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"No, I don't, oddly enough," he replied. "I generally respect her the more, the farther we get along. I've no illusions about her; she is not the airy, transcendent masterpiece I took her to be at first. But she's solid—I've proved that! —and I have sober hopes by and by of making something out of her, or of her making something out of me I'm not sure just which.”

"Are your first chapters always your best?"

It was a thoughtful question, groping in uncertainty; but he caught it up and flung its answer back as if it had been a challenge.

"No, confound it! That's one of the things that madden me most about the whole business. Sometimes I have to throw away all those first chapters which I wrote in such an ecstasy; whereas later chapters over which I toil despairingly turn out to be the best in the book."

"Yes." She confirmed him with serious eyes. "Most of my intended triumphs go into the rubbish heap, but my forlorn hopes have several times turned out pretty well."

"How do you account for it ?"

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"I told you I had long since given up spiritual concerns. It is therefore a much trying to account for anything."

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solider task to minister to spirits than to bodies. Painting and writing call into play our keenest faculties, and they incite us to develop yet keener ones if we can. They link us with God—”

She broke off, and again the humor stirred in her eyes.

"Haven't I said enough?"

"Well "—he stood up, and took off his hat and held out his hand-" I'm glad I met you."

"So am I." She nodded again, with her funny little air of satisfaction. “You needed me. Good-by."

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THE NEW BOOKS

It is hard to believe that the author of "The Song Lore of Ireland," Redfern Mason, is not a fiery Gaelic man, though he declares himself an Englishman. He has gathered a mass of most interesting and curious material, and, fortunately for the reader, presents it in excellent array. He begins at the beginning, the music and poetry of the ancient inhabitants of Ireland showing conclusively that this ideal outlet has been the channel of all Irish expression for ages. The bards and minstrels pass in review; the love songs, the Goltru, or music of sorrow, the tender lullabies, the gay nuptial music, are all analyzed, and many original scores are given. Any one who has heard Madame Sembrich sing "The Coulin" or" Kittie of Colerain" has felt the power of Irish emotion. The author tells us, among other claims, that the United States won its freedom to the strains of "All the Way to Galway," known all over the world as "Yankee Doodle," and while the English marched out of Yorktown the pipes squeaked another Gaelic air, "The World Turned Upside Down." All through his discourse upon music and song there is a passionate protest against the repressive policy of England and a triumphant faith in the final victory for Ireland. The recent revival of study and interest in the Gaelic and the vitality of Irish ideals encourage him in his hopes. The book is a valuable contribution to the picturesque story of the Gaelic spirit and the history of Ireland. (Wessels & Bissell Company, New York. $2.)

If one is fortunate enough to own "The Oxford Book of English Verse" or "The Oxford Book of French Verse" in the "Golden Treasury" style of volume, he may wish to own "The Oxford Book of Italian Verse." Like its predecessors, the book has been edited by Mr. St. John Lucas, and the size and external style of the volume are uniform with the earlier anthologies. The main difference between this volume and the others lies in the fact that the poems as a rule are longer. Though this involves a proportionately smaller number of authors, Italy is properly represented. As is appropriate, St. Francis comes first, then the Sicilian poets of the thirteenth century, then Dante and Petrarch and Boccaccio, then the Humanist and other Renaissance poets, and after them the more artificial versifiers, who give place to Alfieri and Leopardi and Manzoni, and the list closes with the great poet who has only recently passed from usGiosuè Carducci. While the book might have had a somewhat different appeal had more sonnets and short poems been included, the collection as a whole is a really noble monument to Italian verse. (Henry Frowde, New York. $2.)

A curious misstatement occurs in the opening sentences of Mr. Dwight G.

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McCarty's "Territorial Governors of the Old Northwest " in his identification of the western country" of colonial times with the region since split up into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. When the American colonist thought of the West at all, he thought more particularly of the country around Pittsburgh, the Ohio country to the south of that, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was there, not in the Old Northwest, that American transAlleghany expansion first found foothold, as Mr. McCarty himself recognizes on a later page. Again, he is in error in the assertion that the form of government for the Old Northwest was "prescribed by the United States from the beginning." It was actually prescribed at first by Virginia, according to methods which, oddly enough, Mr. McCarty is at pains to review in some detail.

There

is error also in his statement that a correct study of Western American institutions must "of necessity begin" with an examination of "the genesis and early development of the Northwest Territory." It should rather take as its starting-point the institutional foundations laid by the pioneers of Watauga, Transylvania, and the Cumberland settlements, as Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee were originally known. Despite these errors-doubtless attributable to the influence of local pride, which so often unconsciously affects historical judgment-Mr. McCarty's book is really useful. Unquestionably, whether apart from or in connection with the history of the Old Southwest, the development of the Old Northwest should be carefully studied, and to such a study his volume serves as a helpful introduction. It is, in fact, an outline history of the and administration of the government Northwest Territories from the time of American acquisition down to the admission of Wisconsin as a State, as revealed especially in the activities of the Territorial Governors. The first two chapters deal with the attempts at government previous to the adoption of the famous Ordinance of 1787; the provisions of the Ordinance are analyzed the book is devoted to a comparative study in the next two chapters, while the rest of of the forms and processes of government as actually worked out in the different Territories. A good deal of valuable historical information not readily accessible is thus brought together, digested, and set forth in a lucid way. (State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.)

The "Memoirs of the Princess Caroline Murat" extend over the period of the Second Empire, and disclose the personal attitude of the granddaughter of Caroline Bonaparte and Prince Murat, King of Naples. The insistence upon royal prerogative of this descendant of the Bonapartes is not to be wondered at, in the light of the many

intimate revelations we have had, from Madame Letizia down. It is most interesting to compare these Memoirs with the two volumes by H. Noel Williams on "The Women Bonapartes," published by the Scribners last year, and to trace the effect to the causes, reading back from this period, when Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie reigned in Paris, so vivaciously described by the granddaughter of Prince Murat. The tremendous forces released by the power of Napoleon, many of which were to be found in the individuals of his immediate family, exercised an influence upon Europe that taxes historians and biographers to this day to account for. The Princess Caroline Murat was born and spent some years in Bordentown, New Jersey, within the mysterious precincts which used to awaken awe in our childish minds when the Bonaparte residence was pointed out to us by less deeply impressed elders. Prince Lucien, her father, after the fall of his uncle, settled and married in America, whither the Emperor's oldest brother, King Joseph of Spain, had preceded him. By the way, the Princess Caroline recalls, among other persons whom she knew in her early youth, "Billy Vanderbilt," "a tall, slim, shy, sandy-haired youth," whose father was then laying the foundations of his great fortune. After the fall of Louis Philippe the Lucien Bonapartes returned to France and figured in the Court of Napoleon III, the son of Hortense Beauharnais, so hated by Caroline Bonaparte. The Princess Caroline Murat married (a second time) in England, and spent the last thirty years of her life in that country, chafing against the manners, opinions, and people all the time, and longing for her own land. She acknowledged the claims of the Empress Eugénie even in exile, but her personal disapproval and dislike of the clever, strong Spanish woman never abated. She pens bitter accusations against her, as ambitious, despotic, and misled by her overweening desire for power. She believes that her interference in affairs of state precipitated the fall of the Second Empire, and intimates that her selfish love for her son, the young Prince Imperial, brought him to fatal disaster. On the whole, the Princess Caroline, wife of Mr. Garden, of Redisham Hall, Suffolk, does not make the impression of having been a happy woman, though her life was full of interesting happenings and significant changes. She declares that she exchanged France for England, Paris for Suffolk, all the delights of her French life for a life "in the most stupid of English counties, the most prejudiced of English families." She arraigns England for the destruction of the Emperor, of Napoleon III, and of the Prince Imperial. Why should she love England? Her description of the funerals of Napoleon III and of the Prince are fitting pendants to the unsatisfied life portrayed in these pages, filled with as frank a revelation of a human spirit, however veiled the outward acts may be, as often is made in autobiographical writing. There

are a number of portraits and pictures of noted places in the handsome volume. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $3.75.)

"Life and Letters of Alexander Macmillan," by Charles L. Graves, is in a way a complement to the biography of his brother Daniel, which was written many years ago by Tom Hughes, and was a creditable story of strong character, uncommon intelligence, and a genius for friendship on the part of the founders of the widely known publishing house, the Macmillan Company. By his own direction, Daniel Macmillan largely effaced his own personality in the memoir prepared by Mr. Hughes, but the book was enriched by a great number of letters from men of literary distinction. The endeavor of the writer in this volume has been to show the relations between the two brothers more fully, and to sketch with a freer hand the personality of the two men who not only established a publishing house of the first rank, but whose acquaintance with men of letters and with well-known people of their time ripened into warm and often intimate friendship; so that the story of Alexander Macmillan's career is a valuable foot-note to the literary history of the last half of the last century. (The Macmillan Company, New York. $3.50.)

If it be true, as recorded in some quarters, that David Grayson is a nom de plume, it must also be true, as has been suggested in some other quarters, that "Adventures in Contentment" and the present volume, "Adventures in Friendship," come from a practiced hand. Both have a charming outof-door atmosphere, and both might be called incidents in the discovery of humanity. "Adventures in Friendship" is an informal, happily phrased text-book of kindliness, with picturesque detail and a leisurely and conversational style; it tells of the successful practice of human brotherliness. There are chapters in this delightful book which suggest "The Passing of the Third Floor Back," so charged are they with the potency of human sympathy and helpfulness, so illustrative are they of the recuperative power of human

nature when the sun of love shines on it. "Adventures in Friendship" is to be commended to all those who imagine that the business of life is to make money; who are absorbed in dealing with things and have missed the way of peace and joy; who rush when they ought to loiter, and are in a fury of action when they ought to be meditating: altogether a delightful book. (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. $1.20.)

Mrs. Elizabeth W. Champney's "Romance of Imperial Rome" includes, with an interlude on "The Loves of Horace," seven tragic tales of various dates from Augustus to Alaric. History yields points of support for their webs of ingenious and, to those who surrender to the romancer's art, thrilling fiction. Complete surrender may be hindered for some by an occasional jolt in

the story, such as seeing Vesuvius smoking in Augustus's time. Songs from Roman and other poets are aptly introduced to adorn the tales, together with busts and statues of distinguished personages and fine photogravures of great paintings. The hesitation of modern historians to accept the traditional blackening of such characters as Augustus's daughter Julia, and Marcus Aurelius's wife, Faustina, is carried to the extent of clearing them as victims of malicious calumny, but the recent rehabilitation of the Emperor Tiberius as a stern Roman puritan similarly victimized is thrown out of court. On the other hand, Julia's stepmother, the Empress Livia, is more than hinted to have been one of those "terrible stepmothers" whom her contemporary, Ovid, brands as poison-mixers. Mrs. Champney's treatment of Horace's odes to women as suggesting "the eternal conflict between sacred and profane love" is original and thoughtful, but does not make it easier for one who reads him entire in his own tongue to absolve him, as she seems to, from the sensual amours that his time condoned. She has accomplished sufficiently well her attempt to make the pale shades of that old world live again. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $3.50.)

The third volume of the late Dr. Pfleiderer's" Primitive Christianity "discusses its writings and teachings in their historical connections. The twenty-one chapters of the volume are grouped under four headsJewish Hellenism, Syncretism and Gnosticism, Apocryphal Acts and Gospels, Doctrinal and Hortatory Writings of the Church. Among these last named are included, as not of Apostolic authorship, six of the canonical Epistles-Hebrews, Ephesians, Colossians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, and also the Revelation of John. These are classed with such post-Apostolic writings as the letters of Ignatius and Polycarp. Modern scholarship has corrected the ancient and still inevitable error of regarding the secondcentury Gnostics as merely pestilent heretics. They furnish the earliest case of the still recurrent fact that the Church has something to learn from those it regards as such. The veteran Berlin scholar says of Gnosticism: "It exercised the most potent influence in the development of Christianity; by it was brought about the unfolding of the new principle into a comprehensive system, rich in thoughts and interests of the most varied kinds, and thus the formation of a universal Church was rendered possible." (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $3.)

The Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (687 Boylston Street, Boston) publishes a paper read by ex-Justice Brown, of the Supreme Court of the United States, before the Ladies' Congressional Club of Washington, D. C. We recommend any women whose minds are open on this subject to get and read this pamphlet, not as a conclusive argument on one side or the other,

but as a characteristically judicial summing up of the case, with a present judgment adverse to the suffrage movement. The author dismisses as wholly untenable the argument on the one side that suffrage is a right, on the other that women are inferior to men, and argues the question on the broad ground whether the doubling of the suffrage would be for the advantage of the State. The spirit of the document is well illustrated by the following paragraph :

The argument that the greater gentleness and sweetness of the female sex will predispose to peaceful instead of warlike measures does not strike me as of great weight. Conceding their greater docility in the ordinary affairs of life, I have thought that, when they feel a deep personal interest, there was not much to choose between the two sexes. Women can answer better than I whether, for example, in family quarrels their voices are oftener for peace than their husbands'; whether in an important political crisis they are less violent than men; whether the results of the Civil War have been accepted as freely by Southern women as by the men; whether women's conventions are more or less free of jealousies, recriminations, plots and counter-plots than ordinary political conventions; or whether, in case of strikes or business disturbances, acts of violence were confined to the strong sex. I do not assume to answer these inquiries myself, but can only say that such testimony as I have heard does not always bear in the direction of peace and amity.

Few modern writers or preachers have the especially strong and sympathetic touch with which Hugh Black reaches his hearers. His volumes on" Friendship," "Work," and kindred themes are well known. This season brings a new one on "Comfort." The deep under-current of the whole is found in the text so wonderfully unfolded by Phillips Brooks in his sermon on the purpose and use of comfort. The dedication to one who has learned to comfort others by the comfort wherewith he himself has been comforted of God opens to the reader a vista where comforting means fortifying, not that enervating sympathy so often craved and so often mistakenly offered. Comfort is strength, and is twice blessed, like the quality of mercy. We can but hope that many of the sadly troubled souls who in the past year have learned the lesson of sorrow may have an opportunity of possessing and reading this helpful volume. The subjects treated are The Gospel of Comfort, The After Look, Trial as Discipline, Trial for Purity, Sorrow and Insight. (Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. $1.50.)

66

Miss Helen A. Clarke, who has gathered together so much interesting material bearing upon the English and Italian backgrounds of many of Browning's poems, has prepared a volume on Ancient Myths in Modern Poets," in which she deals with the great story of Prometheus from the time of Hesiod to that of Shelley, and with the moon and the sun from the Homeric hymns to Keats. Miss Clarke has brought together a good deal of valuable material, and has traced the passage of these two great stories through two thousand years of literature. (The Baker & Taylor Company, New York. $2.)

LETTERS TO THE OUTLOOK

A FARMER'S VIEW OF PRICES In your issue of November 26, in an edi torial on the abundant crops of 1910, and of the fine wheat prospects in Argentina and Australia, where it is now late spring and the crop of 1911 is safe, you have this to say on prices: "It will be interesting to note whether this increased acreage, together with that in North America, will lower prices." The assumption is that the prices of cereals and other staple food products of the farm are now far too high and have not yet been lowered. And that seems the universal opinion of city dwellers and of the city press. As a farmer I ask space for

comment.

First, as to the producer, the farmer. In Ohio he now gets, at shipping and milling points, 90 cents per bushel of wheat (60 pounds), 50 cents per bushel of shelled corn (56 pounds), and 30 to 35 cents per bushel of Irish potatoes (60 pounds). Here the farmer's responsibility for prices ends; and these prices are as low as these products can be grown at any profit with $1.50 and board per day for unskilled farm labor, and other expenses in proportion. Apples are high because there is only a quarter crop for our whole area. Pork products are high because a very short corn crop some three years ago caused an abnormally large autumn marketing of hogs, including very many breeding sows, and the normal number and weight of marketable hogs has not been, and could not be, as yet produced; and other meats are high for similar reasons. The point (and the fact) is that the farmer is not now, on the average, getting one cent above a living price for his products.

Second, as to the village and city consumer. If he would buy the same goods in the same ways (quantities) that thirty or fifty years ago, he would

if any, more. He could now, as then, lay for the winter ten bushels of potatoes from the farmer's wagon for $3.50 to $4, five bushels of apples for $4 to $5, two barrels of wheat flour for $10 (from the mill or cash grocer), two hundred pounds corn-meal for $3, and so on, for his winter's supply at wholesale. No, he does not now buy thus. Three things chiefly make him, as a rule, pay abnormal prices: fancy goods in fancy packages; minute retail purchase with house delivery; the credit system with bad debts, which those who pay at all must also pay. One or more of these three enter into nearly every purchase. Does he buy good cornmeal at $1.50 per hundredweight cash? No, he must have prepared breakfast foods, cooked into paste, rolled into filmy sheets, and toasted to a popcorn flavor, done up in fancy packages, adorned with artistic pictures, and delivered (one pound) at his city house, three miles from the grocery; and he pays 12 cents per pound, 1,200 per cent of what the farmer gets for the corn

that made them! Does he buy flour, as of old and as he now can, at $5 per barrel of 196 pounds? No, the city man (woman) buys very little flour, wholesale or retail. His (her) prayer is: "Give us this day our daily bread-rolls, biscuits, crackers, wafers, fancy tidbits, what not, delivered daily at the door." Yes, it saves work, and we all hate and shun work; but it increases the cost of living, sometimes many fold. The city dweller yields most willingly to this modern luxury and rush and hatred of menial work which demand that everything be in small, fancy packages, toothsome and æsthetic, tenderloin cuts, celery, and salads, delivered daily ready for the table or as nearly so as may be. All right, let him do so-and foot the bills. But let him not blame the farmer for high prices. Prices of staple products as they leave the farmer's hands are not, I insist, too high for a reasonable profit to him, nor higher to the town consumer than formerly if he would only buy the same sort of things, in a large instead of minute way, and for spot cash. W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. Hudson, Ohio.

A TURNING POINT IN HUMAN HISTORY

[The Rev. Dr. Timothy Richard is one of the pioneers of missions in China, and a keen observer of conditions in that country. His comment on social, political, and religious progress in the Far East, and his suggestions as to help from Europe and America, always awaken interest and approval.—THE EDITORS.]

Mr. A. H. Baynes, the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, has quoted the view of the World Missionary Conference that the turning-point in human history would Occur within ten years. This is a stupendous saying on the top of universal unrest, and deserves much pondering and praying.

All who watch the progress of the world to-day agree that China is the biggest prob lem. China is no longer the sleeping giant of the past, but is wide awake. When he moves he has a retinue, not of tens of millions, as European sovereigns have, but of hundreds of millions, and practically of one race and one language. During the last ten years he has put on his ten-league boots and is making gigantic strides in education, in communication, in provincial assemblies, in a national assembly, and in other ways. Wonder of wonders, China has made a master-stroke in international politics, for, without the increase of armaments which bankrupts European kingdoms, China has secured temporary pledges from all the leading nations that they will maintain the integrity of China!

If this great mass of humanity goes wrong, then we shall have trouble among all nations; if it goes right, then all the world will reap incalculable blessings. The establishment of

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