The herald., 1898-04-24
(Edited by Enoch KnighD
Saith the Star

From all kindred" saith the star;
"Be thyself thine own best place,
Learn of me. cnsphcred in space,
Solitary and afar.
"In my loneness am free
To explore infinity.
Ali the calm and silent night.
Heart aflame with wild desire,
Look to me, quench fire with fire,
Plunge within my liquid light.
"Had / sought some alien sphere,
10th to shine sequestered here"
Saith the star, reproachfully;
al had left, like stars of old,
To one fleeting track of gold
All my crystal purity"
The James Russell Lowell memorial
park is in danger. OF the sS5, 900 needed for
the purchase of the Elmwood estate only
about two-thirds has thus far been sub
scribed. The time of purchase has been
extended to May I, but if the fund is not
made up by that date the trustees Will be
forced to cut up the land into building lots,
and the opportunity to secure Elmwood for
public purposes will have been lost
O o G
THIS CROWDED AGE.-We have
often said in these columns that
the masses of things to be learned is
now so great that we must have the needed
subjects condensed by specialists and CIV
en- to us second hand. The best that most
of us can do is to pick out the vital things
and get the best attainable short treaties
upon them, read them faithfully and be
content. An article on this subject in The
Dial would be well worth quoting in full,
but we can only give a portion herewith:
1.-THE day has long passed when man
could hope to take all knowledge for his
province, and the scholars of towering IN
telectual stature who, from Bacon to
Humboldt, dominated the thought of their
respective epochs, belong TO a hopelessly
vanished race. Herbert Spencer probably
comes as near as anyone now living to
that old time ideal, but the weak places in
his intellectual armor are made evident
enough when tested by the searching
scholarship of the modern specialized type.
Yet men are 10th to give up altogether the
wide prospect of an earlier time. and our
books of condensed science make it posi-
BILE for a scholar of today to learn all that
q Humboldt could have known, and more,
with a far greater economy of effort in
the acquisition.
We have, then, no quarrel with the book
which deals upon a small scale with a
great subject, provided its writer have the
authority and the literary art needful for
the performance of his task. Prof Free
man used to say that the only way to write
a small book was to write big one first
and then condense it, procedure which
he applied with great success to the his
tory of the Norman conquest. Stopford
Brookes small manual of English litera-
ture will occur to many minds as an ad-
mirable example of the proper treatment
of great theme within narrow limits The
literature of the essay affords excellent
illustrations of the same sort of achieve
ment. There are essays by such men as
Walter Pater. John Morley and Freder-
lex Myers which are entirely adequate to
their subjects, and produce the impression
of exhaustive treatment although the
number of their pages is small. This does
not mean that they say all that there is
to say, but rather that, given their limits
they say the most important things in the
most felicitous way possible. To introduce
a metaphor. we may remark that narrow
stream will suffice to carry large volume
of water to the sea if only the channel be
embarked and the current restrained from
spreading aimlessly abroad
PLATFORM SLANG.-The horrible
prevalence of the cheap and vulgar that
one has been hearing from the lecture
platform and the political stump these
last few years, has received many re-
Dukes Of late, and let us hope that it is to
be finally checked. A thoughtful article
in the Critic says, in part
1--WE are of the impression that the in
telligence of the masses of the common
people, so called, who make up the ma
jority of these audiences, has risen con-
siderably in the last few years, that their
reading has begun to tell; and that these
lectures are behind the times, that they
fail to appreciate the change, and that a
more elegant, dignifed and elaborate
treatment of great themes would be
much more successful. In the desperate
bid for an audience, for success in anus
ing the crowds, some of the speakers too
evidently exhibit their anxiety, their feel
Ing after any means of splitting the ears
of the groundlings. They get down too
low; they fail to appreciate that multitudes
now have a higher idea of wit and humor
than an irreverent story, an oath, or
vulgar modification of an OATH
1.-The really great speakers who have
moved masses of men have not reSorted to
these means. Webster and Clay, Phillips
and Beecher maintained the dignity of the
orator, and they were overwhelmingly
successful. Many of our lecturers now
seem to have taken their cue from the
lower class of stump speakers rather than
from the pastmasters of their art; they
seem to be influenced by the fatal sue
cess of one or two notorious speakers who
can always gather a crowd, and who deal
chiefly in slang and vugarisms.
"This sort of thing will not much longer
pay; the head of lecture bureau told me
recently that every year there is less
room for slang on the platform. The pub
lie taste is improving, and the men who
keep aloof from these coarse methods of
bidding for popularity will be in demand"
BIRDS OF VILLAGE AND FIELD, a
bird book for beginners. BY Florence
A. Merriam, author of Birds Through
an Opera Glass; MY Summer in a
Mormon Village and "A-Birding on a
Bronco" Fully illustrated, 12mo, So co.
Houghton, Miff1in & Co. For sale by
Stoll & Thayer.
Our readers hereabouts remember the
charm of "A-Birding on Bronco" vo.-
ume that told the people of Southern Cali
fornia all about their bird neighbors, and