The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-03
BOOKS OF THE TIME.


The country doctor is so important fig
ure in every rural community and often so
lovabie a character that he is sure to ap-
pear in literature. Mr. James Whitcomb
Riley's doc Sifers" was first introduced
to the world perhaps ten years ago, when
the author related some of the incidents
of his unselfsh life to a company of appre-
ciative physicians Since then, thoughts of
the sweot-souled old doctor have pressed
themselves upon the poets mind. with the
result that the story of his gentle, self-sac-
riacing life. with it's amiable eccentricities,
is more fully told in a poem of one hundred
and four quatrains-his "Rubaiyat" The
title is very clever in it's suggestiveness,
recalling, as it does. Omar Khayyam, with
his pagan philosophy. his sensuousness and
selfshness. 1t is the suggestiveness of con-
trast, however, nothing in the Iaborious
days of this humble hero who talked so
common-like," or in his fulhllment of duty
to his fellow-men resembling in the least
the story or the sentiments of the Persian
voluptuary. The simple record of doc
Sifers's' life is in fact, the record of an
unassuming, unconscious nineteenth CEN
fury Christian-a chivalrous gentleman
though his manners are rustic and his lot
is cast among the uncultured
And Doc he's got respects to spare the rich
as well as pore
Says he, I'd turn no millionaire onsheltered
from my door,
Says he, What's wealth to him in quest O.
honest friends to back
And love him fer hisse' f?-not jeS because
he's made his jack"
The doctor does not speak in the first
person, but his neighbor sets forth his Vir-
tues and his Oddities:
without a-claimin' any creed, Docs rail
religious views
Nobody knowS-ner got no need o. KNOWN
whilse he choose
10 be heerd not of man, ner raise no loud,
vainglorious prayers
In crowded martS, er public WAYS, err
jucks, anywheres!
Less 1t is away deep down in his own
heart, at night,
Facin the storm when all the towns a
sleepin' snug and tight
Him splashin hence from scenes o. pride
and sloth and gided show,
10 some pore sufferers bedside O. anguish,
don't you know!
When a patient must die-has "got to
rene"
-"Jes lows at he has airn't the right to
sing
Q sr 1Sero where h is thy ,yictery? DEATH
And, mind We now--its not in scott and
Scorn by long degree
AZ 1oc SllS tnlnSS ike that-un on; it
jes his shortly
And total faith in Life to Come-w'y
from that Land o. Bliss,
He says, Well hat to chuckle some q
lookin' back at this!''
In preface the author says:
And it was given us to see beneath his
rustic mind
native force and mastery of such in
spring kind,
Ihat half unconSciously we made obeisance
smiling, thus
his soul shone from his eyes and laid his
glory over u.s.
1t is so that Doc Sifers fixes himself in
the directions of those who read of him
lie is parsonage who will surely take
leading rank in the long procession of the
people Mr.. Riley has made known to the
World-a doctor who adds honor to the
caIIlng IN country or city.
The Century Company has brought the
poem out in volume almost at the same
time the second installment appears in the
magazine. It is a beautiful book whose
typographical features leave nothing to be
desired and is a worthy setting for the
verses. 1t contains fifty illustrations, large
ana small by c. NJ. Relyea. He has caught
the spirit of the times, and his drawings
are admirable; they truly illustrate.