The herald., 1897-03-14
AMONG MY BOOKS.

The wanderings of Ulysses share,
Or see the plume of Bayard flow
Among my books.
Whatever face the world may wear
# Lillian has no smile to spare,
Fof others let her beauty blow;
Such favors I can well forego,
Perchance forget the frowning fair
Among my books.
AS OTHERS SEE US.-An anony.
NOUS Frenchman has just written and
published book about America, and il
would seem that he sees no good in us
that Is, no such amount of good as will or
ought to save us from the frequent
"roasts,'' as we moderns say, which
have been latterly administered to us BY
foreign, mainly French, critics. We ap-
pend few of the sharp and even pitt
less thrusts and lunges at Americans
and American society. And right here
let us not feel bit sure that all Of these
are unjust. Speaking of our manners
and habits of work our author says:
Everything requiring nicely of me-
chanical means, everything that can be
dome by steam or electricity, or gas, or
by harnessing the powers of nature, is
done well, sometimes superlatively well; J;
while anything demanding personal SER
vice, or the training, discipline, and
courtesy of men and women acting as
servants, in either a high or low capac-
ity. is done meanly carelessly, iwespon-
gjply, and without any sense of honor
able allegiance to a master"
OF the rough roads and inequalities of
life generally, here, he has these harsh
remarks to make:
"One moment you are tumbled
through streets full of rluts and holes.
the next moment you are ushered into
the seclusion of as luxuriously appoint
ed a hotel as is 10 be found in the wide
world; in the morning you spend half
an hour in a torture chamber shot along
on an endless, chain and filed with
tumbling human beings; in the even
irsg you dine off gold plate and drink out
Of crystal vessels; as you walk up the
streets you are accosted by shiverins,
ragged, hollow-cheened mortal, who
claims he has no place to sleep and has
had nothing to eat; in another moment
you are In a palace, and from scores of
boxes women lean forth, with the price
OF thousands of good dinners on their
arms, shoulders. and in their hair
The writer, too AYERS that we are loud
and boisterous in our denunciation IF
titles and distinctions abroad, but in
dulge in all sorts of means to get dis
tinction at home:
These same people toady to foreign
noblemen as do no other people in the
world. Politically they are loud, blatant
even, in the reiteration of their republic
anism; but socially they are tufe- hunt
ers."
He does not even believe that we are
socially well balanced and educated, but |
actually denounces us as having no |
means of determining solid states Or |
worth. On this point he says:
Society in Europe has a certain re-
stricted meaning which enables one to |
picture to himself what in society
means. 1t is. not necessarily a brilliant
distinction, but it is at least a suttl-
ciently ineligible definition. But here
society leader and 'clubman' may mean
something or nothing. as the case may
be. Here again democracy exaggerates
the very sentiments and positions it is
supposed to Ignore. Every woman with
two changes of headgear is a society |
woman and every man with top hat |
and two pairs of trousers is 'clubman. +
One hears, too, more talk about old |
families here than anywhere else; why
4. is know not, unless 1t be because they
secretly feel that they are all so new"
ALL this as we said after a review
of a certain other French book upon
America, is unfair and full of excesses
in the way of criticism; and yet there
Is enough of truth in it to set us think
ing.
Nothing so superficial and jerky us
these extracts show the book to be, can
have great influence; but do we not |
Pometimes feel compelled,to confess that
'tsociety often means. with us, some
thing pretty hard to define, if not even
hard to defend?
BRITISH INDIA. BY R. W. Frazer, L.
L. B. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
This is the latest volume in the great |
''Story of The Nations" series, and in
H. s~,t@
Its predecessors. Emerson declared that |
"Of all men, the Englishman stands
strongest in his Shoes This saying
never seems to mean so much as when
one contemplates the British occupat tion
Of India. Once the French attempted
colonization alongside of Englishmen in
this faraway land. but they did not
have the staying power of the British,
and their few brilliant ventures went for
,othing in the end by comparison. The
Frenchman puts on power as he would
court dress, and yields it up when out of
'avor. But the British build their lines
INTO new province, and with marvel
BUS adaptation make it part of the old.
This volume is short history of a Sc
ries OF wonderful achievements, and 1t
e quite sufficient for the general reader.
Indeed, to any but scholars especially in
'erested, this form of recital and this
volume OF matter make up the best form
)f history. The sequence is sure to be
kept, and the important facts are given
the prominence that insures their re-
and their relation to results
The authors work is done with pa
Hence and skill, and in a spirit of fair
less. The maps and documentary refer
,nces are very satisfactory, and the in
lex ample. On the whole, it is perhaps
he most readable volume in all this ex-
'elient series, since 1t is infused with
uch charm of romance. The best and
,ravest of England's sons have woven |
heir lives into the history of this far
way country, and the recital of their
leeds is full of deep and often pathetic
interest.
JOHN SMITH. BY Fred.
erick U. Adams. Kerr G. Co., Chicago.
This is the story Of a peaceful revolu-
Ion through which the laajority came
g rule. John Smith was born in Quincy. {
Mass, in 1858. He believed the consti- ,
ution to be full of errors He had no
he declared, for "Veneration {
5 half witted, obsequious brother to :
uperstition." The author distrusts the +
republicans, the Democrats and all ex-
sting parties. He does not believe sill ,
'er is worth fighting for, and seems only {
think that things generally should
'e ripped up and somehow made over
is small volume, and yet it will a
ardly be read through; for a little of If /
'oes long way
eHE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
OF JAMES RTTCcETT 0vxrUrr