Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1892-10-20
WITH PEN AND ma.
MAGAZINE NOTES.

magazines Dlrtn. Inc opening article,
by H. c. Bunner, ''The Making of a
White City," illustrates the importance
to this sort Of subject OF good spirited
treatment. An article ON the buildings
Of the World s fair might so easily have
been dull statistical affair, without form
and void. At the close of this article, in
speaking ofthe difficulty Of an outsider un-
dertaking an account OF this vast enter
prise, Bunner uses one OF his ilumining
SMILES; he says, "It has been pleasant
but trying task, and how full it has
been OF temptations to error and to ex-
aggeration can only, think, be under
stood by the man, who, as a boy, has
peered through hole in the circus tent,
and whispered to his wide-eyed compan-
ions fragmentary and hurried account
OF the dazzling show in process Of prepar-
ation.'
The statistics, which if scattered
through the article would have marred it
for most readers and for which the exact
man would have had to laboriously fish,
as for the raisins in rice-pudding, are
discreetly gathered together in the form Of
notes at the end OF the article, so that he
who reads can skip, and still there they
are, thoroughly accessible to the figure
fend.
"Salem Kittredge's Theologue, by
Bliss Perry, opens with bright raciness
that reminds the weary magazine reader
OF nothing which has appeared since the
early numbers Of the "Anglomaniacs
came to tease him into curiosity. There
is the same uns.rained gayety Of tone in
both, joined to pleasant familiarity with
world in which good clothes and good
hearts are upon easy speaking acquain-
tances. The story is one which no editor
could have had the honor of rejecting
Almost as good, in more home-spun
way, is the new number of Octave
Thanet's series Of Stories Of Western
Town" Tommy and Thomas" is per-
haps the best Of this original series which
has yet appeared. Going west, for sub
jects, has had such noticeably happy
effect upon Octave Thanet's work, her
present Iowa stories being in every way
better than her old negro dialect stories,
that by the time she reaches the western
verge Of the Pacific slope, she may pro-
duce the Novel Of the Future.
The writer OF "The Point Of View" ex-
ho Ahof oh
speech lacks its old-t time flavor of pictur.
esqueness, that it is less vivid and indi-
vidual than in the time of Elizabeth and
the succeeding Puritan age. This is only
thrown out as a suggestion, and luckily
so, since it is a proposition which can
only be proved by an age unborn. TIC
ourselves our common speech is naturally
familiar, and in its familiarity could
scarcely seem picturesque, since by COM
mon usage all element Of quaintness and
surprise is eliminated. Comparing, how
ever, conversation as infinitely recorded
in the novels Of Jane Austen, the mother
of the modern school of realists, with the
talk in those of w. D. Howell's, hei
lineal descendant, we can surmise what
will be the decision, on this point, of the
arbitor of 1850, to whom our cobwebbed
slang will smack of a delicious lost
vintage.
When it comes to the last analysis
why is it that what is suggested has a
power over the imagination that what is
told can never have? Is it an attribute
Of our human incompleteness that we
find in images vague and indeterminate
a thrilling largeness in which we lose our
sense Of limitation? Music, Of the better
sort, is such All appeal to the imagination
and emotions without the logical convey
ance of thought, and the power of poetry
lies as much in the license it allows fol-
incomplete suggestiveness as in rhythmic
cadence. If Robert Browning could
make himself as lucid as Wordsworth in
''Peter Bell" for example, the curious
haunting fascination which he exercises
over many minds would be absolutely
gone for them.
An admirable example. in prose, OF
this elusive power is shown in Jonathan
Sturges' two page nocturne, called
Three Forms, in the October Cosmopo-
Titan. 1t would be as impossible to
demonstrate the strength OF this curious
little study to one who did not feel it as
to show wherein lies the dramatic quality
of Brownings "Any Wife to Any Hus-
band," or Olive Schreiner's s'Dreams. !"
Not to feel the peculiar imaginative
quality of any Of these three, is no more
an indication Of mental obtusensss than
is it an indication OF deafness on the part
OF those who cannot hear the SHILLING OF
a cricket. In both cases it is question
OF gamut, or range, rather than power.
The man who cannot hear the cricket
makes himself ridiculous, however, when
he claims that all the rest Of the world is
humbugging when it says that the air is
pierced with sharp vibrations.
To this number of the COSMOPOLITAN
Charles +. Lumrnis contributes an in
teresting paper on "New Mexican Folk
Songs" The words and music which
accompany the article give an excellent
idea of the music OF this unique people.
The air and refrain of one of the drinking
songs: