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ATLANTA, GEORGIA,
THE SUNNY SOUTH.
SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1809.
5
Woman’s Page and Work of the Household Continued.
Books and Temperaments.
“Many Men of Many Minds, Hany Books of Many
Kinds.”
Th*re are all ports and conditions of
temperaments, but fortunately there are
all sorts and conditions of books.
If you are of a dreamy, fanciful tem
perament, love to sit on the piazza in* the
twilight and look into the distance, seeing
nothing, thinking of things that exist only
in your Imagination, or in an unreclaim-
able past; if you enjoy sitting by the fire,
staring into its depths, building air cas
tles and get angry and impatient and ir
ritable when your train of thought is in
terrupted by callers, or a request for your
help in some household work, you are un
consciously indulging in a slow poison, a
poison that will destroy all your content
ment, all your love for and satisfaction in
your surroundings, and you need an an
tidote for that mental poison just as sure
ly as you’d need an antidote for physical
poisons. Don’t read poetry, except Riley
and Stanton’s quaint homefolksey rhymes.
Don't read the novels of Mrs. Wilson,
Mrs. Fleming, Julia Magruder and Opie
Read, James Dane, Alen and Robert Barr,
but purchase the bright, breezy, bracing
novels of R. H. Davis, Anthony Hope,
Hamlin Gariand, Charles King and Rud-
yard Kipiing, or the simple home novels
of Rosa N. Carey, Marietta Dolley, Mrs.
Mary J. Holmes and Marian Harland,
and if you haven't a book convenient,
when you feel yourself slipping into oi.j
of these fits of dreaming and abstraction,
call your small brothers and sisters and
play games with them, or tell them stories
until the fit is over.
If you are inclined to pay too much at
tention to the cut and color of your cos
tumes, to spend too much time attending
to the crimps and w*aves of your hair—in
short, if you are inclined to think more of
personal adornment than of mental train
ing, you are developing into a habit that
will cause you to be termed vain, silly,
frivolous and empty-headed, and the
sooner you take yourself in hand and be
gin endeavoring to overcome these ten
dencies the better for you and for those
who love you and feel a pride in you.
Read Thackeray's ‘‘Vanity Fair” and I
think that will Inspire you with a thor
ough contempt for women who pay too
much attention to dress, to personal
adornment, to studying arts to attract
the admiration of the other sex. Dick
ens' "Nicolas Nickleby” teaches several
good lessons along this line, as does “An
Army Wife,” by Charles King, and “A
Woman’s Reason,” by Howells. I also
advice you to read some of the splendid
articles of Mrs. Margaret Bottome and
Mrs. Julia Truit Bishop; also several nov
els by Charles Reade and Charles Kings
ley. Mrs. Amelia E. Barr’s pretty stories
teach valuable lessons along this line,
as do Rosa Carey’s and Marian Harland’s
novels.
If you are the girl whose parents have
denied themselves all of the luxuries and
many of the comforts of life to pay your
way through college, and you have been
accounted a brilliant girl; if you have
grady.^ted with honors and have come
home' feeling yourse'T superior to your
girlhood friends and far above your pa
rents in education and the knowledge of
society and the world, you must know
that you are drifting into an endless chain
of errors. A child cannot possibly be su
perior to its parents, for the simple rea
son that a child is part of the parent and
must partake of the parent’s character
and disposition. You may use more gram
matical language than your parents, you
may understand table etiquette more ful
ly than they, your hands may be softer
and whiter than theirs, but at the same
time you are not one bit better than
they are. The very fact that you think
yourself superior to your parents, that
you desire to leave them and their unpre
tentious surroundings and get out into
the world to (as you express it) make
something of yourself, is an argument to
prove that you are inferior to them. A
girl who frets and fumes and w’orries
over household duties, calling them trifling
and degrading, is far beneath the mother
who "does with her might what her hands
find to do.” A girl who would willingly
leave a home that needs her hands to
beautify and brighten it, a mother to care
for the little brother and sisters and the
father and the housekeeping, a neigh
borhood where her influence and work
and teaching is needed in the prayermeet-
ings and Sunday school and all church
work, to go out into the world to "make
something of herself” is selfish in the
fullest sense of the term. She is con
temptible, vain, weak, shallow and heart
less. She considers self of more import
ance than parents, brothers, sisters, home
and friends. She -would leave all these
to concentrate her energies into "self”
improvement, “self” aggrandizement, and
she would be the very incarnation of sel-
fifishness. Girls, your first duty is to your
God and His church and church work,
your second duty is to parents and broth
ers and sisters, your third duty is to your
relatives and friends, and when you have
fulfilled all these duties to the very best
of your ability you will find that you have
done your duty to yourself, for you have
won for yourself the love and pride of
your loved ones and the sw’eet conscious
ness of having done your duty.
In Rosa Carey’s sweet novel "Uncle
Max.” a girl (brave, noble, unselfish)
leaves London gaieties and ease and goes
to live with her uncle in a village where
she constitutes herself the village nurse
and devotes her time and energies to car
ing for God’s poor and suffering creat
ures. How many of you could be brave
and unselfish enough to do likewise? And
in another of Rosa Carey’s books
"Esther.” the brave, noble Esther lifts
as many burdens as her young shoulders
can carry: she takes the household cares
from an invalid mother; she cheers and
helps a brother along the uphill road of
studying for a profession; she nurses and
teaches an invalid brother, guides and
controls a younger sister and is patient
under the complaints and worries of an
older sister (who considers her duty to
her family as second to her duty to the
poor>: who goes out as governess and
earns her share of the family support and
is so patient and cheerful through it all
that one hardly realizes how much she is
accomplishing—so patient and unassum
ing. so gentle and kind. Girls, there are
many good and wholesome lessons in
every one of Rosa Carey’s books; also in
Edna Lyall’s books. If you haven’t read
them, be sure and do so at the first op
portunity.
And there is another phase of girl life
Compel your dealer to get
you Macbeth lamp-chimneys
— you can.
Does he want your chim
neys to break ?
Write Macbeth Pittsburgh Pa
that is difficult to understand and very
difficult to correct. Less than a week ago
a letter came from a girl -who wrote:
"Can you tell me what is wrong with
me?’ I seem to be out of tune with every
thing and everybody. No one seems to
need me or care for me. My homefolks
seem sufficient unto themselves. I seem
to be separate and apart from them. My
ideas and tastes are totally different from
theirs. I love my home and my parents
and my friends, yet they do not seem to
need my love; in fact, everybody seems
indifferent to me. Is it my fault? or is it
my misfortune? And what can I do to
correct matters?’ This is a phase of life
that I do not understand, but I felt that
I must try to help her. so I wrote her to
try earnest prayer and to watch for op
portunities to make herself useful, to
take up a line of the home work and try
to do her duty by everybody, and to tell
her troubles to her mother. As this girl
is a member of our household, I ask the
householders to suggest something. You
may think that I have wandered far from
my subject, but I usually try to select
subjects that will allow a lot of latitude.
I think the girl mentioned last takes life
too seriously, and it is never worth while
to entertain serious views of life, never
w r orth while to plan and work for the fu
ture. Live in and enjoy the present; It is
yours; tomorrow may never dawn for you.
I hear people say sometimes, "I am so
busy; I’d like to go, but I can’t be spared;
everything would go wrong," and I think
"you think you are so important, so nec
essary. and if you were to die tonight the
world would move on just as smoothly.”
All the fretting and fuming at life; im
patience at delays and difficulties when
one is seeking some self-appointed goal;
alternations of hope and despair are so
entirely useless. Whether we sing or cry,
laugh or lament, it all ends in the same
way, dead, buried and soon forgotten, un
less, like Gladstone, Washington, Bis
marck. Lincoln, our very names are nec
essary to history. In George Eliot’s
"Middle March” we admire Dorothea, and
yet we feel that she is making her life’s
unhappiness when she idealizes that old
bookworm and links her fresh young life
to his. She and Romola are very similar
—both marry ideals and both repent in
much the same way. The only wholesome
lesson to be learned from Hall Caine’s
novels is the inevit&bleness of life. John
Storm ruins his life with his struggles to
do self-appointed duties. He worked, suf
fered, struggled and sacrificed bis life to
ideal duties. Think how much good he
could have done had he taken up the du
ties of his rightful position in life, gained
influence and political power and used his
money, power and influence in his work
of reformation. Instead, he endeavored
to imitate Christ—to go into the high
ways and hedges—and he did no good to
anyone, wrought suffering and despair to
himself and died an untimely death, hav
ing accomplished nothing.
Horatio Drake enjoyed life, took up the
duties of life as they were shown to him.
He did much good, had. many friends,
and, we are left to suppose, lived to a
good old age. and, I hope, married Glory.
Learn the truth of the old sayings:
"Trifles make up the sum of life,” "All
things come to those who know how to
wait” and "All things work together for
good'to those w’ho love the Lord.”
SYLVAN GLENN.
$2.95 FOB EIGHT QUARTS PURE
WINE.
Assorted as desired. All “old private
stock,” bottled by the grower at the Cali
fornia Vineyard. The Santa Clara Wine
Co., Indianapolis, Ind.
TO MY MOTHER,
Who Died Jane 5.
Softly, sweetly sleep, dear angel mother.
Where the tangled grasses wave,
Making sad and mournful music
O’er thy loved and lonely grave.
In the realms above we’ll find you,mother,
Far beyond the star-gemmed sky,
There, In a home of wondrous beauty
Thy sweet spirit now gladly roams.
Far too pure we knew your spirit, mother,
'Mid the rough earth's paths to roam,
Long before the angel watcher
Came to take you from us—home.
—MINNIE LEE ARNOLD.
Ford, Ga.
0000 Bright boys and girls earn a beau
tiful watch by distributing 20 of our cir
culars to friends. Write at once. This
offer is limited. Montis Chemical Co., 66
W. Broadway, N. Y. 0000.
SURSUM CORDA.
BY ELOISE MATILDA DANIEL.
“Oh. you bad, bad boy, to give me such
a fright! I was so afraid you weren't com
ing at all, then we would have had to sit
down to a table of thirteen.”
Vivacious little Mrs. Fielding, hostess
of the swellest and most exclusive dinner
of the late New York season, rustled into
the brilliantly lighted hall, brave in her
mauve, Paris gown and family diamonds,
to welcome her last tardy guest.
H* wr»* a
had a mouth embodying all the beauty
and poetry of a caress, marvelous, long-
lashed, hazel eyes, serene and untroubled,
as they looked innocently out upon the
unknown mysteries of life, and a wealth
of glorious, red-brown hair, straight as
an Indian’s, but fine as the sheen of this
tledown. She appealed to Karl Lyndon’s
artistic nature. Her sweetness and inno
cence were a novelty to the gay young
fell >w. Her evident fondness for himself.
31 ittruy J5UKSL. ctiuciii. II tiuncoa iwi UilllSCU
!. fHtjr fell ;v. , with-.iifer-freSifty
shape of an athlete, who wore his even
lng clothes with the grace and precision
of a man of the world. There was a smile
in his insouciant, brown eyes, as he took
the little hand she extended and began to
render his apologies.
"Don’t stop to apologize,” she said;
“dinner has been announced, so come with
me. It was awfully good of you to come
at all. I know how you detest dinner par
ties, but this is positively my last this
season. Don’t you know it is dreadfully
bad form to come so late?”
"Quite so, my dear Mrs. Fielding, but
punctuality is not one of my cardinal
virtues; then, I am sort of a privileged
character, am I not? You ladies are al
ways so good to forgive me my many
shortcomings.”
"Yes, you bad boy.” (Mrs. Fielding w*as
two years Karl Lyndon’s junior).
"What have you for me this evening?”
There was a gleam of interest in his
brown eyes as he held aside the turquoise
velvet hangings for her to pass into the
drawing room.
"You do not deserve what is in store
for you, but you arc to take the handsom
est woman in the room in to dinner—my
my own special friend, whom I met at
the cape last summer, and who is going
to Saratoga with me in a couple of weeks.
She is a Georgian, by the way, and it
goes without saying that you will like
each other. You southerners are queer
people, especially Georgians, you think
your country Is second only to paradise.”
"To be sure," smiled Lyndon, "I used
to know many Georgia girls.” And it is
true, for in an old-fashioned farmhouse
under the century-old oaks of southwest
Georgia, the brilliant New York lawyer
had first opened his eyes to the light of
day, two and thirty years ago.
Yes. he had known many Georgia girls,
but, as smiling and bowing by the side
of his chatty little hostess, he thought of
only one Georgia girl, and he wondered
why, for in his full, busy life, he had
not thought of her for so long that it
seemed years.
At last Mrs. Fielding paused. He smelled
the fragrance of newly gathered violets,
and saw the hem of a white satin gown
sweeping the emerald carpet. In a dazed
sort of way he realized that he was look
ing at a fine, white, womanly hand un
furling a fan of white ostrich feathers.
There was something familiar about that
hand. A single fiery opal burned there: he
knew the ring, if he did not the hand.
“Viva, allow me to present my friend
to you.” he realized Mrs. Fielding was
speaking; “Mr. Lyndon, formerly of Geor
gia; Miss Stuart, also a Georgian."
"Is it possible that you have forgotten
your old friend, Mr. Lyndon?" Calm and
sweet, a voice from the slumbering past
rang In his ears, and a cool, friendly hand
with the rainbow halo of opals about it,
went out to him from the shining folds
of her satin gown.
Karl Lyndon threw* back his fine head,
and at last found courage to look into
the fair, calm face, that in spite of all
the lapse and change of time, had never
been forgotten.
Nine years before Karl Lyndon had
kissed the sweet, quivering lips of a
young, unfledged girl of nineteen crude
summers. It had been a good by kiss, for
he was an ambitious young lawyer even
then. The brilliant autumn leaves were
dropping from the trees and the winds
were growing keen and frosty even in
Georgia; the summer of play was over,
he must kiss the summer girl goodby and
go back to work.
Viva Stuart had possessed a wonderful
Then, he loved the gill, in a way, but he
was poor and proud and ambitious; she
was the “daughter of a hundred earls,’*
but dowerless, and he knew she was not
for him. But all summer Jong he played
the part of a devoted lover. He danced
and drove and sailed with Viva Stuart,
and made love to her, as a matter of
course. He was her first lover, and she
gave him her maiden heart, for she did
not know' then that men and women of
the world spend much of their lives play
ing at love. He did not have the con
science to deceive the girl straight out,
and he thought vaguely that perhaps
some day fate and fortune would so will
that they would come together.
“We are not regularly engaged, you
know. Viva, darling,” he had said, when
he placed the opal ring on her slender
finger, "but I w r ant you to wear this al
ways, for 1 love you, and when I can I
will come for you, some day.”
And she had smiled and dimpled and
vow§d that she would wear it always.
And she had worn it for nine long years,
for the magnificent opal still burned on
the beautiful w’hite finger, w'here he had
placed it. Nine years before Karl Lyndon
had held a slender, grief-stricken girl in
his arms and kissed the tears from the
sw'eetest face in the world to him then.
He recalled the details of the scene, the
dress she wore, a much-ruffled, blue or
gandie, the salt w r ind made her skirts
limp, and blowing them about her feet,
disclosed the delicate white lingerie un
derneath, and her little feet in their pat
ent leather pinafores, and the silken open
work of her fin de siecle hose. He remem
bered all—the long-stemmed, pink autumn
rose at her belt, and the wide leghorn
hat which drooped on her smooth, Titan-
esque hair, a dream of a hat, with a mist
of transparent chiffon and a garden of
forget-me-nots. He had thought she
would have been a wife and mother long
ago, in some home ’way down in south
Georgia. He had thought never to see
his old sweetheart again, and lo! he had
met her in the inner circles of the 400 of
New York society. Not the Viva Stuart he
had loved and ridden away from, but a
splendid, self-possessed woman, who had
learned all the follies and weaknesses
that humanity is heir to, to whom the
years had added only beauty and grace.
She was no longer thin and angular, but
tall and queenly. Her simple but sumptu
ous gown of dead white satin fitted in
wrinkless perfection her full, symmetri
cal figure and cut away from splendid
arms and shoulders, showed the divinity
of curves.
She wore a great cluster of dusky pur
ple violets on her left shoulder, and a gor
geous diamond star on her breast. He
noticed that she wore her glory of red
brown hair combed straight back from
her intellectual forehead and loosely fast
ened on her head with a quaint shell
comb.
She had changed much, he thought, but
she was yet the same Viva, though her
mouth had hardened a little with knowl
edge and experience, and there was the
faintest curl of cynicism to the rose red
lips, she smiled with the old-time radiant
sweetness. She looked at him calmly out
of her fine eyes, recognition in their still
hazel depths. They were wise eyes now,
and they looked as though they sorrowed
over what the years had taught them. It
was not a beautiful face yet, but so calm
and proud and fair that she seemed a ver
itable empress among women.
"Is it possible that you have forgotten
me?” How his heart thrilled!
"I have tried to forget you. Viva,” he
fascination for him from the first. There J replied, with direct truth. ’T thought that
were prettier, more up-to-date girls at I had succeeded until tonight, now I
Cumberland Island that summer, but he
selected her as his subject. She was a
tall, slender girl—slender almost to an
gularity, with the slim hands and dainty
feet of a true aristocrat. Her pale, mobile
face was anything but regular, and she
know that I could not forget you, if I
would.”
"You have not forgotten how to make
pretty speeches, Mr. Lyndon.”
He looked at her reproachfully, then he
gave her his arm, and they went in to
dinner and sat down to the glittering ta
ble. where silver and cut-glass shone and
gorgeous roses vied with the beautiful
texture of the imported napery.
“It is good to me to see my friend—my
little sweetheart—again,” he said, as he
toyed with his spoon.
"Is It?” she lifted her delicate brows.
“Strange things happen sometimes.”
"Yes; it has been a long time since we
have seen each other, Viva. What have
the years held for you, child?”
She laughed. "That is a question. They
have held an equal amount of sweet and
bitter for me; and you—they tell me you
have grown rich and famous?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “And what
are wealth and fame after all? True, the
years have held 1>altry triumphs for me,
but they have been as apples of Sodom.
My life is a disappointment, and I have
no one to blame but myself.”
“Ah!”
“Can you not guess, Viva? You know
how I threw away my happiness nine
years ago. I was a fool.”
“You were wise,” she said quietly.
“No. Do you remember that beautiful
summer at Cumberland Island?”
“Perfectly. You were very nice to me
that summer. I was your summer girl, I
think. I did not know then that men
chose sweethearts only for the summer.
I thought it was for all time, and that
love was a sacred thing, not to be trifled
with, but I was very young then, and un
sophisticated. I know better now*.”
He frowned. He knew she would be
hard to woo, harder to win. “I was poor
and ambitious then, Viva, and, as I said,
a fool. No wonder you think badly of
me. I played a coward’s part.”
“But I do not think badly of you. You
only did as all men do. I was to blame
for knowing no better.”
“You were an angel. Viva, and I loved
you. I have never ceased to love you,
and—and—you cared for me a little, too,
did you not?”
“I gave you the one love of my life,
Karl. I suffered very much after you
went away. I thought for a time that my
heart was broken, but hearts do not break
and when I grew to know more of the
ways of the world I did not blame you
so very much, but I felt so ashamed to
think that I had given my love, almost
unsought. But you might have replied to
the poor little, tear-stained letter I wrote
you after you left. You remember that
you did not write to me after you went
away from the island, and as you had
promised to, I grew uneasy and impa
tient; how silly!”
He groaned. “I thought best not to,
Viva. Can you forgive me? I have .the
dear little letter yet.”
And he had, for he could never make
up his mind to destroy it, and it lay in
his writing desk, with some of her old
notes, tied with a strand of blue ribbon.
“I have nothing to forgive, Karl. You
only took your man’s prerogative and tri
fled with a woman’s heart. We are both
older and wiser now. You have never
married ?”
“My God, no! Do you not see that I am
making love to you now as best 1 can
not playing at it, I swear. It is a despica
ble habit men and women of the world
have of trifling with sacred things. Noth
ing is too holy to be turned into a jest.”
“Yes.”
“You wear my ring yet.”
“Oh, yes, I am very fond of my opal
ring, and I remember that I promised
you that T w'ould always wear it. I never
break a Remise.”
He /then, after a pause, “Viva,
■fT^iTTifier. You are pieuged'To v f
too one?”
“Oh, no. I shall never marry/* care
lessly.
“Is there no hope for me? I know I do
not deserve it, but I love you.”
“I beg your pardon.” Her voice was
sweet and smooth, but she turned her
glorious eyes upon him, full of quiet won
der. “Surely, you are not trying to revive
the old play now, Karl. We are too old for
that sort of thing, and I know somethin*?
of the ways of a man now.”
Some one on the other side claimed her
attention just then, and Lyndon had to
content himself with staring moodily into
his plate of delicate Dresden.
“Well?” With the smile for the other
man dying out of her eyes, she turned to
her old lover, interrogatively.
“As God hears me, Viva ”
She raised her hand deprecatingly, the
one where the opal gleamed. She was
very pale, and there was no smile on her
clear-cut lips. Perhaps the tenderness of
his tones brought back old times too viv
idly. She moistened her lips with the
froth on her glass of dancing champagne,
then she smiled again, and he caught
the fine irony of her smile. Still he per
sisted.
“May I not hope just a little?” His hand
sought hers under the fringe of the table
cloth. Three cold, slim fingers lay unres
ponsive in his. His dark face was very
handsome as he bent it close to hers
and the brown eyes that few women could
resist, looked pleadingly, passionately
into the hazel ones that never faltered.
Nine years ago she would have died for
such happiness,but the years had brought
changes.
“You are the only woman I shall ever
care for. Viva. If you do not come to
me, I shall go to my grave a lonely, cyni
cal old bachelor. Tell me, my queen, is
there no hope?”
It was a long time before she replied.
The exquisite floral ices were being
brought in when she spoke, and her voice
had little warmth, but some pity. “I am
sorry for you, Karl—sorrier than you were
for me nine years ago, for I really be
lieve you care for me as much as you
are capable of caring for any one. What
I am going to tell you is not in a spirit
of revenge. I would scorn to retaliate.
You did wrong me cruelly, my dear Karl.
A woman’s heart is a curious thing. You
no doubt are perfectly familiar with the
whys and wherefores of all things legal,
but a woman’s heart will baffle you every
time. There is no pardon for desecrated
ideals. I can love but once. I met and
loved a man nine years ago. No, I did
not love Karl Lyndon, but I worshipped
the ideal I made of him—the man I
thought him to be. I had a rude awaken
ing. I shall not try the experiment a sec
ond time. You threw my heart ruthlessly
aside. The dust of memory and studied
indifference has settled there so thickly
that—pardon me—but there is no place
there now for you, nor will there ever be
again. Believe me, I would have it other
wise if I could.”
“Is this final?” He pushed back his cof
fee untasted, white to the lips.
"Absolutely.”
Then the hostess gave the signal for
rising. With a dazzling smile. Viva Stu
art took the handsome American Beauty
rose by her plate and fastened it in Karl
Lyndon’s buttonhole. He thanked her
gravely and touched it caressingly, for he
knew, as he held open the door for her
to pass out. that the rose would be all
that Viva Stuart would ever give him.
Walnuts and wine did not attract him,
as w’ere their wont, and he lingered by the
door, moodily watching the winding of
her trained, white satin gown, as she
swept down the hall.
Karl Lyndon realized that he deserved
it all, and that he was a sadder and wiser
man since he had learned something of
the mysterious workings of a woman’s
heart.
IN THE LIBRARY CORNER.
The fact that Mr. Howells recently as
serted that there was no East Aurora,
New York, did not make the little town
fade into thin air like the Cheshire cat,
nor did it stop the Roycrofters from send
ing out the most artistically unique books
of the age.
These people do not solicit the patron
age of agents or dealers, but make limit
ed editions of books only for book lovers.
They emulate Groller, the old treasurer
of France, and send down nothing to pos
terity but "noble bindings." The ordin
ary "de luxe” would give Elbert Hubbard
very much the sensation that one would
have at Seeing the Kohinor in a filagree
setting, a "Titian” in a Dutch gilt frame,
or a beautiful woman in rags.
Among these handsome books are found
“Sonnets from the Portuguese,” by Eliz
abeth Barrett Browning; "The Deserted
Village,” by Oliver Goldsmith; “In Me
in oriam,” by Alfred Tennyson; "As It
Seems to Me,” by Elizabeth Hubbard;
"Dream of John Ball," by William Mor
ris; "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam;”
"On Going to Church,” by George Bern
ard Shaw; "The Dipsy Chanty Poems,”
by Rudyard Kipling, and "Little Jour
neys to the Homes of Eminent Women,”
by Elbert Hubbard. Of the last named
book only four hundred and seventy cop
ies were made. It is done on Whatman
paper, hand illumined and printed in
double columns. About two thousand
paragraph marks in each book in red
and blue, alternating, all hand work.
This is the most elaborate piece of book
making yet attempted by the Roycrofters,
and the only book ever made in America
where paragraph marks and initials are
inserted by hand. It is a near approach
to the Venetian, when the scribe, il
luminator and printer collaborated.
• • •
“Dainty Breakfasts,” by Phyllis
Browne, with a “tabular introduction by
a mere man,” is a book of one hundred and
thirty-six pages, filled with receipts for
preparing breakfasts that appeal to the
most epicurean tastes. This household
treasure is published by Cassel Co. # New
York.
• • •
Some weeks ago it was announced in
these columns that Beatrice Harraden’s
new novel, “The Fowler,” was forthcom
ing. This book is a more ambitious effort
than “Ships That Pass in the Night,” and
proves that the author is not a woman of
one book, but a literary artist whose work
ranks well with the literature of the day.
• « 9
It is often asserted that the charm of
the French novel is Its immorality. That
charge may be sustained against many
French writers, but it cannot be affirmed
of Balzac. The character of the man pre
pares us to believe in the purity of his
work. His was an exceptionally chaste
life. George Sand, w r ho knew his habits,
says, "His private life covers no black
spots.” Gautier describes the moral code
which his intimate personal friend laid
down for himself as one that rivalled the
severity of Trappist or Carthusian friars.
Against all examples to the contrary he
insisted that simple habits and absolute
chastity were essential to the develop
ment of the highest literary faculty, and
that all excess led to the ruin of talent.
It is universally affirmed that "Louis
Lambert” is largely autobiographical;
that being imputes Vhe "hipljest
praise to Balzac, for that novel is as pure
and delicate as a Hebrew psalm.
It is a singular fact that with all his
popularity there has never been any at
tempt to illustrate Thomas Hard’s novels
from the actual scenes in the Wessex
country. The background for such illus*
tration is especially rich in material, as
will be seen from the first installment of
a series on "Thomas Hardy’s Country,”
which appears in the June Bookman. The
article is an extensive one. and there are
fourteen illustrations, besides a frontis
piece showing Thomas Hardy’s house in
Dorchester, all reproduced from photo
graphs taken expressly for this article
by the well known English writer and
novelist, Clive Holland. Mr. Holland had
the co-operation of Mr. Hardy in identi
fying the various scenes of his novels, so
that the series, when completed, will be a
very valuable and important one to all
Hardy lovers. There will be three papers
in all. The installment In the July num
ber will be wholly devoted to what is per
haps the most popular of all Thomas
Hardy’s novels, “Tess of the D’Urber-
villes.”
• • •
"If Sinners Entice Thee,” by William
Le Queux. (G. W. Dillingham Co.) Of
the good old type with which we were all
familiar—and most of us very well con
tent—before the modern story-writer took
to digging among garbage heaps and wad
ing through mud-puddles in search of ab
normal plots. Mr. Le Queux’s latest novel
Is one that will readily commend itself to
the reader who has not utterly out-grown
his taste for the "legitimate” in fiction.
The plot, which opens tragically in a quiet
English village and finds its equally trag
ic climax among the gaming tables of
Monte Carlo, is well conceived and skill
fully developed, the interest of the reader
being easily sustained from the first chap
ter to the last—in which, the villain hav
ing been disposed of in an eminently befit
ting manner, the long-separated lovers
are joyously wedded and all ends happily
in the good old-fashioned way. Incident
ally, the book contains some charming
descriptions of Nice, its scenery and its
customs — among the latter being the
world-famed Corso Carnavalesque and
the fun-inspiring Battle of Confetti; and
although these items, of course, are quite
secondary to the purpose of the story,
they are, nevertheless, sufficiently enter
taining to merit more than a mere passing
word of praise.
• • •
Longfellow died on the 24th of April,
1882, and four daj'S afterward Dr. Holmes
wrote this sweet and touching letter:
"We all feel as you do. Never was
mourning more profound and universal.
Although Longfellow had* been in failing
health for some time, to feel that he was
living among us, and that we could still
look upon his noble and benignant coun
tenance, and hear from him now and then
in strains sweet as always, was a privil
ege, a delight that we could not bear to
lose. It was a beautiful life, full of flower
and fruit; and we could have prayed that
it might not pass from us while it had a
green leaf left. But he is gone; and the
earth is less lovely to thousands to whose
happiness his beautiful genius has con
tributed.”
Wendell Phillips was a cousin to Dr.
Holmes, and the latter’s opinion of the
great orator is set forth in the following
extract from a private letter:
"You ask me if I read a speech of Wen
dell Phillips about Hayes and his cabinet,
I read everything I see of Cousin Wen
dell's in the papers, but I confess I thinf
his eloquence and his prejudices are more
conspicuous than his judgment. I do not
think that sensible people trouble them
selves very much about his denunciations
or his vaticinations. He airs his epithet*
on too many worthy people. But Wendell
1$ charming to meet and' as amiable as &
sucking lamb off the platform.”
From "Oliver Wendell Holmes: Some
Letters and Reminiscences.” by George
Stewart, D.C.L., in Self Culture for June.
Among the prominent literary men of
the day, few have achieved greater suc
cess than Israel Zangwill, whose stories
of life among the poorest and less favor
ed class of Hebrews are meeting jyith
such well deserved popularity. This gift
ed member of the Jewish race was born
thirty-five years ago in the Whitechapel
district of London, and at a very early
age gave such evidence of remarkable
ability that his parents, in spite of their
poverty, determined to give him an edu
cation. In time he became a teacher, and
from this period in his life, his stride to
wards success and fame have been rapid.
His first book was entitled "The Premier
and the Painter,” and this was soon fol
lowed by "Doctor Grimmer.” On account
of the first named work containing, state
ments which offended his school mana
gers, young Zangwill lost his position as
teacher, but he soor* found a far better
place as editor of "Ariel,” a satirical pe
riodical. This journal, however, soon
ceased publication, and Zangwill became
editor of the Jewish Standard. By this
time he had become widely known, and
upon the appearance of his third book,
"The Master,” his fame spread through
out Europe and the United States. Since
then, he has written "Without Preju
dice.” "The Children of the Ghetto,”
"Dreamers of the Ghetto” and "The King
of Schnorrers.” "The Children of the
Ghetto” Is undoubtedly his best work,
but while it has been favorably reviewed
by the leading journals everywhere and
has made for the talented author an en
during name In literature, it has cost him
the friendship of the Hebrew people in
London, who seem to think that his de
scriptions of Ghetto life, so full of humor
and exhibiting with such force the misery
suffered by the humblest of his race, are
intended to taunt them with their suf
ferings.
The Jewish race has given the world a
large number of noted literary* men, and
among the most prominent, Israel Zang
will is deserving of a very high place.
• * •
"His Own Image,” by Alan Dale. (G.
W. Dillingham Co.) That Mr. Dale’s new
novel would be something quite out of
the ordinary was a foregone conclusion
among ..*e many* newspaper readers—on
both sides of the Atlantic—to whom his
caustic criticisms of the plays and play
ers long since made both his name and
his literary style familiar. Nor was the
conclusion in any sense a faulty one; for
the seeker after the abnormal in fiction
must needs search long and diligently in
order to find a story more sensational,
more lurid or more essentially repellent
than that enclosed between the covers of
this daintily presented volume. Mr. Dale,
like the fat boy In "Pickwick," "likes to
make yer flesh creep;” and it Is but fair
to him to say that his penchant for im
agining horrors is equaled only by his
skill in depicting them. A more horrible
monstrosity than the central figure of the
present story wras never conceived by
Poe; a gloomier plot or a ghastlier denoue
ment was never portrayed by Hugo.
The characters in the story are not nu
merous, but they are graphically, if fan
tastically drawn—from "Reginald Rel-
lerick, actor, of carefully embroidered
reputation; ego-maniac of almost psycho
logical import," to Mrs. Landington, the
Notting Hill housekeeper—"a respectable,
ttlpaoe r?ho 'kAwore a
cameo brooch, with an extinct husband’s
hair at the back, and a circle of white
ruehing around her neck. Nobody doubt
ed her, nobody could doubt her. Any jury
in England would have acquitted her of
anything on earth without leaving their
seats, with the cameo brooch and the
ruehing as damning evidence of her vir
tue.” True, It is a little difficult to com
prehend the middle-class Felicia Halstead
—"one of those neutrally gray, incomplete
creatures we used to call women before
Mme. Sarah Grand’s hideous prose de
clared war against Tennyson’s match
less poetry”—could ever by accident
have achieved the marvelous his
trionic success with which she is cred
ited; but then, if she hadn’t achiev
ed it there would have been no ap
parent excuse for her existing at all—
and the book would . never have been
written. It is a fascinating book on the
W'hole, for all its grewsomeness; and how
ever strongly we may be inclined to quar
rel with Mr. Dale for his lavish use of
extraordinary adjectives—and we may add
especially for the rather puerile anti
climax which mars his final page—we
cannot but admit that his story is at
least clever and readable, even though It
may be at the same time distinctly un
wholesome.
One of the features of Literature dur
ing the next few weeks will be reviews of
the best of the mass of light fiction that
always heralds the opening of the sum
mer season. No other periodical is so
well qualified to give accurate and un
biased judgment on novels and stories.
It is also announced that William Dean
Howells wrill contribute a discussion of
Ibsen’s celebrated play, “Ghosts," re
cently produced at the Carnegie Lyceum
in New York. One of the specially im
portant book reviews is that of James
Russell Lowell and his friends.
Srom 77frs. Sun ter
to TTJrs, ZPtnkham*
[uttzk to m nnuii no. 76,244]
“One year ago last June three dot
tors gave me up to die, and as I had a
different times used your Vegetabl
Compound with good results, I had to
much faith in it to die until I had trie
it again. I was apparently an invalid
was confined to my bed for ten weeki
(I believe my trouble was ulceration c
womb).
“After taking 1 four bottles of th
Compound and using some of the Live
Pills and Sanative Wash, at the end o
two months I had greatly improve)
and weighed 155 pounds, when I neve
before weighed over 138. Lydia E
Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound is thi
best medicine I ever used, and I recoin
mend it to all my friends.”—Mbs. As5j
Eva Gusteb, Hisoiksvilue, Mo.
Xn. Barnhart Envoys Ufa Once Mora.
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Babxiiabt, New Castle, Pa.
