Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-09-20
Gb 9an spp: ao1maser aalnrsoap nns September 90 1884,

he says "Does not God himself use even the
wicked to open heather nations to missionary
labor and various other things that are impor-
tant though rough" This picture of wicked
Butler, elected by Christians, who are follow
ing the divine plan, in order that he may do the
important tho rough work that falls in the way
of the governor of Massachusetts, is the only
really funny thing that | have yet seen in the
canvass
Next to politics in the public interest come
"The Songs of the Sierras." The publishers an.
nounce the fourth thousand, and the critics ap-
plaud. There is no doubt that Mr. joaquin Mil
Ter is poet; he fascinates his readers by the
marvellous music, rush, glow, vividness of his
words; his poems are a series of gorgeous pic
lures, with wild mountain scenery or tropical
forests for landscape; with magnificent savage
warriors, bewilderinaly beautiful and heroic In.
dian maidens, and few blonde white men for
figures: his stories are all of savage hate, reck-
less daring and unhappy love. He does not
profess to teach or guide, or help or elevate his
race; he only sings "because he could not choose
but sing" You read on and on and wonder,
more and more at his wealth of words
he seems to waste them in profuse extravaganza,
yet each helps to make up the richness of the
picture, each adds some exquisite detail to its
luXurance. What mastery and effective play
ing with musical words this is:
AZ rushed to the river; the flood had gone
Like thief, with only his tracks upon
The weeds and grasses and warm wet sand:
And ran after with reaching hand,
And ealld as reach'd and reach'd as ran,
And ran till came to the canOn's van,
Where the waters lay in bent lagoon
HOok'd and crook'd like the horned moon"
One might quote pages of delicious music, of
vigorous description, of true poetry, and of ex-
quisite pictures. Here is one of chief and his
daughter in the last council of the Taschastas /:
"Then he ceased and sat among them,
With his long locks backward strown;
They as mute as men of marble,
He king upon throne,
And as still as polished stone
Hard by stood the war-chief's daughter,
Taller than the tassed corn,
Sweeter than the kiss of morning,
Sad as some sweet star of morn,
Half defiant, half forlorn.
ROBBED in skins of striped panther
Lifting loosely to the air.
With face shade of sorrow,
And black eyes that said, Beware!
Nestled in storm of hair"
These lines give no idea of the richness, the
ardor, the glowing color of his poetry; but they
are sufficient contrast to the utterly prosaic
common and labored lines which so often mar
his work. He goes on about the chief and his
daughter:
"Then he turned, and to his bosom
Battle SCARED, and strong as brass,
Tenderly the warrior pressed her
As If she were made of glass"
And again he says;
"And the pale moon rubs on the purple cover
Till worn as thin and as bright as tin"
The splendid glorifcation of Walker in Nicara-
qua, begins with the statement che was
brick" and in the same poem in description
of tropic gorgeousness, monkeys arc introduced
who
Looked wisely too as wise hens do
That watch you with the head askew.
The lines preceding Kit Carson's Ride are among
the best that Mr.. Miller has written. That
poem is full of power; yet heard some one who
knows frontier life well criticise it as unmanly,
and untrue to the spirit of the frontersman.
Kit Carson could never have been the hero he
is if he had left the girl he loved to perish, and
saved himself. The heroic elements in the wild
life of the frontier are reckessness of danger of
life even, and utter devotion to the friend or
lover. Bret Harte always shows or suggests
this in both his poetry and his stories; but Mr.
| Miller gives a different impression. However,
he comes before the public as a poet, not as a
biographer; and he has justified his claim
With all his faults he is truly poet.
Mr.. Higginson's Atlantic Essays are out
The volume contains the brilliant essays called
Mademoiselle's Campaigns, and A Charge with
Prince Runprt rct DubIiebaJ in, md
his later papers on Literature Culture, Fayal
Sappho, and the Greek Goddesses, and a new
one "On an Old Latin Text Book" This is
charming: the style is clear and beautiful, and
the reader, though he may be ignorant of Greek
and Latin, will learn from il alone, to know
something of "the Unreasonable beauty of
words
In the list of new books is one small in size
but interesting in its way, called "rhe Incarna-
ton" Ii is written by Richard Holt Hutton, an
Englishman, who was converted from Unitari-
anism to Episcopalianism, and who publishes this
essay to show how he became convinced of the
truth of the doctrine of the incarnation; not only
that Christ existed, and claimed to be in some
unique and eternal sense the son of God and Lord
of man" but "that those hopes and wants, and
prophetic aspirations, which stirred the nations
OF antiquity before the dawn, and which have
stirred still more deeply the nations of the mod
ern world since the cross was set up on Mount
Calvary, are not only adequately answered, but
purified and strengthened by Christ's incarna-
ton and not without it," The book is worth
reading by those who are interested in theology
and the different phases it takes in mems minds.
The introduction is by DR.. Samuel Osgood who
gives a pleasant account of Mr. Hutton, with
whom he has, Of course, peculiar sympathy, as
their theological rambles have been in the same
paths, but he with characteristic modesty dis
claims any intention of thrusting forward his
own experience, or defending any steps in his
own obscure career"