Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1892-08-04
MAGAZINE NOTES.

That finds no object worth its constancy?"
MAGAZINE NOTES.
The centenary of Percy Bysshe Shell
ley's birth is celebrated in the August
Century by thoughtful essay upon Shell
ley's influence ON our age, by George E.
Woodbury., the frontispiece Of the mag
azine being delicate engraving OF the
uneaIthly face Of the poet. Woodberry's
view Of the character and influence of
Shelley in this short essay is a wider and
more intelligent one than is commonly
taken by his biographers; sympathy in
his hand has become the divining rod
which has led him to the hidden springs
OF the poets true inspiration. The err
attic and almost uncanny qualities OF
Shelley's character, which during his life,
and ever since, had the power of either
strongly attaching or strongly repelling
those who have studied his peculiar per-
sonality, become more coherently intelli-
eible than before, under Mr.. Woodberry's
treatment. In establishing better un-
derstanding of Shelley's mental tempeia-
ment he brings the reader into position
where what had seemed hopelessly
chaotic begins to take upon itself the
order of logical sequence.
LA Chase Galerie," by Honore Beau
grand, is story founded upon French
Canadian legend which is still current
among the old inhabitants of the Cana
dian Northwest. The legend itself is
delightfully."- picturesque, and loses moth
ing in the telling; but it is properly the
sort Of mofjffor great poem, holding in
it suggestion of "Tam O'Shanter" and
Of "Faust," and yet virgin to the soil; a
copy Of nothing, it awaits the coming Of
Canada's Burns or Goethe.
Mr.. John Burroughs presumably looks
upon his own as a "wild life," as in his
"Glimpse Of Wild Life he gives up more
glimpses of his own sensations and tastes
than those of the birds, coons and wood
chucks OF whom we had hoped to learn
mole. His description Of the Looping OF
the red fox shows what he can do in the
way Of beautiful and spirited description,
and again in the opening of the chapter
beginning:
GLOW completely the life of bird
revolves about it's nest, its home'
The large languid head of Henry James
forms the frontispiece of the August
Cosmopolitan, !" making an odd contrast
with the aerial fire of Shelley's face, the
Century's froutispiece. Henry James
two part serial, "Jersey Villas" ends in
this number OF the magazine, and its
epitaph might be that of the infant who
closed its earthly account at the end Of
one week:
"If l was so soon to be done for,
What was ever begun for?"
Not that in the case of "Jersey Villas
any one could desire for longer continu-
alton Of the listless tale.
"Salt Water Day." by Hamlin Gar
land, who usually writes of Dakota and
the new West, is spirited account of a
curious festival of the farmer folk Of New
Jersey, when leaving their inland farms
they flock, on certain August day, tc
the seashore for great plunging revel in
the surf. He describes the grotesque
abandon of the day in spirit of hearty
good will and fellowship, saying: 'The
fashionable ladies and gentlemen on the
Cliff House veranda found it comical.
did not; knew these people too we'll te
laugh at Them" Fancy Matthew Arnold
describing the same thing! How the
disgusting vulgarity" Of these youths
and maidens from the farms would have
Jared upon his super-civilized senses
1t would have been hideous if he had
drawn the picture.
In speaking of the beauty of the sea to
these unaccustomed eyes, Hamlin Gar
land says: "What picture to take back
to their hot and ungracious farms In
expressibly sweet and cool and gracious
must that blue-green, foam-lined sea
seem to them, thing to dream of and te
hold fast to in memory. That this
scene sinks deep into their starved souls
I know, for have been toiler in the
harvest fields and know what heat is be.
tween the corn rows"
How much nobler is the heart throb OIL
human sympathy than that book bought
cultivation that turns for us these, oul
brethren, into vulgar philistines. The
cultivation OF life and hardship. in real
man, bears the true harvest.
A very slight, but cleverly illustrated
"Sevilian Vignette," called "Anita,''
gives somewhat new view of the Span
ish character from the orthordox belief
in its sombre dignity, that has been
fostered by the romances Of the past.
Anita's impish pranks seem rather to as
sociate her with the Simian than the
Castilian race.
The fruit farm at Riverside California
is treated of with almost the enthusiasm
Of paid write-up, in this number. Cal
ifornia is SO fascinating that it never fails
to arouse enthusiasm; even the "mosi
phlegmatic lover OF nature" becomes ges-
ticulative in his English when California
is the theme. Charles Dudley Warner