L By DAVID MORTON ET me remember, now, how day by day, These loved, familiar, constant things return: So, day by day. . . . And some unreckoned year ... It will be well with me . . . it will be well. The Story of a Country Town Some Curious Contacts Revealed in the History of Cornwall, Connecticut T HE backgrounds of many incidents that loom large are often set in obscure and unnoticed country towns. I have frequently felt the urge to compile a gazetteer of the great that would list the humble beginnings of many eminent men or the preliminary incidents of notable events. This reflection is revived by a perusal of "A History of Cornwall, Connecticut, a Typical New England Town," just published by the Rev. Edward Comfort Starr, who for twenty-eight years filled the Congregationalist pulpit in the community. There are five Cornwalls in the United States, named after the Cornish county at the tip end of England. The Cornwall in New York gained distinction by being for many years the home of Dr. Lyman Abbott. Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Virginia each harbor a town of that name. The Cornwall of Mr. Starr's narrative is a rough township in Litchfield County, about thirty-eight miles northwest of Hartford, with a population of around twelve hundred souls. It borders the rapid-running Housatonic. Mount Mohawk towers one thousand six hundred and eighty feet imposingly in its midst. From its hard soil came Thomas Porter to become a judge of the Vermont Supreme Court, whose son, Ebenezer, was President of Andover Theological Sem By DON C. SEITZ inary. In the neighborhood, called Dudleytown, was born Mary T. Cheney, the public-school teacher who was to be the very unhappy wife of Horace Greeley. Heman Swift, a brigadier in the Revolution, was much trusted by George Washington. Most notable, however, is the fact that here was the nest place of the Allens. Four of them were with the valiant Ethan at Ticonderoga. He was a resident of Cornwall before he became a Green Mountain Boy and the creator of Vermont. From Cornwall Ethan of Vermont. From Cornwall Ethan went to the great French and Indian War. Mr. Starr recalls the little-noted fact that in February, 1784, Allen, as a second venture, "married a beautiful and accomplished woman, twenty-three years his junior, whose portrait has been preserved by Copley, while none exists of her famous husband." There were three children by this marriage, the eldest of whom, Fanny, died a nun in a Canadian convent a strange end for freethinker's daughter. Ethan, in local tradition, is "said to have stood on his father's unmarked grave" in Cornwall "and appealed to him to return and tell whether there was another life." The father, Joseph Allen, had six sons. After Ethan, Ira was the most eminent. He planned and endowed the University of Vermont, at Burlington, and is recalled as "one of the handsomest men of his time," possessing at the same time much better manners than his famous brother. Another of the six, Levi, became a Tory and died in jail at Burlington, in 1801, a prisoner for debt. Matthew Lyon, another celebrated disturber of dry bones, though born in Ireland, lived for a time in Cornwall, and was married there. He became a member of Congress from Vermont, was mixed up in many broils, befriended Aaron Burr, and ended his days in Arkansas. Major-General John Sedgwick, killed at Spottsylvania, was the first in fame of a long line of Cornwall soldiers after Ethan Allen. He is buried at West Point, but Cornwall possesses his sword and a fine memorial. Of minor soldiers, judges, educators, and clergymen the list is legion. The Rev. Samuel Scoville, who married Henry Ward Beecher's daughter Harriet, was a son of Cornwall. So was the late E. B. Whitney, who became the best of judges on the New York City bench. He married Josepha Newcomb, daughter of Simon Newcomb, the astronomer. She is now a leading citizen of New Haven. Theodore Frelinghuysen Vaill, who made the Winsted "Herald" an outstanding country weekly, was another Cornwall product. uct. Besides editing the "Herald" he wrote a comic translation of Virgil's Eneid that is classic in its merit. So much for local eminencies. There are farther-reaching items to record. In From "A History of Cornwall, Connecticut," Rev. E. C. Starr, publisher An offshoot from the old First Church, the Second Church of Cornwall, Connecticut, built its meeting-house, which bears a Christopher Wren spire, a hundred years ago in North Cornwall. The interior of this building has been renovated and the building was rededicated recently-the 14th and 15th of August 1817 there was established at Cornwall a Foreign Mission School, the outgrowth of some one, variously said to be E. W. Dwight or Samuel Mills, finding a darkskinned youth on the steps of Yale College one morning in 1810, weeping because he could find no way of getting an education. President Dwight having heard his plea, he was sent to Litchfield, where various good clergymen did the best that could be done for him. His name was Obookiah, and he was a stray from the Hawaiian Islands. He became quite famous in a way, and others followed him to America, the newcomers calling for education. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions were interested, and the Congregationalist pastor at Cornwall, Rev. Timothy Stone, persuaded the people to donate the village academy, which was soon filled with strange pupils from round the world. Here gathered Kanakas, Hindus, Chinese, Malays, and single students from Oteheite and the Marquesas. Obookiah acquired an excellent education and assisted in shaping the new school. He died February 17, 1818. The distinguished Lyman Beecher preached his funeral sermon. He is buried in Cornwall. Numbers of American Indians attended the school. Two of these had notable careers and a tragic end. They were Elias Boudinot and John Ridge. Boudinot, after leaving school, spent two years at Andover Theological Seminary, but was not ordained. He helped to prepare translations from the New Testament into Cherokee, and also edited a hymn-book. Returning to Georgia, he set up a printing-press and published the "Cherokee Phoenix," partly in English and partly in the native alphabet devised by Sequoyah, whom we have honored in naming the big trees of California. The agitation for removing the Cherokees to the Indian Territory was under way, and Boudinot, with John Ridge, way, and Boudinot, with John Ridge, who had become a lawyer, and prosperwho had become a lawyer, and prosperous, joined others in signing the treaty that led to the Nation's accepting the only alternative against destruction. One John Ross led the opposition. The Government enforced the treaty, which the Ross party deemed illegal, and, guarded by soldiers, among whom was the then First-Lieutenant John Sedgwick, the Indians were forced to remove. It is a black spot in our history. As a result Boudinot and Ridge were assassinated. This was the end of all they had attained of learning and civilization at Cornwall. Boudinot had married Miss Harriet R. Gold, of Cornwall, who had acquired the missionary spirit. The wedding of red and white made a great stir locally. Boudinot was burned in effigy. She died August 15, 1836, before the hegira, and was buried at Calhoun, Georgia. Boudinot now married a relative of his first wife, Miss Delight Sargent. She came East after his death, conducted a school at Troy, and survived until February 21, 1893. The school came to its end after a prosperous season, as the result of a missionary desire to build up schools in heathen lands. The idea was opposed by Dr. Lyman Beecher, but Jeremiah Evarts, father of William M. Evarts, sided with the missionaries, and they carried their point. So a plan to enlarge the school, for which the bricks were baked, was abandoned. Mr. Evarts was at the time Secretary to the Board of Foreign Missions. Nothing happens in Cornwall now. They do not appear even to dismiss their ministers. Mr. Starr, who resigned in 1915, was the thirteenth incumbent to serve since 1740. TH Edited by EDMUND PEARSON Reviewing the Reviewer HE history of literature, said somebody (I believe it was Richard Grant Moulton), is the history of the triumph of authors over critics. There are few generalizations with such a large percentage of truth. The work of critics and of writers of book reviews, when it has been correct, has usually been forgotten. Their blunders live forever. Time and again writers of reviews, often themselves the authors of books, have either violently denounced or gently ridiculed the works of authors whose names are now glorified, while they have extravagantly praised men and women whose work was totally forgotten within a generation. Despite their many mistakes, writers of reviews inspire a remarkable amount of interest. Hundreds of persons long to write book reviews, and seem to consider such writing the most fascinating of all occupations. Publishers and authors, however much some of them may pretend to indifference, are capable of a good deal of excitement upon the subject. And there are many who are writers neither of reviews nor of books, neither publishers nor editors, who look seriously upon book reviewing, and willingly engage in conversation about whatever this, that, or the other publication may have said about Mr. Thingamajig's new novel. It is related that two men on an elevated train in New York had a bet as to whether every second person they met was writing a play. As they got off the train one of them turned to the conductor, saying: "How's your play coming along?" Without a quiver of his face, the man in the blue coat returned: "Why, I'm having an awful time with the third act." I have little doubt that the story is true-artistically, at all events. Certainly, there seem to be few cities where, on the street, on trains, or on street cars, you may not overhear some one say to another: "Did you see what Blank said about Doodab's book in this week's 'Old Republic'?" The constant discussion of Blank's opinion of Doodab, of Doodab's reply in defense, of Floppit's counter-attack on Blank, and of Nynkum's unexpected rally to one side or another, show that many persons regard the matter as of no slight importance. One of the best of New re There never has been an entirely sat- "Ah, there used to be good book re- Did there? And were people satisfied "The book reviewing was painfully ever I chance now to glance at its pages. But as I worked through this contemporary record of the unrolling of British literature from 1830 to 1870, what was most surprising was the fact that only infrequently indeed did the book reviewers bestow full praise on the successive publications which we now hold to be among the chief glories of the Victorian reign, and that the books most lavishly eulogized were often those that have now sunk into oblivion." It is important to remember the mistakes which the writers of reviews have perpetrated. It is well to bear in mind the outrageous attack upon Keats in the "Quarterly Review." It should not be forgotten that the "Saturday Review" condemned "Bleak House" as a "paltry, As Mr. Matdry bundle of nonsense." thews further pointed out, critics formerly looked only to the past, they rarely understood the present, and they distrusted the future. They were often at a loss in the presence of an original genius, and more apt to be right in their opinions about authors of the second rank. Neither the writer nor the reader of book reviews should take the matter too seriously. As the same sagacious critic whom I have already quoted twice has very usefully remarked, criticism is a branch of literature, but book reviewing is a branch of journalism. With many kinds of books-scientific and historical writings, for example there are some nearly absolute standards of criticism. But with a work of the imagination, if the writer of a review says he enjoyed it, there is as little sense in making complaint as there would be in engaging in a dispute with him because he prefers chocolate ice-cream, while we are sure that vanilla is the only flavor fit for consumption. Mr. Albert Mordell has made an unusually interesting and useful book, under the title "Notorious Literary Attacks."1 It consists of about fifteen examples of the occasions when criticsoften, rather eminent critics-have made conspicuous foozles. Here is Lockhart's attack on Leigh Hunt, "Blackwood's" versus Byron, a horrified American gentleman on the subject of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," and John Morley against Swinburne. In his very able introduction Mr. Mordell points out 1 Notorious Literary Attacks. Edited, with an Introduction, by Albert Mordell. Boni & Liveright, New York. $2.50. that, while the general purport of many of these reviews was mistaken, in detail they were often correct. It is worth remembering that in the most savage period of book reviewing, in the days of Jeffrey, the arch-executioner (often apparently confused with Judge Jeffreys of the Bloody Assizes!), and along with their ponderous paragraphs, these hardhearted critics often wrote much good sense. To learn that we need not spend too much time in lamenting the lost art of book reviewing read Stuart Sherman's "Critical Woodcuts." Mr. Sherman left his professorship and came East to be the hammer of the heathen. He is the one man who can meet Mr. H. L. Mencken on his own ground and, without resorting to billingsgate, leave "the bad boy of Baltimore" like an upset beetle. It is true that Mr. Sherman occasionally horrifies all of us staid conOnce or twice a year he servatives. suddenly grabs up a red flag and gallops down the street, cheering frantically for some one like Ben Hecht. But for the most part, and for nineteen Sundays out of twenty, he is the critic I love best to read. The humor of his comments upon Mr. Poultney Bigelow's memoirs has hardly been matched since the "Nation's" famous article about "Ben Hur." And in this book he turns upon the recent biographers of Stevenson in a fashion that makes me want to give twelve long cheers. Listen to it: "What lions have these critical fellows shot with a bow and arrow, that they turn up superior noses at Stevenson, who merely consorted with thieves and harlots in the slums of Edinburgh and London, ran through the professions of engineering and law before he was twenty-five, explored the Scotch coast in a sailboat, canoed the Sambre and Oise, slept in a lonely bivouac à la belle étoile in the Cévennes, fled to San Francisco by emigrant train, ran away with a wife and family, camped on Mount St. Helena, chartered his own schooner, sailed the South Seas for three years, feasted with cannibal chiefs, refused to sleep with their wives, conspired with Kanaka kings, was threatened with deportation, planted a wilderness, governed a small tribe of savages and died in his boots? "If these lofty critical fellows hold that Stevenson's sheltered and coddled life starved and devitalized his romance, come, let us bring them to confession and require them to tell us what sort of dare-devil existence a really 'modern' writer must live." Many and many years may Professor New Santa Fe train de-Luxe between Chicago and California Chief Only two business days on the way The Santa Fe will establish early this fall, a NEW daily train de-Luxe between Chicago and California-The Chief-setting a new standard in the transportation world. It will cost more to ride The Chief because it will be finer and faster-distinctively superior - like an exclusive hotel or club, on ribbons of steel, speeding through a scenic wonderland, in luxury, ease and supreme comfort. The Lounge car and the Dining car will have many exclusive Santa Fe features and will be managed by Fred Harvey, which means the best in the world of travel. There will be an observation sunparlor, ladies lounge, ladies maid, barber and valet service, also bath. Extra fare-$10 from Chicago; $8 from Kansas Citysame returning. The Santa Fe also operates four other trains to California every day on which no extra fare is charged. Remember, Grand Canyon National Park and the Indian-detour. extra fast-extra fine - extra fare W. J. Black, Passenger Traffic Manager, Santa Fe System Lines 1134 Railway Exchange, Chicago, Illinois Send me free Santa Fe folders on trains and trip to California. In writing to the above advertiser please mention The Outlook this Sherman flourish and write, while he can so ably de-bunk the little group of psychological, psycho-analytical critics and biographers who have made such a racket of late! By a sad coincidence, Stuart Sherman's death occurred the day after this review was written. I will let my comment stand, except to record my sorrow at the loss of this distinguished critic. Travel CONCERNING CORSICA. trations by Jan Juta. York. $2.75. E. P. By her own confession, Réné Juta gets more than one hundred per cent interest out of places and people. Her enthusiasm, as much as anything Corsican, impresses the reader. Corsica and its adjacent islands are rich in legends of song and story. Near one of these islands, during a storm many years ago, Cardinal Newman wrote his hymn "Lead, Kindly Light.' Garibaldi, who before his death in 1882 prophesied that "Italy must have one man-a strong man-at the head," is buried on the island of Caprera. At Calvi is the traditional birthplace of Columbus. Here, too, Nelson lost an eye in action. Descriptions of graves of dead heroes, of towns perched on golden cliffs, of fishermen in little harbors where the famous langouste is caught, and where the fish are "batiked like the sea, are frilled and finned, fanned and almost feathered in rainbow colors," make vivid pictures. For the archæologist there is an interesting chapter on the "Nuraghi," curious conical towers built of large stone blocks without cement, relics of an early Sardinian civilization which some authorities place before 3000 B.C. "Concerning Corsica" is a book of many gorgeous metaphors and glowing similes; the illustrations by Jan Juta are as decorative as the text. There are some practical suggestions for traveling about the island, and a useful appendix with directions on how to get there, the price of hotels, and which of these have nightingales and syringa in the garden, and a timely reminder to carry your own flea powder when you go to this paradise tempered by fleas. THE SAGA OF A SUPERCARGO. By Fullerton Waldo. Illustrated with Photographs by the Author. The Macrae Smith Company, Philadelphia. $3. The indefinable but unmistakable mark of a good journalist is evident on every page of this record of a voyage to Greenland for a cargo of kryolith. Although exSecretary Redfield does not say as much in his "Dependent America," this stone is evidently one of the many essential materials which the United States must import. Kryolith is used as a solvent with bauxite in the production of aluminum, and is an the increasingly important element in porcelain and enamel industries. It is no It resimple matter to mine the stone. quires the constant attention of the pick of Denmark's junior technical experts. Mr.. Waldo makes interesting reading of this, and of every dog, cat, and Eskimo baby that crossed his path. Simple and distinguished writing raises the book to the high level of its title, however, in his account of the actual voyage, and particularly in his transcriptions of the tales of the captain of the Bauta. Religion THE BOOK NOBODY KNOWS. By Bruce Barton. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. $2.50. Here Mr. Barton follows, in his familiar but never irreverent way of talking, the method pursued in his so widely read "The Man Nobody Knows." What is the Bible? How did we get it? How far is it inspired? What is its history? How did all these writings-literature, poetry, history, legislation, prophecy, ecstasy-come together in one work? Why is it now and always the "best seller"? Questions like these Mr. Barton presents and discusses freely but not controversially. Its information is conveyed in a manner that is the reverse of "preachy," that is always picturesque and incentive of interest. ESSAYS ON RELIGION. By A. Clutton-Brock. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $2. In seven essays the author attempts a psychological study of the problem of evil, an inquiry into the nature of God, and an elucidation of one of the root causes of war This -false patriotism, the jingo spirit. he unmasks as pooled self-esteem, the ferment of suppressed egos which have not found normal outlets. When men become aware that to boast of their country is as vulgar as boasting of their wives, he believes, national egotism will subside and warfare become obsolete. Fiction FROM NINE TO NINE. By Leo Perutz. The Viking Press, New York. $2. This is truly something new in a mystery story. It has been claimed that in the instant before dying men sometimes see a panorama of their past lives. Part of the mystery of "From Nine to Nine" lies in the reversion of this experience. The story is told in a bewildering series of incidents that grow more amusing as the reader is let in Stanislaus on the secret. It becomes Demba and the reader versus order and the Viennese police. The young student has committed a crime well known to librarians, and escaped from the police. Hiding handcuffs under a long black cape, he stalks through a day of adventure while trying to obtain the 200 kronen necessary to elope with Sonia. Amusing misfortunes of necessity follow each attempt. Striking characterizations of Demba, Sonia, and their intimates and ingenious situations mark this original tale. The climax is a humorous scene in a Viennese café, but it is that peculiar brand of humor, with an underlying grimness, that comes out of the north. THE DESERT THOROUGHBRED. By Jackson Gregory. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2. There is excitement enough here to satisfy the most avid lover of danger and adventure. The innocent and lovely heroine is bandied about between two villains, from one side of the Mexican border to the other, and the rancher-hero, supposed to be a murderer but actually an innocent and noble gentleman, an author, and a breeder of Arabian steeds, foils her enemies and his own, to the great satisfaction of all readers. The incidents and plot are ingeniously planned. Literature A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 2 vols. Vol. I-The Middle Ages and the Renascence (650-1669). By Emile Legouis. Translated from the French by Helen Douglas Irvine. The Macmillan Company, New York. $3.75. We had read many histories, complete or partial, of English literature, and to the |