The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-09
NATHAN HASK ELI DOLE.
Ills Tribute to the New Work by Miss PembertOn, Niece of the Late Confed- erAte General Pembe rtOn.

 Pemberton, Niece of the Late Confed. crate General Pemberton.
 Nathan Haskell Dole has an appreci-
 ative and luminous tribute of the new
 book Stephen Black" (published by
 George w. Jacobs & Co.,, Philadelphia, in the Boston Evening Transcript. It Is very happily headed "A New Novel with Purpose" and gives well-meri- ted tribute to a book of exceptional
 strength and power. It Is as follows:
 May I be allowed a few lines space
 in your valuable paper to call the at
 tention of those interested, first in good storles secondly, in the educational
 problems of the south, and thirdly, in the settlement of the great race difficult
 ty, to new novel by comparatively
 new writer, issued by new publishing
 house.
 If Stephen the Black were merely a good novel I should not feel justified in
 asking this unusual privilege; but it is something more. The author Miss Car oline H, Pemberton of Philadelphia is niece of the late Confederate General
 Pemberton, the defender of Vicksburg
 She has visited the Black Belt, learned something, and she pictures the situa- ton as it is. The story is not long only 2S2 small pages-but it has in it the inevltableness of great art; there is not false note in it from beginning to end. It has humor; the scenes in the colored church are rich in genuine hu- mor, just tlnged, as all humor should be, with the iridescent hue of pathos; but ,1NE tr. ;r, ;, f r.. and appeals to the highest instincts of the reader. One hint at the possibili- ties of the motive may be given: Stephen the Black is of mixed ancestry, as Miss Pembertcn expresses it. The white blood was pure, clear Anglo Saxon current bearing the virtues and vices of a Revolutionary hero a Mary land judge and North Carolina plant CT. In mind, temperament and sensibility he is the sum total of his white ancestors, but he Is white man shut up in black skin" The heroine, on the ether hand ''outwardly is white woman, but inwardly the fabric of her nature is woven of African char acteristics; her clinging tenderness, her devoted faith, her poetic dreaminess are
  ancestors" A third character of equal importance is the son of southern planter an impetuous, wilful sensual man, not altogether bad, with generous qualities, and thoroughly determined to make Theresa his housekeeper-with all that that means; but Stephen saves her by sudden enforced marriage. Steph- en is the graduate of sectarian school. bent on raising his people. He goes to the Black Belt, and the struggle he has is graphically told-told with humor, intensity. Indeed, the whole book is tremendously intense, and the denouement equals anything in Uncle Toms Cabin" One forgets it is a novel "burdened with a moral pur pose" which, as the author says in a private note, Ifs the thing the literary people despise''
 If the moral purpose' is that of help ing sixty millions of people to under stand the conditions that weigh on the lives of ten millions; if the moral pur- pose is that of raising the arms of such men as Booker T. Washington; If the moral purpose is that of bringing the light of common sense to the treat ment of disease, the chief danger of which lies in shutting our eyes to it; then the moral purpose which Miss Pemberton never breaches, but only H. lustrates would lift into vital influence a story thousand times less interest ing, beautiful and dramatic I repeat, stephen the Black" Is not of great pro- portions, it can be read at sitting; 1t
 nj cl, nf fine style, it is almost austerely concise; yet there are pictures which glow with the beauty of a SoutherIl landscape, and the narrative works up from climax to- climax to its sudden and unexpected ending, with a skill worthy of all praise. The passions of race hatred boiling into mob violence the passions of overmas- eringsex-treated with a noble power, l vesta sanctity-the passions ot the porn leader of men blocked and then ,verf1owing all bounds in their splendid put chastened God-directed forcefui- ness. bound to save and lift and carry ,way the obstacles of ignorance and | prejudice and century-old degradation | md stolidity-are portrayed in this wonderful little story. It ought to go | rom nH1u tU IdHu i'dNit iie'i b'f ,as done with different purpose. And | IS it has the misfortune to appear with | he imprint of new and comparatively | unknown house, l crave the privilege of | hus proclaiming its merits hoping that | hose that are moved to get 1t and read | t will feel part of the glow of enthu- ,asm which moves me, and will not be hecked by what a cooler critic would all my extravaganza. Even if l exag- ,erate It's merits as a story no words ould say could possibly exaggerate its ,eneficent puropse-the beneficent pur- ,ose that makes Booker Washington he prophet of his people, the esteemed dviser standing between that con- rented races. The purpose of both he man and the book--is to educate 10th races. Education is not to fill lack brains with Latin and Greek. but yise leadership is to educate, to lead ut from their degradation poor whites nd poor blacks and make mutually elpful the eternally intertwined forces hat have for nearly three centuries 1ade our fair southern land their thea er and battlefield.