The morning call., 1893-12-03
SOME NEW BOOKS.
The Work of Pacific Coast
Authors.
JOAQUIN r1ILLER'S LATEST.
Poetic Flights of Mrs. Stetson and
Grace Hibbard-A Novel Cal.
endar-Notes.

Joaquin Miller has been a long time
silent. but the little volume bearing
the above title, the advance sheets of
which reach US from the publisher, justi-
fies his silence. The story is of how a
nameless city was built up on the plains
OF Mexico on sociaistic principles, and the
arguments that run through the book show
that the poet has drunk at the fountain of
socialistic truth, to which so many of our
leading thinkers are turning to-day. AS
another sign of the trend of the times the
appearance OF Joaquin Miller in the list of
champions OF the people is full of interest
Howells, Morris, Hall, Flower, Bellamy.
Miller, the list Is lengthenipg RAPIDLY
There is much in the present volume
that the reader will not fail to perceive is
personal experience. The solitary man on
Ideal city, surrounded by discouragerlents,
misunderstood by bis neighbors and
laughed at by his friends. Is too real a
picture not to stay in the memory as the
portrait OF living soul. The disheart-
ened strugRler is after all far more inter-
esting hgure than the rea! hero. or rather,
heroine of the book, who successfully
builds The City Beautiful, for he is real
and human, while about her and her work
fingers too much Of an air of the SUPER
natural.
This book is an earnest. strong protest
against the spirit Of competition and gain
that stamps this age. 1t aponnds In beam
tiful passages, and while marred by an
occasional straining after effect, as this
writer's work so often is, yet both as
literature and as thought 1t must rank as
the best thing that the Poet of the Sierras
has yet done. The advance sheets are of
an edition de luxe, rich in beautiful letter
tering. Cambridge and Chicago: Stone &
Kimball, publishers.l
In THIS OUR WoRLD-Admirers of
Charlotte Perkins Stetson's work, and
there are many such on this coast, will
welcome the little Daper-covered volume
of hundred pages or so in which this
writer's poems have been collected. The
book is in three divisions, 1.-THE World"
Woman" and "Our Human Kind" On
the thirty poems contained in the first
division may be said to rest Mrs. Stetson's
claim TO be ranked as a poet. ard it is
interesting to note. in view of the fact that
we are accustomed TO hear of this brilliant
young writer al reformer. that the poems
under this head outnunber those 10 either
OF the other divisions. Strong. purposeful,
pungent Mrs. Stetson's work always is,
but there is a delicate beauty of rhyme
and rhythm and poetic phrasing in such
poems as "a Common Inference" "On
the Pawtuxet." "Where Memory Sleeps"
and the "Christmas CaroP' for Los An.
geles, and majesty of poetic conception
in The Rock and the Sea" and Among
the Gods" that mark the writer as a poet
in the artistic acceptance of that word.
In the collection cf poems about women
Mrs. StetsOn becomes pre-eminently the
teacher. The poems are ell clever-fright-
fully so, some of them-but they are
sharp, two-edged swords, every one of
them, cutting right and left among the
sacred superstitions of the race. Womanly
weaknesses are touched with an unspar-
ing hand. and traditions totter before the
blows dealt through I'VE AS Women"
''Unsexed." The Holy Stone." and
False Play" She is not always hard op
women, however. and she has given us an
exquisite picture of "She Who Is to
Come"
Woman, in so far az she beholdeth
Her one Beloved's face:
A mother-with a great heart that enfodeth
The children of the Race:
That comes of perfect use-is built thereof;
A mind where reason ruleth over duty,
And justice reigns with love:
self poised royal soul. brave wise and tender
No longer blind ana dumb;
A human being of an unknown splendor
is she who is TO come.
sour Human Kind" is the heading given
the poems that embody the writer's social
istic teachings. These have been so
widely reprinted that many of them are
familiar to every body. "Similar Cases." the
first in the group. w. d. Howells has pro-
nounced the brightest thing that has been
given the world since the Bigelow pa pers
appeared. but "a Conservative" and "An
Obstacle" are almost equally good. and al
least two of the collection, 1.-The Nation"
and "The Old Time Wall" must be classed
as poems of high order.
On the whole the collection of poems
marks The writer as an artist, albeit OF
one who values her art for its own sake.
We have had the poet of art. the poet of
passion, he poet of the common place, and
now. in Mrs. StetsoD. is arising the poet OF
purpose. pure and simple. Archtecturally
the book is by no means worthy of It's con-
tents-a tiny paper-covered affair, with
striking cover. the significance Of which
is very deep. and which the world at large
will overlook, but the contents themselves
stamp the writer as poet and thinker,
who is destined 10 become one of the ma
tion's great. Oakland: McComba &
Vaughn. For sale at the bookstores
WILD PoPPIEs.-Grace Hibbard, whose
name is not unknown to newspaper readers.
has issued a neat volume of verse. dedi-
Gated ITO the military order of the Loyal
Legion of the United States. and more
especially TO California Commandery."
The lines which give the title to the book
are not printed first, which is unfortunate,
for they possess aptness of expression and
smoothness of rhythm. Still there is a
hint Of power in 1.-THE Spirit of the Spring."
which probably secured for IT the place of
honor. Here is a stanZa or two taken at
random:
rode and rode for many a mile,
My sombrero down over my eyes,
AND smoked cigarettes and cursed my fate
Till a tint OF gray crept Ger the skies.
Finally the lone borseman of the prairie
in fit of despair cast away his cigarette,
which. in fash, changed the dry grass
into "futtering wings of scarlet and gold
and serpents. which crawled in sinnous
paths like living things" After observing
these wings and serpents. the hero con-
tiDues:
thought OF Pharoahs struggling hosts.
AS frantic crossed the fiery sea,
To res cue her. far dearer than life,
And some way pathway was made for me-
Evidently heroic verse is not the forte of
Miss Hibbard. That she possesses the
true poetic instinct, however, is evident.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich might have writ
ten "a White Chrvsanthemum":