentence -we halt and find a memory. He has the -sense of art, if Maupassant’s definition -of it as ‘the profound and delicious enjoyment -which rises to your heart before -certain pages, before certain phrases’ be -correct.”</p> - -<p>Dinner was finished. A check, Paulo. -We rose and went.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="CHARLES_WARREN_STODDARD" id="CHARLES_WARREN_STODDARD">CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.</a></h2> - - -<p>Venice, that lovely city by the sea, has -been described a thousand times by the -painter’s brush, by the poet’s pen. It is -the last bit of poetry left to us, in the ever -increasing dulness of this world—the only -place that one would expect to meet a -goblin or a genial Irish fairy. It is not -the intention of this paper to describe the -queenly city. More than a thousand kodak -fiends are daily doing that work, with the -eagerness of a money-lender and the artistic -sense of a fence painter. A city may, -however, have many attractions, other than -its magic beauty; nay, even a dull uninteresting -place may become interesting from -some great historic event that happened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -there, or from some impression caught and -treasured in memory’s store-house. Venice -has a charm for me other than the poetry -that lurks in its every stone; it was there -that I first dipped into one of those rare -books whose charms grow around the heart -soft and green as a vine-tendril.</p> - -<p>A professor of mine, one of those men -who hugs one saying in life, thereon building -a false reputation for wisdom, was in -the habit of saying, “Accidents are the -spice of life.” As it is his only contribution -approaching the threshold of the philosopher’s -goddess that I heard in the five -years of his weary cant, I willingly record -it. To me it expresses a truth, albeit five -years is a long hunt. Illustrations sometimes -improve the text, and this brief -paper, by the way, is but a design to enhance -the professor’s. It was an accident, -pure and simple, that made me wend my -way to the Rialto, there to lean against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -parapet watching some probably great unknown -painting, something that might be -anything the imagination cared to conjure -up. It was an accident that made an English -divine ask me in sputtering French -what the painter was working on. It was -an accident that made me inform him in -common American English that my telescope, -by some accidental foresight, was at -my lodgings. The divine was a genial -man, one of those breaths of spring that -we sometimes meet in life. Invited to my -lodgings, he fancied a few tiny volumes of -the apostle of “sweetness and light” to -pass those hours that hang heavily, in all -lands save Eden. In my pocket he thrust, -as he remarked, “a no ordinary book, one -that will hold you as in a vice.” This proceeding -was rather remarkable, had he not -in the same breath invited me to take a -gondola to one of the isles, and there enjoy -the pocketed volume. It is delightful to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -meet a genuine man, speaking your mother-tongue, -after weary months of Italian delving. -To the little isle we went, an isle -known to readers of Byron, as the place -where he labored long under Armenian -monks to learn their guttural tongue, the -monks say “with success.” I knew nothing, -in those days, of destructive criticism. -After a tour in the monastery, of the ordinary -Italian type, I lay down on the green -sward under the beneficent shade of a huge -palm, wrapped in the odors of a thousand -flowers that sleepily nodded to the music -of the creamy breakers on the rocky shore. -Books have their atmosphere as well as -men. Deprive them of it, and many a -charm is lost. I drew the little volume -from my pocket, and there in that atmosphere, -akin to the one in which it was -begot, I read of life in summer seas, life -that floats along serene and sweet as a -bell-note on a calm, frosty night, life</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Where the deep blue ocean never replies</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To the sibilant voice of the spray.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="unindent">My Anglican friend was unable to give -any clue to the author’s identity, other -than what the meagre title-page afforded. -The title-page was of that modest kind that -says, “Enter in and see for yourself.” It -had none of the tricks of book-making, and -none of the airs of a <i>parvenu</i>. Under other -skies than Italian I learned that the author -of “South Sea Idyls,” Charles Warren -Stoddard, poet and traveller, was one of -the kindest and most modest of men. In -truth, that it was the combination of these -rare qualities that had kept him from the -crowd when lesser men made prodigious -sales of their wares. To the man of mediocrity, -it is a tickling sensation to float -with the current to the music of the shore-rabble, -who shout from an innate desire to -hear their voices. With the possessor of -that rare gift, genius, the mouthings of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -present count little; it is for a future hold -on man, that he toils. It is to do something, -to paint a face, to carve a bust whose -glorious shape shall hand to the ages a -form of beauty, to weave a snatch of melody -that shall go down the stream of time consoling -dark souls. Mediocrity is mortal, -genius immortal. The common mind, without -bogging in metaphysics or transcendentalism, -subjects so dear to American -critics, may readily grasp the destination -by a comparison in poetry of the “Proverbial -Philosophy” with “In Memoriam,” -in prose “Barriers Burned Away,” with -“Waverly.” Another point for mediocrity, -perhaps from its possessor’s view the -best: it is well recompensed in this life. -The very reverse is the case with genius. -If then the author of the “South Sea Idyls” -is not as popular with the crowd as the -writers of short stories who revel in analysis, -whether it be a gum-boil or the falling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -of my lady’s fan, he can have no fear. It -is but his badge of superiority. The few -great men, who are the literary arbiters of -each century, have spoken, and their verdict -is the verdict of posterity. “One does -these things but once,” say they, “if one -ever does them, but you have done them -once for all; no one need ever write of the -South Sea again.” Here, it is well to impress -on the casual reader, in the light of -this verdict, a great historic truth cobwebbed -over by critical spiders; that it was not -the Italians that gave the chaplet to Dante, -nor the Spaniards to Cervantes, nor the -Portuguese to Camoëns, nor the Germans -to Goethe, but the great cosmopolitan few, -scattered over the world, guardians of the -garden of immortality.</p> - -<p>Charles Warren Stoddard was born in -Rochester, N. Y., 7th August, 1843. At -an early age he left his native state, with -his family and emigrated to California,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -that fertile foster-mother of American literary -men. In that delightful state, region -of plants and flowers, was passed his boyhood, -a boyhood rich in promise, strengthened -by a good education. With a natural -bent for travel, fed by the tales of travellers -and the waters of romance, it was his happy -luck, at the age of twenty-three to find -himself appointed to that really bright -journal, the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>, as its -correspondent. The commission was a roving -one, and the young correspondent was -left free to contribute sketches in his own -inimitable way. Let us believe that the -editor well knew the choice mind he had -secured in the young writer, and so knowing -was unwilling to put restrictions of the -common newspaper kind in his way. How -could such a correspondent be harnessed -in the dull statistics and ribald gossip of -these days? It was otherwise, as we his -debtors know. He was to wander at his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -own sweet will. The slight vein of sweet -melancholy that came with his life, drove -him far from the grimy haunts of civilization, -far from the sickening thud of men -thrown against the cobble-stones of poverty. -He sailed away with not a pang of sorrow -to those golden isles embedded in summer -seas, where the moon</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Seems to shine with a sunny ray,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the night looks like a mellowed day.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Isles where all things save man seem to have grown hoar in calm.</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In calm unbroken since their luscious youth.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>To a man of Stoddard’s genius and delicate -perception, one thing could have been -foreseen. These lands yet warm with the -sunshine of youth would play melodies on -his soul, as the winds on Æolian harps; -melodies hitherto unknown to the jaded -working world. That he could catch these -airs and give them a tangible form, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -not so sure. Others had heard these siren -airs, but failed to yoke them to speech. -Melville, now and then, had reproduced -a few notes; notes full of dreamy beauty, -making us long for the master who was -to give the full and perfect song. That -master was found in Stoddard. He produced, -as Howells so finely has said, “the -lightest, sweetest, wildest, freshest things -that ever were written about the life of that -summer ocean,” things “of the very make -of the tropic spray,” which “know not if -it be sea or sun.” Whether you open with -a prodigal in Tahiti and see for yourself -“that there are few such delicious bits of -literature in the language,” or follow the -writer, who, thanking the critics, prefers to -find out for himself the worth of a writer, -commences at the beginning with the -charming tale of “Kana-ana,” you will be -in company with the acute critic who has -pronounced the life of the summer sea,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -“once done,” by Stoddard, “and that for -all time.” What should we look for in -such a book? “Pictures of life, for melody -of language, for shapes and sounds of -beauty;” and these are to be found without -stint in the “South Sea Idyls.” The -form of Kana-ana haunts me, “with his -round, full girlish face, lips ripe and expressive, -not quite so sensual as those of -most of his race; not a bad nose, by any -means; eyes perfectly glorious—regular -almonds—with the mythical lashes that -sweep.” Kana-ana, who had tasted of civilization, -finding it hollow, pining for his -own fair land, and when restored to the -shade of his native palms, wasting away, -dying delirious, in his tiny canoe, rocked -to death by the spirit of the deep. Or is -it Taboo—“the figure that was like the -opposite halves of two men bodily joined -together in an amateur attempt at human -grafting, whose trunk was curved the wrong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -way; a great shoulder bullied a little -shoulder, and kept it decidedly under; a -long leg walked right around a short leg -that was perpetually sitting itself down on -invisible seats, or swinging itself for the -mere pleasure of it,” meeting him by the enchanting -cascade. Or is it Joe of Lahaina, -whose young face seemed to embody a -whole tropical romance. Joe, his bright -scape-grace, met with months after in that -isle of lost dreams and salty tears, the -leper-land of Molokai. Who shall forget -the end of that tale, where the author steals -away in the darkness from the dying boy?</p> - -<p>“I shall never see little Joe again, with -his pitiful face, growing gradually as dreadful -as a cobra’s, and almost as fascinating -in its hideousness. I waited, a little way -off in the darkness, waited and listened, -till the last song was ended, and I knew -he would be looking for me to say good -night. But he did not find me, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -will never again find me in this life, for -I left him sitting in the dark door of his -sepulchre—sitting and singing in the mouth -of his grave—clothed all in Death.”</p> - -<p>It matters little whether it be Kana-ana, -Taboo or Joe of Lahaina, the hand of a -master was at their birth, the spell of the -wizard is around them. The full development -of Stoddard’s genius is not found in -character-drawing, great as that gift undoubtedly -is, but in his wonderful reproduction -of the ever-changing hues of land -and sea, under the tropical sun. What -description is better fitted to fill the eye -with beauty, the ear with melody, than -these lines from the very first page of his -“South Sea Idyls?”</p> - -<p>“Once a green oasis blossomed before us—a -garden in perfect bloom, girdled about -with creamy waves; within its coral cincture -pendulous boughs trailed in the glassy -waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -stole down upon us; above all the triumphant -palm trees clashed their melodious -branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet -from the very gates of this paradise a -changeful current swept us onward, and -the happy isle was buried in night and -distance.”</p> - -<p>It is not easy to make extracts from this -charming book. It is a mosaic, to be read -as a whole. A tile, no matter how beautiful -it may be, can give no adequate conception -of the mosaic of which it forms a -part. It may, however, stimulate us to -procure it. These extracts taken at random, -would that they might have the same -effect. The book, once so rare, is now -within the easy reach of all. The new -edition lately published by the Scribners -is all that one could ask, and is a fitting -home for the undying melodies of the summer -seas. To read it is to be reminded of -the opening lines of Endymion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Its loveliness increases; it will never</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pass into nothingness; but will keep</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">A bower quiet for us and a sleep,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Stoddard’s other works are a volume of -poems, San Francisco, 1867; “Mashallah,” -a work that produces, as no other work -written in English, the Egypt of to-day. -In this work his touch is as light as that of -Gautier, while his eyes are as open as De -Amicis; and a little volume on Molokai. -At present he is the English professor at -the Catholic University.</p> - -<p>With the quoting of a little poem, “In -Clover,” a poem full of his delicate touches, -I close this sketch of a writer to whom I -am much indebted for happy hours under -Italian skies and in Adirondack camps.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“O Sun! be very slow to set;</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sweet blossoms kiss me on the mouth;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O birds! you seem a chain of jet,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blown over from the south.</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O cloud! press onward to the hill,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He needs you for his falling streams</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The sun shall be my solace still</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And feed me with his beams.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O little humpback bumble bee!</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">O smuggler! breaking my repose,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I’ll slily watch you now and see</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Where all the honey goes.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yes, here is room enough for two;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I’d sooner be your friend than not;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Forgetful of the world, as true,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I would it were forgot.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - - -<h2><a name="MAURICE_FRANCIS_EGAN" id="MAURICE_FRANCIS_EGAN">MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.</a></h2> - - -<p>The poet-critic Stedman, in his book on -American poetry, gives a few lines to what -he terms the Irish-American school. His -definition is a little misleading, as some -of the poets he cites were more American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -than the troop of lesser bards that grace -his polished pages. It is rather a strange -notion of American critics that Prof. Boyesen, -having cast aside the language of -Norseland to sport in the larger waters -of our English tongue, is metamorphosed -into a true American, while the literary -sons and daughters of Irish parents, born -and striking root in American soil, are -marked with a foreign brand. It is the -old story of English literary prejudice reproduced -by American critics. American -<i>modistes</i> go to Paris for their fashions, -American critics to the Strand for their -literary canons. It is pleasant to know -that the bulk of the people stay at home. -In this Irish-American school one meets -with the name of Maurice Francis Egan. -“A sweet and true poet” is Stedman’s -criticism. Coming from a master in the art -of literary interpretation, it must occupy a -place in all coming estimates of Mr. Egan’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -poetry. This criticism is, nevertheless, short -and unsatisfactory, it gives no true idea of -the poet’s place in the letters of his country. -It merely, if one is inclined to agree with -Stedman, establishes that Mr. Egan has a -place among the bards. In the hall of Parnassus, -however, there are so many stalls -that the ordinary reader prefers to have -the particular place assigned to each bard -pointed out. The author of this sketch, -while not accredited to the theatre of Parnassus, -may be able to give to those who -are not under the guidance of a uniformed -usher some hints whereby Mr. Egan’s particular -place may be discerned; that place -is among the minor poets. The major -stalls are all empty, waiting for the coming -men, so glibly prophesied about by the -little makers of our every-day literature.</p> - -<p>Maurice Francis Egan, poet, essayist, -novelist, journalist, and all-round literary -man, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., May<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -24, 1852. His first instructors were the -Christian Brothers, at their well-known -La Salle College in that city. From La -Salle he went to Georgetown College, as -a professor of English. After leaving -Georgetown he edited a short-lived venture, -<i>McGee’s Weekly</i>. In 1881 he became -assistant editor of the <i>Freeman’s Journal</i>, -and remained virtually at the head of that -paper until the death of its founder and -the passing of the property to other hands. -The founding of the Catholic University, -and the acceptance of its English professorship -by Warren Stoddard, made a vacancy -in the faculty of Notre Dame University. -This vacancy was offered to and accepted -by Mr. Egan.</p> - -<p>There are few places better fitted as a -poet’s home than Notre Dame. Beautiful -scenery to fill the eye, brilliant society to -spur the mind, and a spacious library -freighted with the riches of the past. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -comparison with the majority of the Catholic -writers, the poet’s journey in life has -been comparatively smooth, though far -from what it should have been. He has -published the following volumes:—“That -Girl of Mine,” 1879; “Preludes,” 1880; -“Song Sonnets,” London, 1885; “Theatre,” -1885; “Stories of Duty,” 1885; “Garden -of Roses,” 1886; “Life Around Us,” 1886; -“Novels and Novelists,” 1888; “Patrick -Desmond,” 1893; “Poems,” 1893. To this -list must be added innumerable articles in -magazines and weekly journals. Judged -by the signed output, it is safe to write -that the English professor of Notre Dame -is a very busy man. The wonder is that -a mind so occupied by so many diverse -things can write entertainingly of each.</p> - -<p>The poet’s first book, a few sonnets and -poems, was for “sweet charity’s sake,” and -had but a limited circulation. It is safe to -say that every first book of a genuine poet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -despite its crudities, will show the seeker -signs of things to come. Egan’s book was -not without promises, but in truth these -promises are only partly fulfilled in his -latest volume of verse. There may be -many reasons adduced for this disparity -between promise and fulfilment. One of -them is the haste with which poetry is published. -Horace’s dictum of using the file -has been long since forgotten. The rabble -calls for poetry, and, like the Italian and -his lentils, care little for the quality. If -the poet harkens to the calls (and who -among the contemporary bards has laughed -it to scorn?) he exchanges perpetuity for -the present, notoriety for fame. Nor will -the rabble leave the poet freedom in choosing -his material. He is simply a tradesman, -and must use what is placed at his -disposal. Things great and grand must be -left unto that day when the poet, untrammelled -by worldly care, shall write his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -heart’s dream. If the time ever comes, -the poet learns in sorrow that his dreams -will never float into human speech, for the -hand has lost its cunning. So the days of -youth and manhood pass, blowing bubbles -or decorating platitudes. Death snatches -the poetling, and oblivion is his coverlid. -The songs he sang died with the rabble. -The new generation asked for a poet that -could drill into the human heart and bring -forth its secrets—a listener to nature, her -interpreter to man. To such a one the -vocabulary of a minor bard is useless. -Another reason, more applicable to our -author, is that he has been unfortunate to -be a pioneer in Catholic American literature. -His poems, appealing, as they do, -to a distinct class, and that far from being -a book-buying one, will fail to attract the -lynx-eyed critic who cares only for the -general literary purveyor. From such a -source, the poet’s chance of corrective criticism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -has been slight. The class to which -Mr. Egan belongs has no criticism to offer -its literary food givers. If an author’s book -sells, his name is blazoned forth in half a -hundred headless petty journals. His most -glaring defects become through their glasses -mystic beauty spots. He is invited to lecture -on all kinds of subjects. A clique -grows around him, whose duty it is to puff -the master. The reasons, frankly adduced, -have limited the scope and dwarfed the -really fine genius of Maurice Egan. His -latest volume, while containing many poems -that reveal hidden powers, has much of the -crudity and faults of earlier work. These -poems speak of better things that will be -fulfilled by the poet if he will consecrate -himself wholly to his art, shutting his mind -to the rabble shout and eulogious criticism. -Then may he hear the rhythms and cadences -of that music whose orchestra comprises -all things from the shells to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -stars, all beings from the worm to man, -all sounds from the voice of the little bird -to the voice of the great ocean. To these -translations men will cling to the last, and -in their clinging is the poet’s fame. In his -shorter poems, and notably in his sonnets, -Mr. Egan is at his best. Here his scope is -broader, his touch is firmer. The mastery -of musical expression, lacking in his longer -poems, is here to be met with in the fulness -of its beauty. As a writer of sonnets, -Mr. Egan has had great success. In this -line of writing he is easily at the head of -the younger American school of poets. “A -Night in June” is a charming piece of -word painting, full of beauty and power. -The reader of this exquisite sonnet will feel -how deftly the poet has put in words the -silent magic of such a night, when air and -earth have songs to sing. In the sonnet to -the old lyric master Theocritus, the poet’s -graceful interpretative touch is equally felt.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Daphnis is mute, and hidden nymphs complain,</div> -<div class="verse">And mourning mingles with their fountain’s song;</div> -<div class="verse">Shepherds contend no more, as all day long</div> -<div class="verse">They watch their sheep on the wide, cyprus plain:</div> -<div class="verse">The master-voice is silent, songs are vain;</div> -<div class="verse">Blithe Pan is dead, and tales of ancient wrong</div> -<div class="verse">Done by the gods, when gods and men were strong,</div> -<div class="verse">Chanted to reeded pipes, no prize can gain.</div> -<div class="verse">O sweetest singer of the olden days,</div> -<div class="verse">In dusty books your idyls rare seem dead;</div> -<div class="verse">The gods are gone, but poets never die;</div> -<div class="verse">Though men may turn their ears to newer lays,</div> -<div class="verse">Sicilian nightingales enrapturéd</div> -<div class="verse">Caught all your songs, and nightly thrill the sky.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The sonnet “Of Flowers” gives a happy -setting to a beautiful thought:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">There were no roses till the first child died,</div> -<div class="verse">No violets, no balmy-breathed heartsease,—</div> -<div class="verse">No heliotrope, nor buds so dear to bees,</div> -<div class="verse">The honey-hearted suckle, no gold-eyed</div> -<div class="verse">And lowly dandelion, nor, stretching wide</div> -<div class="verse">Clover and cowslip cups, like rival seas,</div> -<div class="verse">Meeting and parting, as the young spring breeze</div> -<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>Runs giddy races, playing seek and hide.</div> -<div class="verse">For all Flowers died when Eve left Paradise,</div> -<div class="verse">And all the world was flowerless awhile,</div> -<div class="verse">Until a little child was laid in earth.</div> -<div class="verse">Then, from its grave grew violets for its eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">And from its lips rose-petals for its smile;</div> -<div class="verse">And so all flowers from that child’s death took birth.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>To those who have lovingly lingered -over the pages of Maurice de Guerin, -pages that breathe the old Greek world of -thought, the following sonnet, that paints -that modern Grecian with a few masterly -strokes, will be keenly relished. It is the -fine implications of these lines that is the -life of our hope for the poet and the future.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Maurice de Guerin.</span></div> -<div class="verse">The old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes</div> -<div class="verse">Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair,</div> -<div class="verse">Unseen by others; to him maiden-hair</div> -<div class="verse">And waxen lilacs and those birds that rise</div> -<div class="verse">A-sudden from tall reeds, at slight surprise,</div> -<div class="verse">Brought charmed thoughts; and in earth everywhere,</div> -<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>He, like sad Jacques, found a music, rare</div> -<div class="verse">As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise.</div> -<div class="verse">A Pagan heart, a Christian soul, had he,</div> -<div class="verse">He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed,</div> -<div class="verse">Till earth and heaven met within his breast!</div> -<div class="verse">As if Theocritus, in Sicily,</div> -<div class="verse">Had come upon the Figure crucified,</div> -<div class="verse">And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>As an essayist, Mr. Egan has touched -many subjects, and always in an entertaining -vein. Some of his essays are remarkable -for their plain speaking. He -has studied his race in their new surroundings, -knows equally well their virtues and -failings. If he can take an honest delight -in the virtues, he is capable of writing -with no uncertain sound on the failings, -failings that have been so mercilessly used -by the vulgarly comic school of American -playwrights. His essays are corrective -and should find their way into every Irish-American -home. They would tend to correct -many abuses and aid in the detection<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -of those bunions so sacredly kept on the feet -of the Irish race—last relic of the Penal -times. A recent essay throws a series of -blue lights—the color so well liked by -Carlyle—on our shallow collegiate system. -Will it be read by our Catholic educators? -That is a question that time will answer. -If they read it aright they will be apt to -change their system of teaching the classics -parrot-like, an empty word translation. -They will transport their pupils from the -bare class-room to the sunny skies of Greece -and Rome, and under these skies see the -religious dogmas, the philosophical systems, -the fine arts, the entire civilization -of those ancient thought giving nations. -“What professor,” says de Guerin, “reading -Virgil and Homer to his pupils, has -developed the poetry of the Iliad or Æneid -by the poetry of nature under the Grecian -and Italian skies. Who has dreamt of -showing the reciprocal relation of the poets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -to the philosophers, the philosophers to the -poets, and these in turn to the artists—Plato -to Homer, Homer to Phidias? It is -a want of this that makes the classics so -dull to youth, so useless to manhood.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Egan, as a novelist, has written -many books, dealing mostly with Irish-American -life. These novels are filled -with strong, manly feeling, and Catholic -pictures beautiful enough to arrest the -attention of the most fastidious. In these -days of romance readers such books must -serve as an antidote to the subtle poison -that permeates the fictive art. They are -pleasant and instructive, and that is a high -tribute in these days of dulness and spiced -immorality. Take him all in all, perhaps -the most acceptable tribute is, that whatever -may be his gifts in the various rôles -he has essayed, heavy or slight, they have -been ungrudgingly used for his race and -religion.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="JOHN_B_TABB" id="JOHN_B_TABB">JOHN B. TABB.</a></h2> - - -<p>A friend once wrote to me: “What do -you know about a poet who signs his name -John B. Tabb, his poems are delicious?” -My answer was, that I knew nothing of his -personal history, but that his poems had -found their way into my aristocratic scrap-book. -Here I might pause to whisper that -the adjective aristocratic, in my sense, has -nothing haughty about it. When joined to -the noun scrap-book, a good commentator—they -are scarce—would freely translate -the phrase the indwelling of good poetry. -Since then my personal knowledge of the -poet has grown slowly, a slight stock and -no leaves. Even that, like my old coat, is -second-handed. Such material, no matter -how highly recommended by the keepers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -the golden balls, is usually found to be a -poor bargain. But here it is, keeping in -mind that rags are better than no clothing, -and that older proverb—half a loaf is better -than no bread.</p> - -<p>“John B. Tabb, (I quote) was born in -Virginia, when or where I know not. Becoming -a Catholic he studied for the priesthood -and was ordained.” Here my data -fails me. At present he is the professor of -literature in St. Charles’ College, Maryland. -It is something in his favor, this scanty -biographical fare. Where the biography -is long, laudatory, and in rounded periods, -it is approached as one would a snake in -the grass, with a kind of fear that in the -end you may be bitten. “May I be skinned -alive,” said that master of word-selection -and phrase-juggler, Flaubert, “before I -ever turn my private feelings to literary -account.” And the reader, with the stench -of recent keyhole biography in his nostrils,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -shouts “bravo.” Flaubert’s phrase might -easily have hung on the pen of the retiring -worshipper of the beautiful, “the Roman -Catholic priest, who drudges through a -daily round of pedagogical duties in St. -Charles’ College.” This quoted phrase may -stand. Pedagogy, at best, is a dull pursuit -for a poet. It is not congenial, and I have -held an odd idea that whatever was not congenial, -disguise it as you may, is drudgery. -And all this by way of propping the quoted -sentence. The strange thing is that in the -midst of this daily round of drudgery the -poet finds time to produce what a recent -critic well calls “verse-gems of thought.” -These verse-gems, if judged by intrinsic -evidence, would argue an environment other -than a drudgery habitation. In truth, it -is hard to desecrate them by predicating -of them any environment other than a -spiritual one.</p> - -<p>This brings us to write of Fr. Tabb’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -poetry that it is elusive, from a critical -point of view. When you bring your preconceived -literary canons to bear upon it, -they are found wanting—too clumsy to test -the delicacy, fineness of touch, and the -permeated spiritualism embodied in the -verse-gem. It is well summarized in the -saying that “it possesses to the full a white -estate of virginal prayerful art.” One -might define it by negatives, such as the -contrary of passion poetry. The point of -view most likely to give the clearest conception -would be found in the sentence: -an evocation from within by a highly spiritualized -intelligence. The poet has caught -the higher music, the music of a soul in -which dwell order and method. In other -words, he has assiduously cultivated to its -fullest development both the spiritual sense -and the moral sense.</p> - -<p>It is easy to trace in Fr. Tabb’s poetry -the influence of Sidney Lanier. It has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -been asserted, and with much truth, that -Lanier’s influence has strangely fascinated -the younger school of Southern -poets. Sladen, in his book on Younger -American Poets, tells us that “Lanier -differs from the other dead poets included -in his book, in that he was not only a -poet but the founder of a school of -poetry.” To his school belongs Fr. Tabb, -a school following the founder whose aim -is to depict</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“All gracious curves of slender wings,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bark mottlings, fibre spiralings,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Fern wavings and leaf flickerings.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Yea, all fair forms and sounds and lights,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And warmths and mysteries and mights,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of Nature’s utmost depths and heights.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="unindent">The defects of this school are best seen in -the founder. He was a musician before a -poet, and helplessly strove to catch shades -by words that can only be rendered by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -music. Fr. Tabb has learned this limitation -of his school. For the glowing semi-pantheism -of Lanier he has substituted -the true and no less beautiful doctrine -of Christianity. All his verse-gems are -redolent of his faith. They are religious -in the sense that they are begotten by -faith and breathe the air of the sanctuary. -To read them is to leave the hum and -pain of life behind, and enter the cloister -where all is silent and peaceful, where -dwelleth the spirit of God. Of them it -is safe to assert that their white estate -of virginal, prayerful art shall constitute -their immortality. Fr. Tabb has not, as -yet, thought fit to give them a more permanent -form than they have in the current -magazines. Catholic literature, and especially -poetry, is so meagre that when a -true singer touches the lyre it is not to be -wondered at that those of his household -should desire to possess his songs in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -more worthy dwelling than that of an -ephemeral magazine. In the absence of -the coming charming volume I quote from -my scrap-book a few of the verse-gems, -thereby trusting to widen the poet’s audience -and in an humble way gain lovers -for his long-promised volume.</p> - -<p>What could illustrate the peculiar genius -of our poet better than the delicious gem -that he has called</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="center">“<span class="smcap">The White Jessamine.</span>”</div> -<div class="verse">I knew she lay above me,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the casement all the night</span></div> -<div class="verse">Shone, softened with a phosphor glow</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of sympathetic light,</span></div> -<div class="verse">And that her fledgling spirit pure</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was pluming fast for flight.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Each tendril throbbed and quickened</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As I nightly climbed apace,</span></div> -<div class="verse">And could scarce restrain the blossoms</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">When, anear the destined place,</span></div> -<div class="verse">Her gentle whisper thrilled me</div> -<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere I gazed upon her face.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I waited, darkling, till the dawn</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Should touch me into bloom,</span></div> -<div class="verse">While all my being panted</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">To outpour its first perfume,</span></div> -<div class="verse">When, lo! a paler flower than mine</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had blossomed in the gloom!</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“Content” is another gem of exquisite -thought and workmanship.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Content.</span></div> -<div class="verse">Were all the heavens an overladen bough</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of ripened benediction lowered above me,</span></div> -<div class="verse">What could I crave, soul-satisfied as now,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">That thou dost love me?</span></div> -</div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The door is shut. To each unsheltered blessing</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henceforth I say, “Depart! What wouldst thou of me?”</span></div> -<div class="verse">Beggared I am of want, this boon possessing,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">That thou dost love me.</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“Photographed” may well make the -trio in the more fully illustrating his -genius:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Photographed.</span></div> -<div class="verse">For years, an ever-shifting shade</div> -<div class="verse">The sunshine of thy visage made;</div> -<div class="verse">Then, spider-like, the captive caught</div> -<div class="verse">In meshes of immortal thought.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">E’en so, with half-averted eye,</div> -<div class="verse">Day after day I passed thee by,</div> -<div class="verse">Till, suddenly, a subtler art</div> -<div class="verse">Enshrined thee in my heart of heart.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - - -<p>“Not even the infinite surfeit of Columbus -literature of the last six months can -deprive Fr. Tabb’s tribute in Lippincott’s -of its sweetness and light,” says the <i>Review -of Reviews</i>:</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">With faith unshadowed by the night,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Undazzled by the day,</span></div> -<div class="verse">With hope that plumed thee for the flight</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And courage to assay,</span></div> -<div class="verse">God sent thee from the crowded ark,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christ bearer, like the dove,</span></div> -<div class="verse">To find, o’er sundering waters dark,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">New lands for conquering love.</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<p>As a final selection, we may well conclude -these brief notes on a poet with staying -powers by quoting a poem, contributed to -the <i>Cosmopolitan</i>, called “Silence;” a poem -permeated with his fine spiritual sense:</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Temple of God, from all eternity</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alone like Him without beginning found;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of time, and space, and solitude the bound,</span></div> -<div class="verse">Yet in thyself of all communion free.</div> -<div class="verse">Is, then, the temple holier than he</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">That dwells therein? Must reverence surround</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With barriers the portal, lest a sound</span></div> -<div class="verse">Profane it? Nay; behold a mystery!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">What was, remains; what is, has ever been:</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The lowliest the loftiest sustains.</span></div> -<div class="verse">A silence, by no breath of utterance stirred—</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Virginity in motherhood—remains,</span></div> -<div class="verse">Clear, midst a cloud of all-pervading sin,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The voice of Love’s unutterable word.</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="JAMES_JEFFREY_ROCHE" id="JAMES_JEFFREY_ROCHE">JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.</a></h2> - - -<p>In this age of rondeaus and other feats -in rhyme, it is pleasant to meet with a -little book that abhors all verse tricks of -the fin-de-siècle poets, and judiciously -follows the old masters. Such a little -book peeps at me from a corner in -my library, marked in capitals, “Poems -Worth Reading.” It was given to me -years ago by its author, and as a remembrance, -a few lines from the poem that -appealed most to my intellect in those -days, was written on its fly-leaf. It -was its author’s first book, and was put -forth with that shrinking modesty that -has heralded all meritorious work. Of -preface, that relic of egotism, there was -none.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> - -<p>It was dedicated to one who was close -to his heart, to</p> - -<div class="center"> -“<span class="smcap">John Boyle O’Reilly</span>,<br /> -<br /> -My very dear friend, and an honorable gentleman.”<br /> -</div> - -<p>It had O’Reilly’s warm word to speed and -gain it a hearing, a word that would have -remained unwritten were it not that the -little volume, of its own worth, demanded -that the word but expressed its merit. -Since those days, it has travelled and -found a ready home. Its gentle humor -has made it quotable in the fashionable -salons, its quaintness tickled the lonely -scholar, stinging notes against wrong and -its brilliant biting to the very core of silk-dressed -sham, bespoke a hearty welcome -in the haunts of the poor and oppressed.</p> - -<p>The volume was one of promise and -large hope. Of it O’Reilly wrote: “Not -for years has such a first book as this -appeared in America.” This recognition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -was but a truth. The author is a true -poet, not a rhyme trickster or a cherry-stone -filer, that brood so thoroughly detested -by O’Reilly. He has something -to say, a genuine, poetical impression to -give in each poem. His genius, as that -of most poets of Celtic blood, is essentially -dramatic. This may best be seen in -that fine, man-loving poem, “Netchaieff.” -Netchaieff, a Russian Nihilist, was condemned -to prison for life. Deprived of -writing materials, he allowed his fingernail -to grow until he fashioned it into a -pen. With this he wrote, in his blood, -on the margin of a book, the story of his -sufferings. Almost his last entry was a -note that his jailer had just boarded up -the solitary pane which admitted a little -light into his cell. The “letter written -in blood” was smuggled out of prison and -published, and Netchaieff died very soon -after. The poet’s opening lines, relating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -to the Czar, Netchaieff’s death in prison, -show that the human interest of this poet -swallows up all other interests. The human -alone can heat his blood and rouse in -impassioned verse his indignation. How -finely conceived is the satire in these lines:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Netchaieff is dead, your Majesty.</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">You knew him not. He was a common hind,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who lived ten years in hell, and then he died—</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To seek another hell, as we must think,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Since he was rebel to your Majesty.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>There are many startling lines in this -poem, lines that would give our fairy-airy -school of poets material for a dozen sonnets. -“For the People” is another poem -that shows the ink was not watered. It -is full of truth, unpleasant to the ears of -the well-fed and easy living, but truth -nevertheless, painted with a bold and masterly -hand. It is the critic’s way to call -poems of this kind passionate unreasonableness, -while an irregular ode to a cat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -or a ballade of the shepherdess is filled -with passionate reasonableness. All which -proves that these amusing gentlemen are -unconsciously sitting by the volcano’s side. -They have eyes and they see not; they -have ears and they hear not. The prophetic -voice of the poets who will sing -from their inner seeing, caring not whether -the age listens or hurries on, is lost on -these so-called literary interpreters. The -tocsin blast dies on the breeze, or speaks -to a few lonely thinkers who catch its -notes for future warning; the reed’s soft -sensuous music is hugged and repeated by -the critics and the commonplace. When -the lava tumbles forth, then the singer -whose songs were a part of him, passionate, -conceived in the white heat of truth, -may have the diviner’s crown. The critics -and commonplace, in their suffering, remember -the warning in these burning lines:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“There’s a serf whose chains are of paper; there’s a king with a parchment crown,</div> -<div class="verse">There are robber knights and brigands in factory, field and town;</div> -<div class="verse">But the vassal pays his tribute to a lord of wage rent;</div> -<div class="verse">And the baron’s toll is Shylock’s, with a flesh and blood per cent.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“The seamstress bends to her labor all night in a narrow room,</div> -<div class="verse">The child, defrauded of childhood, tiptoes all day at the loom,</div> -<div class="verse">The soul must starve, for the body can barely on husks be fed;</div> -<div class="verse">And the loaded dice of a gambler settle the price of bread.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Ye have shorn and bound the Samson, and robbed him of learning’s light;</div> -<div class="verse">But his sluggish brain is moving, his sinews have all their might,</div> -<div class="verse">Look well to your gates of Gaza, your privilege, pride and caste!</div> -<div class="verse">The Giant is blind and thinking, and his locks are growing fast.”</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Netchaieff” and “For the People” are -poems with a meaning. Their author is -a thinker, a keen student of the social -problems that convulse our every-day life. -He walks the city’s streets, and sees sights -and hears ominous murmuring. He uses -the poet’s right to translate these scenes -and sights into his own impassioned verse. -This done, his duty done. The Creator -must give brains to the reader. If that -has been done, the poet’s lines will fall -fresh and thought-provoking on his ears. -It will take him from Mittens, Marjorie’s -Kisses, April Maids and the school of fantastic -littleness, to man’s inhumanity to -man, the burning wrong of our day. An -Adirondack climb, but then the point of -view repays the exertion. It is generally -written that the author of Songs and Satires -is a comic poet. A half-way truth is expressed. -If by comic is meant humor, -yes; all poets who are worth looking into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -have in a greater or less degree that precious -gift. It is a distinct gain if the -author is an artist and knows how to use -it, dangerous to the commonplace, who put -it on with a white-wash brush. It is a -nice line that divides humor from buffoonery. -Our author is a humorist of that -school whose genius has been used to -alleviate human suffering. Its shafts are -not forged by the hammer of spleen on -the anvil of malice, but the workmanship -of love mourning for misery. His spirit -is akin to Hood’s. His touch is light, -but his poniard is a Damascene blade -well pointed. Cant has no foil to set it -off. “A Concord Love Song” is a charming -bit of satire. I can well remember -the effect it had on a teacher of mine, a -proud sage of that school of word-twisting -and transcendental gush. He sniffed and -pawed viciously, a sure sign that the poet’s -dart was safely lodged in the bull’s eye.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -Those who have, as a sleep seducer, read -some of the Concord fraternity’s vapid -musings on the pensive Here and the -doubtful Yonder, will deliciously relish -such lines as these:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Ah, the joyless fleeting</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of our primal meeting,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the fateful greeting</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Of the How and Why!</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ah, the Thingness flying</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">From the Hereness, sighing</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For a love undying</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">That fain would die.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Ah, the Ifness sadd’ning,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The Whichness madd’ning,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And the But ungladd’ning</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">That lie behind!</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">When the signless token</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of love is broken</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In the speech unspoken,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Of mind to mind.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>It is to his later and serious poems that -the critic must go to find the poet at his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -best. “At Sea” is a poem with a memory, -inasmuch as it is the “embodiment of as -beautiful a story of brotherly love as the -world makes record.” The poet’s brother, -Mr. John Roche, pay-clerk in the United -States Navy, died a hero’s death in the -Samoan disaster of March, 1889. Doubtless -it was from this loved brother that -the poet took his love for the sea, and the -gallant deeds of our young navy. Here -he is in his own field. “The Fight of the -Armstrong Privateer” shows genuine inspiration. -It has color and passion. The -reader feels the swing of the graphic lines -and a quickness in his own blood, while -the tale of daring rapidly and gracefully -unfolds itself.</p> - -<p>James Jeffrey Roche was born at Mount -Mellick, Queens county, Ireland, forty-six -years ago. His father was a schoolmaster, -and to him the poet is indebted for his -early education. At a suitable age he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -entered St. Dunstan’s College, Charlottetown, -Prince Edward’s Island, the family -having emigrated there in the poet’s -infancy. Here he finished his classics and -showed his literary bent by the publishing -of a college journal. Having the valedictory -assigned to him, he hopelessly broke -down. The present year he returned to -St. Dunstan’s the orator of Commencement -day, as he wittily remarked, to finish -the valedictory that had overtaxed his -strength as a small boy. After leaving -college the poet came to Boston, entered -commercial life, remaining in that hardly -genial business for sixteen years. During -these years his pen was busy at the real -vocation of his life. He was for several -years the Boston correspondent of the -<i>Detroit Free Press</i>, and had been long an -editorial contributor to the <i>Pilot</i>, before -he took the position of assistant editor on -it, in 1883. As a journalist Mr. Roche<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -has few equals. His keen mind easily -grapples the questions of the day, while -his good sense in their discussion never -deserts him. In a few lines he goes to the -core. If his trenchant sarcasm punctures -the bubble, his humor will not fail to -make it ridiculous. It is not the windy -editorial in our day that tortures the -quacks, but the bright, pointed dart of a -paragraph. It is so easy to remember, -may be stored in the reader’s brain so -readily, and used with deadly effect at any -moment. A writer who knows him well -has this to say: “As a journalist he -combines two qualities not often found -together, discretion and brilliancy. The -former quality was well exemplified in his -editorial course during the recent crisis -in the history of the Irish National movement. -He handles political topics ably, -and in the treatment of the still broader -social and economic questions, writes with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -the strength and spirit worthy of the associate -and successor of that apostle of -human liberty and human brotherhood, -John Boyle O’Reilly.”</p> - -<p>In truth, the one thing most essentially -felt in this writer, whether in prose or -poetry, is his sanity. There is no buncombe -in the former, no mawkishness -nor pedantic prettiness in the latter. His -genius has no pose. So much the better -for his fame and future. Mr. Roche’s -prose works are: “The Story of the Filibusters,” -a subject dear to a poet’s heart, -and the “Life of John Boyle O’Reilly,” -his chief and friend. This volume was the -work of ten weeks, and that in the hours -free from his editorial charge. It was a -feat that few men could so successfully -achieve. It had to be done. No sacrifice -was too great for Roche to make for his dead -friend. That his health did not give way -after the sleeplessness, work and worry of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -those ten weeks, is the wonder of those who -stood near to him. Despite the limited -time allowed to Mr. Roche, his biography -shows few signs of haste. It is well and -interestingly written, a lasting memorial -and a deep tribute of affection to one of -the most lovable characters of the century. -O’Reilly rises from this book as he was. -Friendship, while giving what was his due, -restrains all affections that might mar the -truth of the portrait. His stature was felt -to be large enough, without any additions -that crumble to time.</p> - -<p>There are those of us who hope that the -poet, with greater leisure, will give to -O’Reilly’s race a monograph to be treasured -and read by each household, a monograph -where the best in O’Reilly’s character -shall be emphasized, and so lovingly -set that those who read shall take heed -and learn, while blessing him who gave -the setting. The book as it is costs too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -much and is hardly compact enough for -those who need the strong lessons of such -a life as O’Reilly’s. In a smaller compass -and at less cost, done in that delightful -way so thoroughly shown in his art of -paragraphing, the little book would be a -guide-post to many a struggling lad and -lass. And to the young of our race must -we look and to the exiled part for the full -flowering. As the poet, so is the man, -cheery, unaffected, kindly and man-loving. -He has no airs, lacks the melodramatic of -the airy-fairy school. He does not pretend -that the gift of prophecy is his, nor -hint that it sleeps amid verbal ingenuities. -He has a song to sing, a tale to tell, -and he does it with all the craft that is -in him. In person Mr. Roche is of the -medium height, well-built, rather dark -complexioned, with abundant jet-black -hair and brilliant hazel eyes.</p> - -<p>In concluding this sketch of a genuine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -man and true poet, I am tempted to quote -the little poem he so graciously wrote in -the fly-leaf of his “Songs and Satires:”</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“They chained her fair young body to the cold and cruel stone;</div> -<div class="verse">The beast begot of sea and slime had marked her for his own;</div> -<div class="verse">The callous world beheld the wrong, and left her there alone,</div> -<div class="verse">Base caitiffs who belied her, false kinsmen who denied her,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Ye left her there alone!</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“My Beautiful, they left thee in thy peril and thy pain;</div> -<div class="verse">The night that hath no morrow was brooding on the main;</div> -<div class="verse">But lo! a light is breaking, of hope for thee again;</div> -<div class="verse">’Tis Perseus’ sword a-flaming, thy dawn of day proclaiming,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">Across the Western main.</span></div> -<div class="verse">O Ireland! O my country! he comes to break thy chain.”</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="GEORGE_PARSONS_LATHROP" id="GEORGE_PARSONS_LATHROP">GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.</a></h2> - - -<p>In the footsore journey through Mexico, -when dinner gladdened our vision, poor -Read would solemnly remark, “dinners -are reverent things.” Society accepted this -definition. I use society in the sense that -Emerson would. “When one meets his -mate,” writes the Concord sage, “society -begins.” Read was mine, and to-day his -quaint remark haunts me with melancholy -force. Thoughts of a dinner with the subject -of this sketch, George Parsons Lathrop, -and one whose fair and forceful life has -been quenched, flit through my mind. It -was but yesterday that I bade the gentle -scholar farewell, unconsciously a long farewell, -for Azarias has fled from the haunts -of mortality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“This is the burden of the heart,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The burden that it always bore;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">We live to love, we meet to part,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And part to meet on earth no more.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Colonel Johnson had read one of his -charming essays. Brother Azarias and -George Parsons Lathrop had listened with -rapt attention to the most loveable writer -of the New South. After the lecture I -was asked to join them, for, as the author -of Lucille asks, “where is the man that -can live without dining?” That dinner, -now that one lies dead, enters my memory -as reverent and makes of Read’s remark a -truth. Men may or may not appear best -at dinner. Circumstances lord over most -dinners. As it was the only opportunity -I had to snap my kodak, you must accept -my picture or seek a better artist. Kodak-pictures, -when taken by amateurs, are -generally blurred. And now to mine.</p> - -<p>A man of medium height, strongly built,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -broad shouldered, the whole frame betokening -agility; face somewhat rounded giving -it a pleasant plumpness, with eyes quick, -nervous and snappy, lighting up a more -than ordinary dark complexion—such is -Parsons Lathrop, as caught by my camera. -His voice was soft, clear as a bell-note, and, -when heard in a lecture hall, charming; a -slight hesitancy but adds to the pleasure of -the listener. In reading he affects none of -the dramatic poses and Delsarte movements -that makes unconscious comedians of our -tragic-readers. It is pleasant to listen to -such a man, having no fear that in some -moving passage, carried away by some -quasi-involuntary elocutionary movement, -he might find himself a wreck among the -audience. The lines of Wordsworth are -an apt description of him:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">“Yet he was a man</span></div> -<div class="verse">Whom no one could have passed without remark,</div> -<div class="verse">Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs,</div> -<div class="verse">And his whole figure, breathed intelligence.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>Mr. Lathrop was born in Honolulu, -Hawaiian Islands, August 25, 1851. It -was a fit place for a poet’s birthplace, -“those gardens in perfect bloom, girded -about with creaming waves.” He came of -Puritan stock, the founder of his family -being the Rev. John Lathrop, a Separatist -minister, who came to Massachusetts in -1634. Some of his kinsmen have borne a -noble part in the creation of an American -literature, notably the historian of the -Dutch and the genial autocrat, Wendell -Holmes. His primary education was had -in the public schools of New York; from -thence he went to Dresden, Germany, -returning in 1870 to study law at Columbia -College. Law was little to his liking. The -dry and musty tomes, wherein is written -some truth and not a little error, sanctioned -by one generation of wiseacres to be whittled -past recognition by another generation -of the same species, could hardly hope to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -hold in thraldom a mind that had from -boyhood browsed in the royal demesne of -literature. Law and literature, despite the -smart sayings of a few will not run in the -same rut. In abandoning law for literature, -he but followed the law of his being. What -law lost literature gained. On a trip -abroad a year later he met Rose Hawthorne, -the second daughter of the great Nathaniel, -wooed, and won her. This marriage was -by far the happiest event in his life, the -crowning glory of his manhood, a fountain -of bliss to sustain his after life. Years -later, in a little poem entitled, “Love that -Lives,” referring to the woman that was his -all, he addresses her in words that needed -no coaxing by the muses, but had long -been distilled by his heart, ready for his -pen to give them a setting and larger life.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Dear face—bright, glinting hair—</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Dear life, whose heart is mine—</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The thought of you is prayer,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The love of you divine.</span></div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In starlight, or in rain;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">In the sunset’s shrouded glow;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Ever, with joy or pain,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">To you my quick thoughts go.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>And summing up, he tells us the kind of -a bond that holds them. It is the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Love that lives;</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Its spring-time blossoms blow</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">’Mid the fruit that autumn gives;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And its life outlasts the snow.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>In 1875 he became assistant editor of -that staid and stately magazine the <i>Atlantic -Monthly</i>, thereby adding to his fame, while -it brought him into intimate relationship -with the best current thought of the time. -Few American literary men have not, at -some time of their career, been closely -allied with the press. Mr. Lathrop has -been no exception. For two years, from -’77 to ’79, his brilliant pen guided the -destinies of the <i>Boston Courier</i>. In 1879 -he purchased Hawthorne’s old home, “The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -Wayside,” in Concord, Mass., making it -his home until his removal to New York -in 1883. His present residence is at New -London, Conn., where a beautiful home, -with its every nook consecrated to books -and paintings, tells of an ideal literary -life and companionship. Mr. Lathrop’s -genius is many sided. This is often a sign -of strength. Men, says a recent critic, -with a great and vague sense of power in -them are always doubtful whether they -have reached the limits of that power, and -naturally incline to test this in the field in -which they feel they have fewer rather -than more numerous auguries of success. -Into many fields this brilliant writer has -gone, and with success. In some he has -sowed, in others reaped a golden harvest. -He was a pioneer in that movement which -rightfully held that an author had something -to do with his brain-work. It seems -strange that in this nineteenth century such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -a proposition should demand a defender. -Sanity, however, is not so widespread as -the optimists tell. The contention of those -that denied copyright was, “Ideas are -common property.” So they are, says our -author, but granting this, don’t think you -have bagged your game? How about the -form in which those ideas are presented? -Is not the author’s own work, wrought out -with toil, sweat and privation—is not the -labor bestowed upon that form as worthy -of proper wage as the manual skill devoted -to the making of a jumping jack? Yet no -one has denied that jumping-jacks must be -paid for. This was sound reasoning and -would have had immediate effect, had -Congress possessed a ha’penny worth of -logic. As it was, years were wasted agitating -for a self-evident right, men’s energies -spent, and at length a half-loaf reluctantly -given.</p> - -<p>In another field Mr. Lathrop has been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -worker almost single-handed, that of encouraging -a school of American art. A -few years ago a daub from France was -valued more than a marvellous color-study -of John La Farge, or a canvas breathing -the luminous idealism of Waterman. -Critics sniffed at American art, while they -went into rhapsody over some foreign little -master. Our author, whose keen perception -had taught him that the men who -toiled in attics, without recompense in -the present, and dreary prospects for the -future, for the sake of art, were not to be -branded as daubers, but as real artists, -the fathers of American art, became their -defender. He pointed out the beauties of -this new school, its strength, and above -all, that whatever it might have borrowed -from foreign art, it was American -in the core. Men listened more for the -sake of the writer than interest in his -theme. Gradually they became tolerant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -and admitted that there was such a thing -as American art.</p> - -<p>It was natural that the son-in-law of -America’s greatest story-teller should try -his strength in fiction. His first novels -show a trace of Hawthorne. They are -romantic, while the wealth of language -bewilders. This, as a critic remarks, was -an “indication of opulence and not of -poverty.” The author was feeling his -way. His later works bear no trace of -Hawthorne; they are marked by his own -fine spiritual sense. The plots are ingenious, -poetically conceived and worked -out with a deftness and subtlety that -charms the reader. There is an air of -fineness about them totally foreign to the -pyrotechnic displays of current American -fiction. The author is an acute observer, -one who looks below the surface, an ardent -student of psychology. His English is -scholarly, has color and dramatic force.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -His novels are free from immoral suggestions, -straining after effect, overdoing -the pathetic and incongruous padding, the -ordinary stock of our <i>fin de siècle</i> novelists. -The reading of them not only amuses, a -primary condition of all works of fiction, -but instructs and widens the reader’s -horizon on the side of the good and true. -In poetry Mr. Lathrop has attained his -greatest strength. Some of his war-poems -are full of fine feeling and manly vigor. -He is no carver of cherry-stones or singer -of inane sonnets and meaningless rondeaus, -but a poet who has something to -say; none of your humanity messages, -but songs that are human, songs that find -root in the human heart. Of his volumes -“Rose and Rooftree,” “Dreams and Days,” -a critic writes:</p> - -<p>“There are poems in tenderer vein -which appeal to many hearts, and others -wrought out of the joys and sorrows of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -the poet’s own life, which draw hearts to -him, as “May Rose” and the “Child’s -Wish Granted” and “The Flown Soul,” -the last two referring to his only son, -whose death in early childhood has been -the supreme grief of his life. The same -critic notes the exquisite purity and delicacy -of these poems, and that “in a day -when the delusion is unfortunately widespread -that these cannot co-exist with -poetic fervor and strength.”</p> - -<p>In March of 1891 Mr. Lathrop, after -weary years of aimless wandering in the -barren fields of sectarianism found, as -Newman and Brownson had found, that -peace which a warring world cannot give, -in the bosom of the Catholic Church. -Where Emerson halted, shackled by -Puritanism and its traditional prejudice -towards Catholicism, Lathrop, as Brownson, -in quest of new worlds of thought, -critically examined the old church and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -teachings, finding therein the truth that -makes men free. This step of Lathrop’s, -inexplicable to many of his friends, is -explained in his own way, in the manly -letter that concludes this sketch. Such a -letter must, by its truthfulness, have held -his friends. “May we not,” says Kegan -Paul, “carry with us loving and tender -memories of men from whom we learn -much, even while we differ and criticise?”</p> - -<p>“Humanly speaking, I entered into -Catholicity as a result of long thought -and meditation upon religion, continuing -through a number of years. But there -must have been a deeper force at work, -that of the Holy Spirit, by means of what -we call grace, for a longer time than I suspected. -Certainly I was not attracted by -‘the fascinations of Rome,’ that are so -glibly talked about, but which no one has -ever been able to define to me. Perhaps -those that use the phrase refer to the outward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -symbols of ritual, that are simply the -expressive adornment of the inner meaning—the -flower of it. I, at any rate, never -went to Mass but once with any comprehension -of it, before my conversion, and had -seldom even witnessed Catholic services -anywhere; although now, with knowledge -and experience, I recognize the Mass—which -even that arch, unorthodox author, -Thomas Carlyle, called ‘the only genuine -thing of our times’—as the greatest action -in the world. Many Catholics had been -known to me, of varying merit; and some -of them were valued friends. But none of -these ever urged or advised or even hinted -that I should come into the Church. The -best of them had (as large numbers of my -fellow-Catholics have to-day) that same -modesty and reverence toward the sacred -mysteries that caused the early Christians -also to be slow in leading catechumens—or -those not yet fully prepared for belief—into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -the great truths of faith. My observations -of life, however, increasingly convinced -me that a vital, central, unchanging -principle in religion was necessary, together -with one great association of Christians in -place of endless divisions—if the promise -made to men was to be fulfilled, or really -had been fulfilled. When I began to ask -questions, I found Catholics quite ready to -answer everything with entire straightforwardness, -gentle good-will, yet firmness. -Neither they nor the Church evaded anything. -They presented and defended the -teaching of Christ in its entirety, unexaggerated -and undiminished; the complete -faith, without haggling or qualification or -that queer, loose assent to every sort of -individual exception and denial that is -allowed in other organizations. I may -say here, too, that the Church, instead of -being narrow or pitiless toward those not -of her communion, as she is often mistakenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -said to be, is the most comprehensive -of all in her interpretation of -God’s mercy as well as of his justice. And, -instead of slighting the Bible, she uses it -more incessantly than any of the Protestant -bodies; at the same time shedding upon it -a clear, deep light that is the only one that -ever enabled me to see its full meaning and -coherence. The fact is, those outside of the -Church nowadays are engaged in talking -so noisily and at such a rate, on their own -hook, that they seldom pause to hear what -the Church really says, or to understand -what she is. Once convinced of the true -faith, intellectually and spiritually, I could -not let anything stand in the way of affirming -my loyalty to it.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="REV_BROTHER_AZARIAS" id="REV_BROTHER_AZARIAS">REV. BROTHER AZARIAS.</a></h2> - - -<p>It is delicious in this age of hurried -bookmaking, to run across a thinker. It -gives one the same kind of sensation that -comes to the sportsman, when a monarch -of the glen crosses his path. Bookmakers -are as many as leaves of the Adirondacks -after the hasty gallop of a mountain storm; -thinkers are scarce. When, then, amid -the leafy mass, one discovers the rare bird -hiding from vulgar gaze, an irresistible -desire to find his lurking place seizes the -observer. This lurking place may be old -to many; it was only the other day that I -discovered it,—when a friend placed in -my hands “Phases of Thought and -Criticism,” by Brother Azarias. This book, -the sale of which has been greater in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -England than on this side of the water, is -one of suggestive criticism—a criticism -founded on faith. The author holds with -another thinker, that “Religion is man’s -first and deepest concern. To be indifferent -is to be dull or depraved, and doubt is -disease.” Each chapter of his book expresses -a distinct social and intellectual -force. Each embodies a verifying ideal; -for, continues the author, “the criticism -that busies itself with the literary form is -superficial, for food it gives husks.”</p> - -<p>While the author will not concede that -mere literary form is the all in all that our -modern masters claim, yet he would not -be found in the ranks of M. de Bonniers, -who declares that an author need not -trouble himself about his grammar; let -him have original ideas and a certain style, -and the rest is of no consequence. The -author of “Phases of Thought,” believes -first in the possession of ideas, for without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -them an author is a sorry spectacle. He -also believes that an attractive style will -materially aid in the diffusion of these -ideas. Many good books fall still-born -from the press, for no other reasons than -their slovenly style. Readers now-a-days -will not plod along poor roads, when a -turnpike leads to the same destination. -The grammar marks the parting of ways. -Brother Azarias rightfully holds that good -grammar is an essential part of every -great writer’s style. Classics are so, by -correct grammar as well as by original -ideas. This easy dictum of the slipshod -writers—that if an idea takes you off your -feet you must not trouble yourself about -the grammar that wraps it, is but a specious -pleading for their ignorance of what -they pretend to despise.</p> - -<p>The great difference between this book -and the many on similar subjects is in the -manner of treatment. It starts from a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -solid basis; that basis the creed of the -Catholic Church. The superstructure of -lofty thought reared on this basis is in a -style at once pellucid and crisp. The -author is not only a thinker rare and -original; he is a scholar broad and masterly.</p> - -<p>Believing that his Church holds the keys -of the “kingdom come,” and as a consequence, -a key to all problems moral and -social that can move modern society, he -grapples with them, after the manner of a -knight of old, courteously but convincingly. -His teaching is that, outside the bosom -of the Catholic Church jostle the warring -elements of confusion and uncertainty. In -her fold can man find that rest, that sweet -peace promised by the Redeemer. Her -philosophy is the wisdom worth cherishing, -the curing balm that philosophers vainly -seek outside her pale. To the weary and -thought-stricken would this great writer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -bring his often and beautifully taught lesson, -that the things of this world are not the -puppets of chance, nor lots of the pantheistic -whole, but parts of a well-ordered -system, governed by a paternal being, -whom we, His children, address in that -touching prayer, “Father, who art in -Heaven.” From that Father came a Son, -not mere man, not only a great prophet, -not only a law-giver, but the true Son of -God, equal to the Father, from all eternity, -whose mission was, to teach all men that -would listen, the way that leads to light. -That this identical mission is, and will be -continued to the consummation of the ages -by the Catholic Church. That in the -truth of these things, all men, who lovingly -seek, will be confirmed, not that mere -intellect alone could be the harbinger of -such truths, for, as he has so well put -it:—“Human reason and human knowledge, -whether considered individually or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -collectively in the race are limited to the -natural. Knowledge of the supernatural -can come only from a Divine Teacher.”</p> - -<p>One may be convinced of every truth of -revealed religion, and yet not possess the -gift of faith. That gift is purely gratuitous. -If, however, the seeker humbly and -honestly desires the acquisition of these -truths, and knocks, the door of the chamber -of truth shall be opened unto him, for this -has the Saviour promised. That door once -opened, the Spirit of God breathes on the -seeker, it opens the eyes of the soul, it -reveals beyond all power of doubt or cavil, -or contradiction, the supernatural as a fact, -solemn, universal, constant throughout the -vicissitudes of the age. While the author -fashions these lofty truths on the anvil -of modern scholarship, the reader finds -himself, like the school children, in -Longfellow’s poem, looking in through -the artist’s open door full of admiration,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -fascinated by burning sparks. Pages have -been written about the ideal, defining it, in -verbiage fatiguing and elusive.</p> - -<p>It is a trick of pretended scholarship, to -hide thought with massive word-boulders. -What a difference in the process of this -rare scholar?</p> - -<p>A flying spark from his anvil lights up -the dullest intellect. It is a stimulus to -the weary brain, after wading through -essays as to what constitutes an ideal, to -have the gentle scholar, across the blazing -pine logs, on a winter’s night, say: “A -genius conceives and expresses a great -thought. The conception so expressed -delights. It enters men’s souls; it compels -their admiration. They applaud and are -rejoiced that another masterpiece has been -brought into existence to grace the world -of art and letters. The genius alone is -dissatisfied. Where others see perfection, -he perceives something unexpressed; beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -the reach of his art. Try as best he -may, he cannot attain that indefinable -something. Deep in his inner consciousness -he sees a type so grand and perfect -that his beautiful production appears to -him but a faint and marred copy of that -original. That original is the ideal; and -the ideal it is that appeals to the aesthetic -and calls forth men’s admiration.” What -a divining power has this student, in -plummeting the vagaries of modern culture!</p> - -<p>“Every school of philosophy has its disciples, -who repeat the sayings of their -masters with implicit confidence, without -ever stopping to question the principles -from which those sayings arise or the -results to which they lead.” These chattering -disciples will affect to sneer at the -Christian belief, while they lowly sit at -the feet of one of their mud gods singing -“thou art the infallible one.” They will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -not question their position simply because -“these systems are accepted not so much -for truth’s sake as because they are the -intellectual fashions of the day.” Such men -change their philosophy as quickly as a -Parisian dressmaker his styles. It may -yet be shown by some mighty Teuton -that vagaries in philosophy and dress are -closely allied, and that the synthetic philosophy -of Herbert Spencer is responsible -for the coming of crinoline. What a delightful -thrust at that school of criticism -that singles out an author or a book as -the very acme of perfection, seeing wisdom -in absurdities and truth in commonplace -fiction, is given in these lines: “Paint a -daub and call it a Turner, and forthwith -these critics will trace in it strokes of -genius.” With a twinkle in his eye he -asks, “Think you they understand the real -principles of art criticism?” You will be -easily able to answer that question when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -you have mastered this pithy definition -of true criticism, be it of literature or of -art, “that it is all-embracing.” It has -no antagonism to science so long as she -travels in her rightful domain. When -“science has her superstitions and her -romancings as unreal and shadowy as -those of the most ephemeral literature, -then it is the duty of criticism to administer -the medicine of truth and purge the -wayward jade of her humors.”</p> - -<p>To such a mind as that of the author -of “Phases of Thought,” with its thorough -knowledge of the art of criticism and its -perfect equipment, the separating of the -chaff from the meal of an author becomes -not only a pleasure but a duty. This is -best seen by a perusal of Chapter III, -dealing with Emerson and Newman as -types. With a few masterly strokes the -real Emerson, not the phantom or brain -figment of Burroughs and Woodberry and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -the long line of fad disciples, passes before -us. Not an inch is taken from his stature. -His intellectual beauties and defects, so -strongly drawn, but confirm the reader in -the truth of the portraiture. One catches -not only a glimpse of the man, but the -springs of his soul-struggles. Emerson -in his hungry quest for intellectual food, -ranged through the philosophies of the -east and west, purposely ignoring that of -the Catholic Church. This sin cost him -whole worlds of thought hidden from his -vision. Newman had the same hunger to -appease, but where Emerson turned away -Newman, ever in search for truth, kept -on, and found it in the Catholic Church. -The analysis of these two minds is done in -a masterly way. Azarias has no prejudices. -If he puts his fingers on defects -and descants on their nature and treatment, -he will, no less, point out beauties -and lovingly linger among them. He is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -knight in the cause of truth, and would -not herd with the carping critics. He will -tell you that Emerson’s mind was like an -Æolian harp. “It was awake to the most -delicate impressions, and at every breath -of thought it gave out a music all its own,” -and that the reading of him with understanding -“is a mental tonic bracing for -the cultured intellect as is Alpine air -for the mountaineer.” The pages of this -book teem with thought clothed in language -whose sparkling beauty is all the -author’s own. From such a book it is -difficult to select. Emerson has well said, -“No one can select the beautiful passages -of another for you. Do your own quarrying.” -I abide by this quotation, and should -ask every lover of the beautiful and true -to buy this fecund book.</p> - -<p>Patrick Francis Mullaney, better known -as Brother Azarias, was born in Killenaule -County, Tipperary, Ireland, June<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -29th, 1847. Like the majority of eminent -men that his country has given birth to, -he came of its noble peasantry. The old -tale was here enacted. The parents left -the land of their birth in search of a home -in our better land. This found, Azarias -joined them. At the age of fifteen he -joined the Christian Brothers. That great -Order gave free scope to his fine abilities. -In 1866 he was chosen professor of mathematics -and English literature at Rock Hill -College, Maryland. He continued in this -position for ten years. At the expiration -of his professorship he travelled a year -through Europe, collecting materials and -writing his “Development of Old English -Thought.” On his return he became president -of Rock Hill College, holding that -position until recalled to Paris by his -Superior in 1866. After an absence of -three years Brother Azarias returned to -the States as professor of English literature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -at the De La Salle Institute, New -York. This is not only an important position, -but it gives leisure, and that ready -access to the great libraries, so prized by -literary men.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a><br /><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="WOMEN" id="WOMEN">WOMEN.</a></h2> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a><br /><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - - - -<h2><a name="KATHERINE_ELEANOR_CONWAY" id="KATHERINE_ELEANOR_CONWAY">KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY.</a></h2> - - -<p>“Next room to that of Roche’s,” said -the dear O’Reilly, showing me his nest of -poets, “is a gentle poetess.”</p> - -<p>The door was wide open. It is a question -with my mind if the room ever -knew a door. Be this as it may, there -sat, with her chair close drawn to her -desk, a frail, delicate-looking woman. -The ordinary eye might see nothing in a -face that was winsome, if not handsome; -yet, let the dainty mouth curve in -speech, and at once a subtle attraction, -lit up by lustrous eyes, permeated the -face. One characteristic that made itself -felt, in the most sparse conversation with -this woman, was her humility, a rare -virtue among American literary women.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -I have known not a few among that -irritable class who, no sooner had they -sipped the most meagre draught of fame, -than they became intoxicated with their -own importance, and for the balance of -life wooed that meretricious goddess, Notoriety. -In fiery prose and tuneful song -they told of the dire misfortunes that -had been heaped upon their sex by that -obstinate vulgar biped, man. Their literature—for -that is the name given to -the crudest offspring of the press in -these days—is noisy, and, says a witty -writer, a noisy author is as bad as a -barrel organ,—a quiet one is as refreshing -as a long pause in a foolish sermon. -Clergymen, who have listened to a brother -divine on grace, will be the first to see -the point. Our authoress—(a female filled -with the vanity that troubled Solomon -says I should write female author)—is a -quiet and unobtrusive writer. Of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -tricks that catch and the ways that are -crooked in literature, she knows nothing, -and what is better, no amount of tawdry -fame could induce her to swerve a jot from -the hard stony road that leads to enduring -success, the only goal worth striving for -in the domain of letters. I am well aware -that in the popular list of women-writers -mouthed by the growing herd of flippant -readers that have no other use for a book -than as a time-killer,—a herd to whom -ideas are as unpalatable as disestablishment -to an English parson—you will fail -to find the name of Katherine Conway. -The reason is simple. She has no fads to -air in ungrammatical English, no fallacies -to adduce in halting metre. It was a -Boston critic who echoed the dictum of the -French critic—that grammar has no place -in the world of letters. Only have ideas, -that is, write meaningless platitudes, grandiose -nothings, something that neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -man, the angels above nor the demons -down under the sea, may decipher, and -this illusive verbiage will make you famous. -A school of critics will herald your work -with such adjectives as “noble, lofty, absorbing, -soul-inspiring;” nay, more, a -pious missionary friend may be found to -to translate the verbiage into Syriac, as a -present for converts. Borne on the tide of -such criticism, not a few women writers -have mistaken the plaudits of notoriety, -that passing show, for fame. It was a -saying of De Musset’s that fame was a -tardy plant, a lover of the soil. Be this -as it may, it is safe to assert that its coming -is not proclaimed by far-fetched similes, -frantic metaphors, sensuous images, ranting -style, ignorance of metre, want of grammar; -the dishes are not of the voluptuous, -morbid or the monstrous kind. Its thirst -is not slaked at sewers of dulness spiced -with immorality. These symptoms savor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -of one disease known to all pathologists as -notoriety. In an age of this dreaded -disease it is surely refreshing to meet with -works that breathe gentleness and repose,—a -beautiful trust in religion, and a warm, -natural heart for humanity. These traits -will the reader find in abundance in the -pages of Katherine Conway. “What kills -a poet,” says Aldrich, “is self-conceit.” Of -all the forms self-conceit may assume none -is more foolish or detrimental, especially -to a woman-poet, than the pluming of -oneself as the harbinger of some renovating -gospel, some panacea for human infirmities. -What is the burden of your -message? says the critic to the young poet. -Straightway the poet evolves a message, -and as messages of this kind ought to be -mysterious, the poet wraps them in a jargon -as unintelligible as Garner’s monkey -dialect. Thus in America has risen a -school of woman poetry, deluded by false<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -criticism, calling itself a message to humanity, -dubbed rightly the school of -passion, and one might add, of pain. This -school may ask, “Am I to be debarred -from treating of the passions on the score -of sex.” By no means; the passions are -legitimate subjects. Love, one of them, is -your most attractive theme, but as Lilly -has it, love is not to you what it is to the -physiologist, a mere animal impulse which -man has in common with moths and -molluscs. Your task is to extract from -human life, even in its commonest aspects, -its most vulgar realities, what it contains of -secret beauty; to lift it the level of art, not -to degrade art to its level. Few American -writers more fully realized these great -artistic truths than the master under -whose fatherly tuition Miss Conway had -long been placed. Boyle O’Reilly was a -Grecian in his love for nature. As such it -was his aim to seek the beautiful in its commonest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -aspects, its most vulgar realities. -No amount of claptrap or fine writing -could make him mistake a daub for a -Turner. In the bottom of his soul he -detested the little bardlings who had -passed nature by, without knowing her, -who wove into the warp and woof of -their dulness the putridity of Zola and -morbidity of Marie Bashkirtseff. Under -such a guide, the poetic ideal set before -Miss Conway has been of the highest, -and the highest is only worth working -for. This ideal must be held unswervingly, -even if one sees that books that -are originally vicious are “placarded -in the booksellers’ windows; sold on the -street corners; hawked through the railroad -trains; yea, given away, with packages -of tea or toilet soap, in place of the -chromo, mercifully put on the superannuated -list.” These books are but foam -upon the current of time, flecking its surface<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -for a moment, and passing away into -oblivion, while what Miss Conway happily -calls the literature of moral loveliness, or -what might as aptly be called the literature -of all time, remains our contribution -to posterity. Its foundations, to follow the -thought of Azarias, are deeply laid in -human nature, and its structure withstands -the storms of adversity and the eddies of -events. For such a literature O’Reilly -made a life struggle; his pupil has closely -followed his footsteps in the charming, -simple, melodious volume that lies before -me, “A Dream of Lilies.” Rarely has a -Catholic book had a more artistic setting, -and one might add, rarely has a volume of -Catholic verse deserved it more. Here the -poetess touches her highest point, and -proves that years of silence have been -years of study and conscientious workmanship. -In her poem “Success” may be -found the key to this volume;</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Ah! know what true success is; young hearts dream,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dream nobly and plan loftily, nor deem</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That length of years is length of living. See</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">A whole life’s labor in an hour is done;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Not by world-tests the heavenly crown is won,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To God the man is what he means to be.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“Dream nobly and plan loftily” has -been the guiding spirit of this volume. -It is a book of religious verse in the true -sense, not in the general acceptance of -modern religious verse, which is generally -dull twaddle, egotism, mawkishness, -blind gropings and haunting fears. The -gentle spirit of Christ breathes through -it, making an atmosphere of peace and -repose. There is no bigotry to jar, no -narrowness to chafe us, but the broad -upland of Christian charity and truth. -Nor has our author forgotten that even -truth if cast in awkward mould may -be passed over. To her poems she has -given a dainty setting without sacrificing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -a jot of their strength. After reading -such a book a judicious bit of Miss Conway’s -prose comes to my mind. “And as -that Catholic light, the only true vision, -brightens about us, we realize more and -more that literary genius, take it all and -all, has done more to attract men to good -than to seduce men to evil; that the best -literature is also the most fascinating, and -even by its very abundance is more than -a match for the bad; that time is its best -ally; that it is hard, if not impossible, -to corrupt the once formed pure literary -taste; and, finally, that as makers of literature -or critics or disseminators of it, it is -our duty to believe in the best, hope in the -best, and steadfastly appeal to the best in -human nature; for we needs must love the -highest when we see it.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Eleanor Conway was born of -Irish parents, in Rochester, on the 6th of -Sept., 1853. Her early studies were made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -in the convent schools of her native city. -From an early age she had whisperings of -the muse. These whisperings at the age of -fifteen convinced her that her true sphere -of action was literature. In 1875 she -commenced the publication of a modest -little Catholic monthly, contributing poems -and moral tales, under the <i>nom-de-plume</i> of -“Mercedes,” to other Catholic journals, in -the spare hours left from editing her little -venture and teaching in the convent. In -1878 she became attached to the Buffalo -<i>Union and Times</i>. To this journal she contributed -the most of the poems to be found -in her maiden volume,—“On the Sunrise -Slope,”—a volume whose rich promise has -been amply fulfilled in the “Dream of -Lilies.” Her health failing, she sought a -needful rest in Boston. Her fame had -preceded her, and the gifted editor of the -<i>Pilot</i>, ever on the lookout for a hopeful -literary aspirant of his race, held out a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -willing hand to the shy stranger. “Come -to us,” he said, in a voice that knew no -guile, “and help us in the good fight.” -That fight—the crowning glory of O’Reilly’s -noble life—was to gain an adequate position -for his race and religion from the puritanism -of New England. How that race and -religion were held before his coming, may -be best told in the language of Miss -Conway, taken from a heart-sketch of her -dead master and minstrel:—</p> - -<p>“Notwithstanding Matignon and Cheverus, -and the Protestant Governor Sullivan, -Catholic and Irish were, from the outset, -simply interchangeable terms—and terms of -odium both—in the popular New England -mind; in vain the bond of a common language, -in vain the Irishman’s prompt and -affectionate acceptance of the duties of -American citizenship. To but slight softening -of prejudice even his sacrifice of blood -and life on every battle-field in the Civil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -War, in proof of the sincerity of his political -profession of faith. He and his were -still hounded as a class inferior and apart. -They were almost unknown in the social -and literary life of New England. Their -pathetic sacrifices for their kin beyond the -sea, their interest in the political fortunes -of the old land, were jests and by-words. -Their religion was the superstition of the -ignorant, vulgar and pusillanimous; or, at -best, motive for jealous suspicion of divided -political allegiance and threatened “foreign” -domination. Their children suffered -petty persecutions in the public schools. -The stage and the press faithfully reflected -the ruling popular sentiment in their caricatures -of the Catholic Irishman.”</p> - -<p>She accepted O’Reilly’s call and stood -by his side with Roche, Guiney, Blake, -until the hard fought battle against the -prejudice to Irishism and Catholicism, -planted in New England by the bigoted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -literature of Old England, was abated, if -not destroyed; until its shadows, if cast -now, are cast by the lower rather than -the higher orders in the world of intellect -and refinement. “And the shortening of -the shadow is proof that the sun is rising,” -proof that her work has been far from -vain. And when from the grey dawn of -prejudice will come forth the white morrow -of charity and truth, the singer and her -songs will not be forgotten.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<h2><a name="LOUISE_IMOGEN_GUINEY" id="LOUISE_IMOGEN_GUINEY">LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.</a></h2> - - -<p>In speaking with the author of a “Dream -of Lilies,” I casually mentioned the name -of another Boston poetess, “one of the <i>Pilot</i> -poets,” as the gifted Carpenter was wont to -speak of those whose genius was nursed by -Boyle O’Reilly. For a few years previous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -to my coming, little waif poems, suggestive -of talent and refinement, had seen light -in the columns of that brilliant journal. -They had about them that something which -makes the reader hazard a bet that the -youngster when fully fledged would some -day leave the lowlands of minor minstrelsy -for a height on Parnassus. From this -singer Miss Conway had that morning -received a notelet. It was none of the -ordinary kind, a little anarchistic, if one -might judge from the awkward pen-sketch -of a hideous grinning skeleton-skull held -by cross-bones which served as an illustration -to the bantering text that followed, in -a rather cramped girlish hand. The notelet -was signed Louise Imogen Guiney.</p> - -<p>“Are you not afraid, Miss Conway,” said -I, “to receive such warning notes?” “It -is from the best girl in America,” was the -frank reply; “read it.” A perusal of the few -dashing lines was enough, and my generous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -host, reading my eyes, gave me the -coveted notelet. That notelet begot an -interest in the writer; an interest fully -repaid by the strong, careful work put -forth under her name. Louise Imogen -Guiney, poet, essayist, dramatist, was born -in Boston, that city of “sweetness and -light,” in January, 1862. Her parents -were Irish. Her father, Patrick Guiney, -came from the hamlet of Parkstown, -County Tipperary, at an early age. He -was a man of the most blameless and -noble character. During the civil war, -as Col. Guiney of the Irish Ninth Massachusetts -Volunteers, his heroism on behalf -of his adopted country won him the grateful -admiration of all lovers of freedom. -This admiration at the close of the war -was substantially shown by his election as -Judge of Probate. Constant suffering from -an old wound, received at the battle of the -Wilderness, gave the old soldier but few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -years to enjoy honors from his fellow-citizens. -His death was mourned by all who -loved virtue and honor. Of him a Boston -poet sang:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Large heart and brave! Tried soul and true!</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">How thickly in thy life’s short span,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">All strong sweet virtues throve and grew,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">As friend, as hero, and as man.</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Unmoved by thought of blame or praise,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Unbought by gifts of power and pride,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thy feet still trod Time’s devious ways</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">With Duty as thy law and guide.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Good blood, you will say, from whence -our poet came, and blood counts even in -poetry. I have no anecdotes to relate of -Miss Guiney’s early years. I am not -sure that there were any. Anecdotes are -usually manufactured in later life, if the -subject happens to become famous. Her -education was carefully planned, and intelligently -carried out. She was not held -in the dull routine of the school-room, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -was allowed to emancipate herself in the -works of the poets. What joy must have -been her’s, scampering home after the -study of <i>de omni scibili</i>, the ordinary curriculum -of any American school, to a quiet -nook and the dream of her poets. Amid -these dreams came the siren whisperings -of the muse, telling her of the poet within -struggling for life and expression. These -struggles begot a tiny little volume happily -named “Songs at the Start.” The great -American reviewer, who, ordinarily,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Bolts every book that comes out of the press,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Without the least question of larger or less,”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="unindent">on this occasion, by some untoward event, -stumbled on a truth when he informed us, -with the air of one who rarely touches -earth, that the book bore signs of promise. -The people, by all means a better critic, -were more apt in their judgment of the -young singer. A few years later they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -asked her to write the memorial poem for -the services in commemoration of General -Grant. Thus honored by her native city, -in an easy way she was led to climb the -ladder of fame. In 1885 appeared her first -volume of essays, “Goose Quill Papers;” -in 1887 a volume of poems bearing the -fanciful name of “White-Sail;” in 1888 a -pretty book for children; in 1892 “Monsieur -Henri, a Foot-note to French History.” -It us something to be noted in -regard to a “Foot-note to French history,” -that the novelist Stevenson, in his far-off -home in Samoa, was publishing at the -same time a work which bore a decided -likeness to her title. Stevenson’s book was -published as “A Foot-Note to History.” -In 1893 appeared her latest volume of -verse, being a selection of poems previously -published in American magazines. This -selection (the poet has a genuine knack -for tacking taking names to her volumes)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -is quaintly named “A Wayside Harp,” -and dedicated to a brace of Irish poets, the -Sigerson sisters. The graceful dedication -as well as many of its strongest and most -artistic poems, were the outcome of a trip -to Great Britain and Ireland. The author -travelled with open eyes, and brought back -many a dainty picture of the scenes she -had so lovingly witnessed. This volume -fulfils the early promise, and what is more, -gives indubitable signs that the poet possesses -a reserve force. Not a few women -poets write themselves out in their first -volume. Not so with Miss Guiney, every -additional volume shows greater strength -and more complete mastery of technique. -After the surfeit of twaddle passing current -as poetry, such a book as “A Wayside -Harp” should find a waiting audience, -Miss Guiney has the essentials of a poet, -which I take to be color, music, perfume -and passion. In their use she is an artist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -In her first book an excess of these everywhere -prevailed; it was from this excess, -however, that the prudent critic would -have hazarded a doubt as to her fitness -to join the company of the bards. Since -then she has been an ardent student. -This study has not only taught her limitations, -a thing that saves so much after -pruning, but that other lesson, forgotten -by so many bardlets, that the greatest -poetic effects are the result of the masterful -mixing of a few simple colors. It is -well that she has learned these lessons at -the outset of her career. Let not the fads -and fancies of this <i>fin de siècle</i> and the -senseless worship of those poetasters who -scorn sense while they hug sound lead her -from the true road of song. No amount of -meaningless words airily strung together, -no amount of gymnastic rhyming feats can -produce a poet. They are the badges of -those wondrous little dunces that pass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -nature with a frown, alleging in the language -of the witty Bangs that “Nature -is not art.” Guiney’s friend and faithful -mentor, O’Reilly, had taught her to abhor -all those who spent their waking hours -chiselling cherry stones. To him it was a -poet’s duty to aim high, attune his lyre, -not to the petty, but the manly and hopeful; -never to debase the lyre by an utterance -of selfishness, but to consecrate it -with the strains of liberty and humanity. -If Guiney follows the teachings of her -early friend—teachings which are substantially -sound, she will yet produce poems -that the world will not willingly let die. -That Rosetti fad of hiding a mystic meaning -in a poem, now occupying the brains -of our teeming songsters, is now and then -to be met with in our poet. It is a trade-trick. -Poetry is sense—common-sense at -that, and you cannot rim common-sense -things with mystical hues. Abjuring these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -trade-tricks, and shaking off the trammels -of her curious and extensive reading and -evolving from herself solely, she has, says -Douglas Sladen, a great promise before -her. As an instance of this promise let us -quote that fine poem, “The Wild Ride,” -which is full of genuine inspiration, and -which may be the means of introducing to -some the most thoroughly gifted Catholic -woman writer of our country.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">The Wild Ride.</span></div> -<div class="verse">I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,</div> -<div class="verse">All day, the commotion of sinewy mane-tossing horses;</div> -<div class="verse">All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing,</div> -<div class="verse">Cowards and laggards fall back but alert to the saddle,</div> -<div class="verse">Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn galloping legion,</div> -<div class="verse">With a stirrup cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.</div> -<div class="verse"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>The road is thro’ dolour and dread, over crags and morasses!</div> -<div class="verse">There are shapes by the way, there are things that appall or entice us!</div> -<div class="verse">What odds! We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding!</div> -<div class="verse">I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,</div> -<div class="verse">All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;</div> -<div class="verse">All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing,</div> -<div class="verse">We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm wind;</div> -<div class="verse">We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil,</div> -<div class="verse">Thou leadest! O God! All’s well with thy troopers that follow.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>It was only natural that the daughter of -an Irish patriot should sing of her father’s -land, and that in a style racy of that land. -It was a hazardous experiment, as many -an Irish American singer has learned in -sorrow. That Miss Guiney has come out -of the trying ordeal successfully, may be -seen in the following little snatch, full of -the aroma of green Erin:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">An Irish Peasant Song.</span></div> -<div class="verse">I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while;</div> -<div class="verse">Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile;</div> -<div class="verse">Yet when I walk alone, and think of naught at all,</div> -<div class="verse">Why from me that’s young should the wild tears fall?</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,</div> -<div class="verse">They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams;</div> -<div class="verse">And yonder ivy fondling the broken castle wall,</div> -<div class="verse">It pulls my heart, till the wild tears fall.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill,</div> -<div class="verse">And far as Leighlin cross the fields are green and still;</div> -<div class="verse">But once I hear a blackbird in Leighlin hedges call,</div> -<div class="verse">The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Miss Guiney possesses a charming personality. -Her manner is “unaffected, girlish -and modest.” There is about her none -of the curtness and prudishness of the -blue-stocking. Success has not turned her -head, literary homage has not made her -forget that they who will build for time -must need work long and patiently, using -only the best material. By so doing may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -it be written of her work, as she has -written of Brother Bartholomew’s:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Wonderful verses! fair and fine,</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Rich in the old Greek loveliness;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The seer-like vision, half divine;</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pathos and merriment in excess,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And every perfect stanza told,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of love and of labor manifold.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - - -<h2><a name="MRS_BLAKE" id="MRS_BLAKE">MRS. BLAKE.</a></h2> - - -<p>Boston is a charming city. It is the -whim of the passing hour to sneer at the -modest dame. Henry James has done so. -Is not the author of “Daisy Miller” and -other interminable novels a correct person -to follow? The disciples of the Mutual Admiration -Society in American Letters will -vociferously answer “yes.” Old-fashioned -people may have another way. Scattered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -here and there possibly a few there are -who hold that Hawthorne was a better -novelist than Howells is, that Holmes’ -poetry is as good as Boyesen’s, and that -Emerson’s criticisms are more illuminative -than James’. Be this as it may, Boston is -a charming place to all those who had the -good fortune to have been welcomed by its -warm-hearted citizen, Boyle O’Reilly. To -those who knew his struggles, and the -earnest striving, until his weary spirit -sought its final home, for Catholic literature -in its true sense, the charm but increases.</p> - -<p>It was owing to his kindness that I -found myself one blustery, raw day, ringing -the door-bell of an ordinary well to-do -brick house. Houses now and then carry -on their fronts an inkling of their occupants. -A door was opened, my card handed -to a feminine hand; the aperture was not -as yet wide enough to catch a glimpse of -the face. The card was a power. “Come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -in,” said a woman’s voice, and the door -was wide open. I followed the guide, and -was soon in a plain, well furnished room, -in presence of a motherly-looking woman. -She was knitting; at least that is part of -my memory’s picture. Near her hung a -mocking-bird, whose notes now and then -were peculiarly sad. Despite the graceful -lines of the Cavalier Lovelace, iron bars -do a prison make for bird and man. And -the songs sung behind these bars are but -bits of the crushed-out life. I was welcomed, -and during busy years have held -the remembrance of that visit with its -hour of desultory chat and a mocking-bird’s -broken song. The motherly-looking -woman, with her strong Celtic face -freshly furrowed by sorrow in the loss of -beloved children, was a charming talker -and a good listener, things rarely found -in your gentle or fiery poetess. She had -just published, under the initials M. A. B.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -a volume of children’s verse, and, as is -natural with an author who had finished -a piece of work, was full of it. The pretense -of some authors that they are bored -to speak of their own books is a sly suggestion -to praise them for their humility. -Mrs. Blake—for that is the motherly-looking -woman’s name—spoke of her work -without any hiccoughing gush or false -modesty. Her eyes lit up, and the observer -read in them honesty. She was -deeply interested, as all thinking women -must be, in the solution of the social -problems that have arisen in our times, -and will not be downed at the biddance of -capitalist or demagogue. With her clear-cut -intellect she was able to grasp a salient -point, purposely hidden by the swarm of -curists with their panacea remedies, that -these problems must be solved in the light -of religion. Man must return to Christ, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -the “cautious, statistical Christ” paraded -in the social show, not</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">“The meteor blaze</span></div> -<div class="verse">That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind,</div> -<div class="verse">More dark and helpless far, than if it ne’er had shined,”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="unindent">but the Christ of the Gospels, the Bringer -of peace and good-will—the Bearer of -burdens, the soul-guider—Christ, loving -and acting, as found in the Catholic Church. -Hecker had begun the preface of his wonderful -book with a truth, “The age is out -of joint.” Problems to be solved, and -lying around them millions of broken -hearts. “The age is out of joint.” Who -will bring the light and rightify the age? -Mrs. Blake has but one answer. Bring -the employers and the employed nearer -the Christ of the Catholic Church. This -was O’Reilly’s often expressed and worked-for -idea. It is the key-note of much of his -poetry. It is the germ of his “Bohemia.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -It was impossible to live, as Mrs. Blake -did, on the most friendly terms with such a -man and not be smitten with his life-thought. -In not a few published social -papers Mrs. Blake has thrown out valuable -and suggestive hints as to the best means -of bringing the weary world under the -sweet sway of religion. Her voice, it is -true, is but one voice in the social wilderness, -but individual efforts must not -be thwarted, for is not a fresh period -opening in which the individuality, the -personality, of souls acting under the -direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, will -take up all that is good in modern ideas, -and the cords of our tent be strengthened -and its stakes enlarged? “What we have -to dread is neither ‘historical rancor’ nor -‘philosophical atheism,’” “nor the instinct -of personal freedom.” It is, in the -words of Dr. Barry, that we should set -little store by that “freedom wherewith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -Christ has made us free,” and that being -born into a church where we may have the -grandest spiritual ideas for the asking, we -should fold our hands in slumber and -be found, at length, “disobedient to the -heavenly vision.” Against such perils -Hecker, the noblest life as yet in our -American church, made a life-fight. On -his side was Boyle O’Reilly, Roche, Mrs. -Blake, Katherine Conway and Louise -Guiney. Nor pass such lives in vain.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Blake was born in Dungarvan, Co. -Waterford, Ireland. In childhood she was -brought to Massachusetts. In 1865 she -was married to Dr. J. G. Blake, a leading -physician of Boston. She has made that -city her home, and is highly esteemed -in its literary and social circles. Among -her published books may be mentioned -“Poems,” Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882, -dedicated to her husband; “On The Wing,” -a pretty volume of Californian sketches;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -“Rambling Talk,” a series of papers contributed -to the Boston journals.</p> - -<p>Her sketches are the agreeable jottings of -a highly cultivated woman; seeing nature -in the light of poetry rather than science, -she has made a series of charming pictures -out of her wanderings. They are -not free from sentiment,—illusions if you -will, but that is their greatest charm. -“The world of reality is a poor affair.” -So many books of travel are annually -appearing,—books that have no excuse for -being other than to prove how widespread -dulness and incapacity is, that a trip with -a guide like Mrs. Blake has but one failing,—its -shortness. Neither in her travels -nor in her literary articles does Mrs. Blake -body forth her best prose utterance. These -must be found in her earnest social papers, -where her woman’s heart, saddened by the -miseries of its fellows, pours out its streams -of consolation and preaches (all earnest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -souls must be preachers now-a-days) the -only and all sufficient cure—the Church.</p> - -<p>An extract from one of these papers will -best show her power. She is portraying -the Church manifesting itself in the individual -as well as the family life, pleading -for the central idea of her system. “Jesus -Christ is the complement of man,”—the -restorer of the race. The Catholic Church -is the manifestation of Jesus Christ.</p> - -<p>“There are, alas! too many weaknesses -into which thoughtlessness and opportunity -lead one class as well as the other. But -still there is to be seen almost without -exception, among practical Catholics, young -wives, content and happy, welcoming from -the very outset of married life the blessed -company of the little ones who are to -guard them as do their angels in heaven; -proud like Cornelia of their jewels; gladly -accepting comparative poverty and endless -care; while their sisters outside the Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -buy the right to idleness and personal -adorning at the expense of the childless -homes which are a disgrace and menace -to the nation. There is the honor and -purity of the fireside respected; the overpowering -sweetness and strength of family -ties acknowledged; the reverential love -that awaits upon the father and mother -shown. There are sensitive and refined -women bearing sorrow with resignation and -hardship without rebellion; combating pain -with patience and fulfilling harsh duty -without complaint. In a tremendous over-proportion -to those who attempt to live -outside its helpfulness, and in exact ratio -to their practical devotion to the observances -of the Church, they find power of -resisting temptation in spite of poverty, -and overcoming impulse by principle. Can -the world afford to ignore an agency by -which so much is accomplished?</p> - -<p>“So much for the practical side, which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -the moral that particularly needs pointing -at this moment. Of the spiritual amplitude -and sustaining which the Church -gives there is little need to speak. Only -a woman can know what Faith means in -the existence of women. The uplift which -she needs in moments of great trial; the -sustaining power to bear the constant -harassment of petty worries; the outlet -for emotions which otherwise choke the -springs, the tonic of prayer and belief; -the assurance of a force sufficiently divine -and eternal to satisfy the cravings of -human longing—what but this is to make -life worth living for her? And where -else, in these days of scepticism, is she to -find such immortal dower? It is a commentary -upon worldly wisdom, that it has -attempted to ignore this necessity, and left -woman under the increased pressure of -her new obligations, to rely solely upon -such frail reeds as human respect and conventional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -morality. She needs the inspiration -of profound conviction and practical -piety a hundredfold more than ever before. -The woman of the old time, secluded within -the limits of the household, surrounded by -the material safeguard of custom, might -lead an untroubled existence even if devotion -and faith were not vital principles -with her. The woman of to-day, harassed, -beset, tempted, driven by necessity, drawn -this way and that by bad advice and worse -example, is attempting a hopeless task -when she tries the same experiment.”</p> - -<p>The poetry of Mrs. Blake is rational -and wholesome. She knows her gifts and -is content to use them at their best, giving -us songs in a minor key, that if they add -little to human thought, yet make the -world better from their coming. In the -poems of childhood she is particularly -happy. She knows children, their joys -and sorrows, has caught their ways. Her’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -is a heart that has danced in the joy of -motherhood and been stricken when the -“dead do not waken.” She is our only -intelligent writer of children’s poems. -The assertion may be controverted. A -hundred Catholic poets for children may -be cited writers “of genius profound,” of -“exquisite fancy,” “whose works should -grace every parish library.” I quote a -stereotyped criticism, a constant expression -with Catholic reviewers. I laugh, in -my hermitage, and blandly suggest, to all -whom it may concern, that insanity in -jingles is not relished by sane children. -I speak from experience, having perpetrated -a selection from the one hundred -on a class of bright boys and girls. Peaceful -sleep, and, let us hope, pleasant dreams, -came to their aid. Shall I ever, Comus, -forget their faces in the transition moment -from dulness to delight? Let us cease -cant and rapturous criticism. Catholic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -literature, to survive the time that gave -it birth, must be built on other foundations. -Hasty and unconscious productions -must be branded as such. We must have, -as the French so well put it, a horror of -“pacotille” and “camelotte.” “If my -works are good,” said the sculptor Rude, -“they will endure; if not, all the laudation -in the world would not save them -from oblivion.” The same may well be -written of Catholic literature. Whether -for children or grown-up men or women, -as a Catholic critic, whose only aim has -been to gain an audience for my fellow -Catholic writers whose works can bear a -favorable comparison with the best contemporary -thought, I ask that the best -shall be given, and that given, it shall be -joyfully received; that trash shall not fill -the book-cases, lie on the parlor-tables, be -puffed in our weeklies, and genius and -sacrifice be forgotten. I ask that the works<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -of Stoddard, Johnston, Egan, Roche, Azarias, -Lathrop, Tabb, Miss Repplier, Guiney, -Katherine Conway, Mrs. Blake, find a -welcome in each Catholic household, and -that the Catholic press make their delightful -personalities known to our rising generation. -Of their best they have given. Shall -they die before we acknowledge it?</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<h2><a name="AGNES_REPPLIER" id="AGNES_REPPLIER">AGNES REPPLIER.</a></h2> - - -<p>A friend of mine, a dweller in the city, -a lover of red bricks, one to whom the -sound of the dray-cart merrily grinding -on the pavement is sweeter music than a -burst of woodland song, has tardily conceded -that the Adirondacks, on a summer -day, is pleasant. I value his testimony -and record it with pleasure. Let us be -thankful for small favors when cynics are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -the donors. For me these woods, lakes -and crystal streams hold an indescribable -charm. They are the true abode of man. -Here is liberty, while the city is but a cage, -with its thousands uttering the plaintive -cry of Sterne’s prisoned starling, “I cannot -get out.” For the hum of wheels we have -the songs of birds, the music of waterfalls, -the purr of mountain brooks and the -harmonies of the winds playing through -the thousand different species of trees, each -one differing in melody, but combining -in one grand symphony. Orchestras are -muffled music when compared to nature’s -lute. The pipes of Pan is but a poet’s -struggle to embody in speech such a -symphony. For the city’s smells, that not -even a Ruskin could paint, albeit they are -far from elusive, we have the mountain air -that has dallied with the streams and stolen -the fragrance of a thousand clover fields. -Every man to his taste. There is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -disputing of this. Lamb loved bricks and -Wordsworth such scenes as ours; yet, -Lamb would be as sadly missed from our -libraries as Wordsworth. Swing my hammock -in the shade of yonder pines, good -Patsy. A robin is piping his sweetest -notes to his brooding spouse, the Salmon -river runs at my feet, biting the sandy -shore, laughing loud when a saucy stone -falls in its current. From over the hills -comes the scent of new-mown hay; bless -me! this is pleasant. To add to this enjoyment -you have brought a book—something -bright, you tell me. I’ll soon see. And -gliding into my hammock, I said my first -good morning to Agnes Repplier. It was -a breezy good morning, one of those where -the hand unconsciously goes out as much as -to say: Old fellow, you don’t know how glad -I am to see you. There was no friend with -a white cravat standing on the first page to -introduce us, and tell us that the authoress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -bore in her book a fecund message to -struggling humanity, and that the major -part of that same humanity could not see -it; hence it was his duty to stand at the -portal and solve the riddle. There was no -begging for recognition on the score of -ancestors, fads or isms. I am Agnes -Repplier, said the book; how do you like -me? A few pages perused, and my own -voice amusingly fell on my ears, saying -first class. Here was a woman who thought—not -the trivial thought that nauseates in -the books of so many literary women—but -virile aggressive thought, that provokes, -contradicts, and, like Hamlet’s ghost, will -not be downed. This thought is folded in -a garment, whose many hues quicken the -curiosity and make her pages a continual -feast of wit, droll irony, and illuminative -criticism all curiously and harmoniously -blended. Her pages are rich in suggestion, -apt in quotation. You are constantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -aroused, put on your guard, laughingly -disarmed, and that in a way that Lamb -would have loved. She has no awe in the -presence of literary gods. Lightly she -trips up to them with her poniard, shows -by a pass that they are made of mud, and -that the aureole that encircles them is but -the work of your crude imagination. Clearing -away your shreds and patches she puts -the author in a plain suit before you, and, -how you wonder, that with all your boasted -knowledge you have called for years a -jackdaw a peacock!</p> - -<p>How delightful to watch this critic -armed <i>cap-a-pie</i>, demolishing some fad, that -has masqueraded for years as genuine -literature. Is it little Lord Fauntleroy, a -character sloppy, inane, impossible to real -life, yet hugged to the heart by the -commonplace. Miss Repplier keenly surveys -her ground, as an artist would the -statue of his rival, notes the foibles, cant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -false poses, and crazy-quilt jargon used -to deck pet characters. Experience has -taught her that you cannot combat seriously -the commonplace. “The statesman or the -poet,” says Dudley Warner, “who launches -out unmindful of this, will be likely to -come to grief in his generation.” Sly -humor, pungent sarcasm, are the weapons -effectively used. The little Lord is unrobed, -and the life that seemed so full of -charity and virtue, becomes but a mixture -of hypocrisy and snobbery. Yet, if some -of our critics could, “all the dear old -nursery favorites must be banished from -our midst, and the rising generation of -prigs must be nourished exclusively on -Little Lord Fauntleroy, and other carefully -selected specimens of milk and water diet.” -The dear land of romance, in its most -charming phase, that phase represented by -Red Riding Hood, Ali Baba, Blue Beard, -and the other heroes of our nurseryhood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -must be eliminated, for children are no -longer children, in the old sense of believing -“in such stuff” without questioning. -American children, at any rate, are too -sensitively organized to endure the unredeemed -ferocity of the old fairy stories, we -are told, and it is added, “no mother -nowadays tells them in their unmitigated -brutality.” These are the empty sayings -of the realists, who would have every -child break its dolls to analyze the sawdust. -The most casual observer of American -homes knows that our children will not be -fed on such stuff as realists are able to -give, but will turn wistfully back to those -brave old tales which are their inheritance -from a splendid past, and of which no -hand shall rob them. As Miss Repplier -so well puts it, “we could not banish Blue -Beard if we would. He is as immortal as -Hamlet, and when hundreds of years shall -have passed over this uncomfortably enlightened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -world, the children of the future—who, -thank Heaven, can never, with all -our efforts, be born grown-up—will still -tremble at the blood-stained key, and rejoice -when the big brave brothers come -galloping up the road.” Ferocity, brutality, -if you will, may couch on every page, -but this is much better than the sugared -nothingness of Sunday school tales, and -beats all hollow, as the expression goes, -the many tricks perpetrated on children by -the school of analytical fiction. Children -will read Blue Beard, and thank Heaven, -as grown-up men, for such a childish -pleasure, adding a prayer for her who -wrote the “Battle of the Babies.” Bunner -and others have accused Miss Repplier of -ignoring contemporary works, of rudely -closing in their face her library door and -saying he who enters here must have -outgrown his swaddling clothes, must have -rounded out his good half-century. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -may be one of Bunner’s skits. Even if it -were not, there is more than one precedent -to follow. Hazlitt, in his delightful chat -on the “Reading of Old Books,” begins -his essay, “I hate to read new books.” -This author has the courage of his convictions; -you do not grope in the dark to -know why. Here is the reason, and it is -easier to assent to it than to deny it. -“Contemporary writers may generally be -divided into two classes—one’s friends or -one’s foes. Of the first we are compelled -to think too well, and of the last we are -disposed to think too ill, to receive much -genuine pleasure from the perusal, or to -judge fairly of the merits of either. One -candidate for literary fame, who happens -to be of our acquaintance writes finely, and -like a man of genius; but unfortunately -has a foolish fad, which spoils a delicate -passage;—another inspires us with the -highest respect for his personal talents and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -character, but does not come quite up to -our expectation in print.” All these contradictions -and petty details interrupt the -calm current of our reflections. These are -sound reasons; as if to clinch them he -adds, “but the dust, smoke, and noise of -modern literature have nothing in common -with the pure, silent air of immortality.”</p> - -<p>Miss Repplier, an admirer of Hazlitt, -and if one may hazard a guess, her master -in style, would not go so far. She believes -in keeping up with a decent portion of -current literature, and “this means perpetual -labor and speed,” whereas idleness -and leisure are requisite for the true enjoyment -of books. To read all the frothings -of the press for the sake of being called a -contemporary critic were madness. She -concurs with another critic that reading is -not a duty, and that no man is under any -obligation to read what another man wrote. -When Miss Repplier stumbles across an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -unknown volume, picking it up dubiously, -and finds in it an hour of placid but -genuine enjoyment, although it is a modern -book, wanting in sanctifying dust, she will -use all her art to make in other hearts a -loving welcome for the little stranger. “A -By-Way in Fiction” tells in her own way, -of a recent book born of Italian soil and -sunshine, “The Chevalier of Pensieri -Vani.” It is the essayist’s right to read -those books, ancient or modern, that are to -her taste, and it is a bit of impertinence in -any writer to particularly recommend to -Miss Repplier a list of books, which she is -naturally indisposed to consider with much -kindness, thrust upon her as they are, like -paregoric or porous plaster. “If there be -people who can take their pleasures medicinally, -let them read by prescription and -grow fat.” Our authoress can do her own -quarrying. One of the darts thrown at -this charming writer is, that she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -have children pore through books at their -own sweet, wild will, unoppressed by that -modern infliction—foot-notes. That, when -a child would meet the word dog, an -asterisk would not hold him to a foot-note -occupying a page and giving all that science -knows about that interesting animal. This -is precisely the privilege that your modern -critic will not allow. He will have his -explanations, his margins, “build you a -bridge over a rain-drop, put ladders up a -pebble, and encompass you on every side -with ingenious alpen-stocks and climbing -irons, yet when perchance you stumble and -hold out a hand for help, behold! he is -never there to grasp it.” What does a -boy, plunging into Scott or Byron, want -with these atrocities? The imagery that -peoples his mind, the music that sweeps -through his soul, these, and not your stilted -erudition, are the milk and honey of boyhood. -“I once knew a boy,” says Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -Repplier, in that sparkling defense, ‘Oppression -of Notes,’ “who so delighted in -Byron’s description of the dying gladiator -that he made me read it to him over and -over again. He did not know—and I -never told him—what a gladiator was. -He did not know that it was a statue, and -not a real man described. He had not the -faintest notion of what was meant by the -Danube, or the Dacian mother or a Roman -holiday; historically and geographically, -the boy’s mind was a happy blank. There -was nothing intelligent, only a blissful -stirring of the heartstrings by reason of -strong words and swinging verse, and his -own tangle of groping thoughts.” Had -the reader stopped the course of the swinging -verse to explain these unknown words, -boyish happiness would have flown, oppression -become complete, and let us hope -sleep would have rescued the bored boy -from such an ordeal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> - -<p>Cowley, full of good sense, is on the side -of our essayist. In his essay “On Myself” -he relates the charm of verse, falling on -his boyish ear, without comprehending -fully its purport. “I believe I can tell the -particular little chance that filled my head -first with such chimes of verse as have -never since left ringing there. For I remember -when I began to read, and to take -some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie -in my mother’s parlor (I know not by what -accident, for she herself never in her life -read any book but of devotion), but there -was wont to lie Spenser’s works; this I -happened to fall upon, and was infinitely -delighted with the stories of the knights, -giants, and monsters, and brave houses, -which I found everywhere there (though -my understanding had little to do with all -this), and by degrees with the tinkling of -the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so -that I think I had read him all over, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -I was twelve years old, and was thus made -a poet as immediately as a child is made -an eunuch.” The charm of Miss Repplier’s -pages lies in their good sense. She is a -lover of the good and beautiful, a hater -of shams and shoddies. Everything she -touches becomes more interesting, whether -it be Gastronomy, Old Maids, Cats, Babies, -or the New York Custom House. Like -Lamb and Hazlitt, a lover of old books, -finding in them the pure silent air of -immortality, she will welcome graciously -any new book whose worth is its passport.</p> - -<p>Agnes Repplier was born in the city of -brotherly love more than thirty years ago. -Her father was John Repplier, a well-known -coal merchant. Her earliest playmates -were books. Her mother a brilliant -and lovable woman, fond of books, and, as -a friend of her’s informed me, a writer of -ability, watched over and directed the -education of her more brilliant daughter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -Under such a mother, amid scenes of culture, -Agnes grew up, finding in books a -solace for ill-health that still continues to -harry her. When she entered the arena -of authorship, by training and study she -was well equipped. At once she was -reckoned as a sovereign princess of “That -proud and humble ... Gipsey Land,” -one of the very elect of Bohemia. She -came, as Stedman says, “with gentle satire -or sparkling epigram to brush aside the -fads and fallacies of this literary <i>fin de -siècle</i>, calling upon us to return to the -simple ways of the masters.” Her charming -volumes should be in the hands of -every student of literature as a corrective -against the debasing theories and tendencies -of modern book-making. The student -will find that if she does not know all -things in heaven and on earth, she may -plead in the language of Little Breeches:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">“I never ain’t had no show;</span></div> -<div class="verse">But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir</div> -<div class="verse">On the handful o’ things I know.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="A_WORD" id="A_WORD">A WORD.</a></h2> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a><br /><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="LITERATURE_AND_OUR_CATHOLIC" id="LITERATURE_AND_OUR_CATHOLIC">LITERATURE AND OUR CATHOLIC -POOR.</a></h2> - - -<p>We are told, with some show of truth, -that this age shall be noted in history as one -given to the study of social problems. The -contemporary literature of a country is a -good index to what people are thinking -about. Magazines are, as a rule, for their -time, and deal with the forces upward in -men’s minds. The most cursory glance at -their contents will show the predominance -of the Social Problem treated from some -phase or other. The best minds are engaged -as partisans. Social science may be -said to be the order of the day. It has -crushed poetry to the skirts of advertising, -romance is its happy basking ground. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -drama has made it its own. There are -some, fogies of course, so says your sapient -scientist, who believe that the social science -so spasmodically treated in current literature -is but a passing fad, and that poetry -shall be restored to her old quarters, romance -amuse as of old, and the drama be -winnowed of rant, scenic sensation, and -bestial morality. These dreams may be -vain, but then even fogies have their hopes. -A branch of this science—the tree is overshadowing—treats -of the literature and the -masses. Anything about the masses interests -me.</p> - -<p>When I read the other day, “Literature -and the Masses; a Social Study,” among -the contents of a <i>fin de siècle</i> magazine, I -would have pawned my wearing apparel -rather than go home without it. Its reading -was painful, as all reading must be -where the author knows less about his -subject than the ordinary reader. Later,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -another article fell in my way, dealing with -the same subject. Its author had more -material, but his use of it was clumsy. It -was while reading this article, that I noted -the utter stupidity with which things -Catholic are treated by the ordinary literary -purveyor. These ephemeral pen-wielders -seem to hold the most fantastic -notions of the Church. What Azarias says -of Emerson is true of them: “They seek -truth in every religious and philosophical -system outside of the teachings of the -Catholic Church.” They will not drink -from Rome. To correct all this author’s -errors is not my plan. In this paper I -restrict myself to a part of the same subject, -Literature and Our Catholic Poor. I -prefer an independent study to patchwork. -It is the usual thing in such studies -to present credentials. I present mine. -Five years’ life in the tenement districts of -New York and other great cities of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -Union, in full contact, from the peculiarity -of my position, with the poor. During -these years I was led to make a study of -their reading. This study, to be intelligible, -must be prefaced by a few hints on their -life and environment. It is useless to deny -the often-repeated assertion that their lot -in the great cities is hard and crushing. It -is a continual struggle for nominal existence. -The children commence work at a -premature age. Their education is meagre -and broken. Marriage is entered in early -life, without the slightest provision. To -these marriages there is little selection. -The girls have been brought up in factories, -household restraint frets their soul. -Of household economy, so necessary to the -city toiler, they know nothing. If ends -meet it is well. If not, there is trust and -sorrow. The day of their marriage means -a few stuffy rooms, badly ventilated, filled -with the most bizarre and useless furniture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -put in by shylock, who will, in the coming -years, exact ten times their value. Thus -started, children are born, puny and sickly, -prey of physician and druggist. If these -children survive, at an early age they follow -the father and mother by entering -foundries and factories to toil life’s weary -round away. When they die the family is -pauperized for years. It is a common -plaint of the tenements that “I would have -been worth something if my boy had not -died.” Every death is not only a drain on -the immediate family, but on their friends, -who are supposed to turn out and give -“the corpse a decent burial.” The decent -burial means coaches, flowers and whiskey. -The most casual observer must notice the -giant part liquor plays, in the lives of the -poor. Liquor and its concomitant, tobacco, -in the deadly form of cigarettes, are known -to the boy. He has been brought up in -that atmosphere. His father has his cheap,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -ill-smelling cigar and frothy pint for supper. -His mother and a few gossiping -friends have chased the heavy day with a -few pints “because they were dry.” He -delights in being the Mercury of the -“growler.” Hanging by the balustrade he -sips the beer, “just to taste it.” That taste, -alas, lingers through life. As he grows -older it becomes more refined. His teachers -are the sumptuous, dazzling bar-rooms -guarding each city corner, while betraying -the nation. The owners of these vice -palaces are wise in their generation. For -his stuffy home, broken furniture and -cheerless aspects, they show him wide, airy -rooms, polished furniture, bevelled glass -mirrors, dazzling light, music, gaiety, companionship, -and the illusive charm of revelry. -The reading matter in such places -is on a par with the other attractions. It -is sensational. Its authors are skilled in -the base development of the passions. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -smacks obscenity, and early dulls the intellect -to finer things. To be enmeshed in its -threads is the greatest sorrow of a young -life. When the bar-room does not allure, -there is another siren to be taken into account. -It is the promiscuous gathering at -the neighbor’s house who has been so unfortunate -as to find a music dealer to trust -him with a piano at three times its price. -Here gather the Romeos and Juliets to</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> - <div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Sing and dance</div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And parley vous France,</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Drink beer Alanna</span></div> -<div class="verse"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And play on the grand piano.”</span></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The songs are of no literary value, sometimes -comic, sometimes sentimental, more -often with an ambiguity that is more suggestive -than downright obscenity. Of the -so-called comic, “McGinty” was a great -hit, while “After the Ball” was its equal -in the sentimental line. It is a strange -sight to see pale, flaccid, worn-out Juliet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -thrum the indifferent piano, while near her -in a dramatic posture, learned from some -melo-dramatic actor, stands twisted Romeo, -singing some sentimental song, balancing -his voice to the poor performer, and indifferent -piano. To hear such stuff—I speak -from auricular demonstration—is no small -affliction. After songs come dances, weary -night flies quickly away. Work comes -with the morrow. Sleepy and tired they -buckle on their armor and go out uncomplainingly -to tear and wear the sickly body. -Thus generation after generation passes to -the tread-mill and beyond. It is not to be -expected that the literature of such people -would be of a high grade. To say that -they have no time to read were a fallacy, -inasmuch as they do read. Here the question -arises, what do they read? I answer -that they possess a literature of their own, -both in weekly journals and published volumes. -They support, strange as it may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -seem, a school of novelists for their delectation. -These journals are a medley of blood-and-thunder -stories, far-fetched jokes, -sporting news, etiquette as she is above -stairs, marriage hints, palmistry, dress -making, now and then a page of original -topical music hemmed with fake advertising. -The point to be noted in these journals, -a shrewd business one, they are never -beyond the reader’s intelligence. Their -novels must be simple and amusing. That -is, their author must know how to spin a -story. He must amuse. Each weekly instalment -must have its comic as well as -tragic denouement. The hero must be a -villain of the most approved type, neither -wanting in courage nor in cunning. The -heroine must be on the side of the angelic, -mesmerized by the prowess of her hero. -A vast quantity of supers are constantly -on hand, in case of emergency. Murders, -suicides, broken hearts and lesser afflictions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -are of frequent occurrence. The hero may -perish at any moment, provided a more -reckless devil takes his place. Half a dozen -heroines may come to grief in one serial. -An author must be lavish. Provided he is, -style is not reckoned, and bad grammar -but adds a taking flavor. Woe be to the -editor who would inflict on his readers a -novel of the school of Henry James or Paul -Bourget. The masses hold that the primary -condition of fiction is to amuse. They -are right. These journals are carried in -ladies’ satchels, they stick out of young -men’s pockets. On ferry-boats, in street -cars, in their stuffy rooms, in the few minutes -snatched from the dinner hour they -are eagerly read. They may be crumpled -and thrust into the pocket at any moment. -No handwashing is necessary to handle -them. Their cost is light, five cents a week. -By a system of interchange a club of five -may for that cost peruse five different story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -papers. This system is in general practice. -The greatest amount for the least money -strongly appeals to the poor. The novels -in book form are of a much lower grade -than the serials. Written by profligate men -and women, in a vile style, their only object -is to undermine morality. Falsity to -the marriage vows, deception, theft, the -catalogue of a criminal court, is strongly -inculcated as the right path. These novels, -generally in paper covers, are showy and -eye-catching. A voluptuous siren on the -cover, with an ambiguous title allures the -minor to his ruin. I have known not a -few book-sellers who passed as eminently -respectable, do a thriving trade in this class -of books. The fact that they kept the stock -in drawers in the rear of their stores told -of their conscious complicity in the destruction -and degradation of our youth. These -novels are cheap, within the reach of the -poor, a point to be noted. The question<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -arises, what can be done to counteract this -spread of pernicious literature among our -Catholic poor? There is but one answer -on the lips of those who should be heard; -fight it with good literature—yet literature -not beyond their understanding. Put in -their hands good novels, whose primary -purpose is to amuse. The good-natured -gentleman who would put into the hands -of the poor as a Christmas gift Fabiola, -Callista, Pauline Seward, etc., would make -a great mistake. These books would become -playthings for greasy babies or curled -paper to light the “evening smoke.” The -bread winners will not be bored. They -have worked hard all day, and at evening -want some kind of amusement. The book -must be nervy, a tonic. Dictionaries are -scarce in the haunts of the poor. Footnotes -are an abomination. The author must -whisk the reader along. A rapid canter, -only broken by hearty laughter or honest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -pity. Have we any Catholic novels that -will do this? It is the plaint of the know-nothing -scribes, tossing their empty skulls, -to write a capital No. From experience I -answer yes. The novels of that true writer -of boys’ stories, Father Finn, are just the -thing for the poor. They want to read of -boys that are not old men, none of your -goody-goody little nobodies. A boy is no -fool. In real life he would not chum with -your sweet little Toms, your praying, -psalm-singing Jamies, and your dying -angelic Marys. Nor shall he in books, -thank heaven. Father Finn has drawn the -boy as he is. His books would be joyfully -welcomed, if published in a cheap paper -form, say at twenty-five cents per copy. -List to the wail of the fattening Catholic -publisher, who will read that idea. It is, -however, a sane one. If Protestants can -make cheap books, thereby creating the -market, why not Catholics? Until this is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -done it is useless to cry out, as authors do, -nobody will buy my books. Yes, your -books will be bought if they are reasonable -in price, and properly placed before -the public. As it is, your books are snuffed -out by the immense amount of trash -handled by the ordinary Catholic bookseller, -and you help this by writing deep-dyed -hypocrisy of the trash-makers. Azarias -mildly expresses my idea in one of his -posthumous papers: “Catholic reviewers -must plead guilty to the impeachment of -having been in the past too laudatory of -inferior work.” The stories of that sterling -man, Malcolm Johnston, called Dukesborough -Tales, I once gave to a wretched -family. On visiting them a week after, -what delight it was to hear the health-giving -laughter they had found in them. -To another family I gave Billy Downs. -Asking how they liked them, I was told -that they were as “fine as silk.” A youth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -of fourteen, his face decidedly humorous, -volunteered the criticism that “Billy had -no grit.” During the illness of four or five -patients of mine I read the assembled -family “Chumming With a Savage,” “Joe -of Lahaina.” When I came to the final sentence -in Joe, where Charlie Stoddard leaves -him “sitting and singing in the mouth of -his grave—clothed all in death,” two of the -youngsters burst into tears, while the father -much agitated, said, “Doctor, I don’t see -how he had the heart to leave him.” They -were so much attached to the book that, -although it had been my choice old chum -in many a land, I gave it to them. Lately -I gave “Life Around Us,” a collection of -stories by Maurice F. Egan. It was a great -success. Egan has the true touch for the -masses when he wishes. Another little -story much prized was Nugent Robinson’s -“Better Than Gold.” To these might be -added in cheap form those of Marian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -Brunowe, May Crowley, Helen Sweeney, a -promising young writer, and Lelia Bugg. -How to reach the poor with these books -presents few obstacles. Cardinal Vaughan -has solved the difficulty in England. Attach -to every parish church in city and -country a library of well selected interesting -Catholic books. Let their circulation -be free of charge. The great majority of -Catholic poor attend some of the Sunday -Masses. If the library is open, they will -gladly take a book home. The reading of -this book will instil a taste. They will tell -their friends of it. It will be the subject -of many a chat. If it is cheap, not a few of -the neighbors will wish to purchase it. -Their criticism, always racy and generally -correct, will, as Birrell has pointed out in -one of his essays, be its sure pass to success. -After a year’s friendly intercourse the -library will become a necessity, and they -will gladly pay a fee for their week’s delight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -The author that has won their hearts -will be on their lips, his new books, on -account of old ties, will be eagerly purchased -and loudly proclaimed.</p> - -<p>Families that are shy and backward as -church-members, might be visited and -literature left. This I hold is priestly work. -If they come not to Christ, let us, as the -teachers of old, bring Christ to them. It -will be read. After your footsteps can be -no longer heard curiosity will come to your -assistance. The little maid will pick it up, -the parents will read. I have again and -again left those charming temperance -manifestoes of Father Mahony in homes of -squalor and misery, the outcome of weekly -drunks. These stray leaves, I am happy -to write, in many cases marked the beginning -of better things.</p> - -<p>To counteract the serials is, to use an expression, -a horse of another color. Our -weeklies are, as a general rule, dull. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -poor take a squint at some of the dailies. -This squint gives them the gist of their -world. They do not care, as they will tell -you, “to be reading the same thing over -twice.” Our weeklies are too often a rehash -of the dailies. Another remark that -I often heard among them is, “that our -weeklies have too much Irish news.” They -are not wanting in patriotism to the home -of many of their fathers, yet what interest -could they be supposed to take in the long-winded -personal rivalries of Irish statesmen, -or the rank rant of the one hundred -orators that strut that unhappy isle. A -bit of McCarthy, or Sexton, will be welcomed, -but they rightly draw the line at -page after page of rhodomontade. If, instead -of this stuff, living articles were -written, short stories, poems, biographies -of eminent Catholics, their Church and her -great mission made known, then would the -poor read, and a powerful weapon against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -the serials be placed in our hands. There -are some of our weeklies that cannot be -classed under this criticism. They are -few.</p> - -<p>The Ave Maria, founded and conducted -by one who is thoroughly capable, could be -easily made a great favorite with the poor. -Its contents are varied and replete with -good things. I have used it with effect. -Another and later venture is the Young -Catholic, by the Paulists, which will fill a -want. Its editor is full of sane ideas. -Boys’ stories, full of adventure, spirited -pictures, will win it a way to all young -hearts. These papers may never reach the -poor, if folding our arms we stand idly -by, expecting the masses by intuition to -know their value. Could not parish libraries -have cheap editions for free distribution -among the poorer denizens? To defray -expenses, a collection might be taken up -twice a year. No good Catholic will begrudge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -a few cents, when he knows that it -will go to brighten the hard life of his less -fortune-favored brother. The critic who -does nothing in life but sneer may call this -Utopian. It is the old cuckoo call, known -to every man that tries to help his fellows. -Newman, Barry, Lilly, Brownson, Hecker, -Ireland, Spalding, all the glittering names -on our rosary have heard it, and went their -way, knowing full well that if the finger of -God traces their path, human obstacles are -of little weight. The plan, however, is -eminently practical. In one of the poorest -parishes in the diocese of Ogdensburgh, -it has been tried and with abundant success. -I remember well last summer with -what pleasure I heard a mountain urchin -ask his pastor, “Father, can I have the -<i>Pilot</i>?” This urchin had made the acquaintance -of James Jeffrey Roche and -Katherine E. Conway. He was in good -company. Infidelity is going to our poor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -Her weapon is the printing press. The -pulpit is well, but its arm is too short.</p> - -<p>Shall we stand idly by and lose our own, -or shall we buckle on the armor of intelligent -methods as mirrored in this paper, -thereby not only delivering our own from -its coarseness and petrifaction, but carrying -the kindly light to those who know us -not? Let us remember in these days, -when socialism claims the poor, that our -Church is not alone for the cultured, it is -pre-eminently her duty to lead and guide -the masses. This, to a great extent, must -be done by the newspaper and book-stall.</p> - -<p>Our Church must man the printing -press with the same zeal which animated -the Jesuit scholars, explorers and -civilizers of three hundred years ago; -“then will our enemies be as much surprised -as disheartened.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a><br /><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2><a name="GREEN_GRAVES_IN_IRELAND" id="GREEN_GRAVES_IN_IRELAND">GREEN GRAVES IN IRELAND.</a></h2> - -<div class="center"><span class="smcap">By</span> WALTER LECKY,<br /> - -<i>Author of “Adirondack Sketches,” “Down at Caxton’s,” etc.</i><br /> -————————</div> - - -<h3>PRESS COMMENTS:</h3> - -<p>A new beam, a new factor in American Literature.—<i>Maurice -F. Egan.</i></p> - -<p>Charming essays.—<i>C. Warren Stoddard.</i></p> - -<p>They deserve book form.—<i>Brother Azarias.</i></p> - -<p>Destined to win early recognition.—<i>R. Malcolm Johnston.</i></p> - -<p>Lecky imitates himself. He is pungent, witty, humorous -and epigrammatic, with dashes of occasional eloquence.—<i>Eugene -Davis in Western Watchman.</i></p> - -<p>“Green Graves in Ireland,” by Walter Lecky, is a delightful -little book.—<i>Western Watchman.</i></p> - -<p>It is a well written, and pathetic tribute to the heroes who -suffered in the holy cause of freedom.—<i>Donahoe’s Magazine.</i></p> - -<p>There is mingled pathos and humor in the volume.—<i>Ave -Maria.</i></p> - -<p>The author’s style is bright and pungent; and this literary -flavor he preserves throughout the pages of this very attractive -book. He understands the spirit and sparkle of the Irish -mind, and he has caught a good deal of it in his jaunting car -excursions about the Irish capital.—<i>Catholic World.</i></p> - -<p>A clever monograph. Walter Lecky has written exquisitely.—<i>Catholic -News, N. Y.</i></p> - -<p>The book will interest all who really love the country of the -bards, and will be an excellent stimulus to young persons inclined -to forget the fame of their ancestors.—<i>Boston Pilot.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> - -<p>Large literary ability.—<i>Union Times.</i></p> - -<p>An important and valuable addition to the growing literature -of America.—<i>True Witness.</i></p> - -<p>The paper and type of the little volume are excellent; surprisingly -so, for the low price at which it may be procured. -For the rest we can say that Mr. Lecky’s style invests his -subject with a charm which, we think, will induce the most -unwilling reader who has opened his little book to persevere -through its entire contents.—<i>American Ecclesiastical Review.</i></p> - -<p>Walter Lecky is comparatively a new name in literature, but -it is one destined to stand for good and beautiful things, -especially the Catholic readers. His Adirondack sketches in -the Catholic World are one of the brightest features of that -excellent magazine.—<i>Boston Pilot.</i></p> - - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="tnote"><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> Text uses “her’s” where most would expect “hers.” -Additionally, many of the quotation marks do not match. They were retained -as printed.</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Down at Caxton's, by Walter Lecky - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN AT CAXTON'S *** - -***** This file should be named 51886-h.htm or 51886-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/8/8/51886/ - -Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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