The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-04-09
BOOKS ON LITERATURE.

Three Studies in Literature. By
Lewis e. Gates. Macmillan Company,
New York.
Literary Likings By Richard Burt
on. Copeland e. Day Boston.
Prof. Gates has done well to recall
from their fugitive existence and col
lect under covers these three extreme
ly brilliant and searching essays on
Francis Jeffrey" Newman as a
Prose- Writer and Matthew Arnold"
Not only the student of English Iitera-
ture, but also the general reader who
has come under the spell of the two
last mentioned men, or who has felt
his curiosity piqued by the forgotten
magnitude of Jeffrey's fame, will owe
debt of gratitude to the assistant
professor of English in Harvard Uni
versity for the finely Illuminating and
analytical quality of these essays.
The essay on Newman as Prose-
Writer" is, perhaps, the best of the
three In it Prof. Gates traces New
mans imaginative and emotional kim
ship to the Romanticists and his rhet
orical debt to De Quincy. He con-
siders the charges of insincerity and of
systematically doctoring truth" that
were brought against Newman, and
remarks: Sympathetic and patient
readers of Newman can hardly doubt
his essential mental integrity or his
courage and readiness to be frank,
even in those passages or those works
where the subtlest shades of truth or
the desire to avoid clashing needlessly
on prejudice, or the wish to win IA
yorable hearing, takes the author most
indirectly and tortuousiy towards his
end"
Arnold. Prof. Gates calls among the
most sacrlhcingly laborious men
Of his time" Elsewhere he character
ICES him as the special advocate or
conventionality. In concluding this
delightful appreciation OF the author OF
couture and Anarchy" he says: Be
conse of this faith of his in sublimated
worldly wisdom, Arnold, unlike New
man. is in sympathy with the Zeitgeist
Of a democratic age. And. indeed, here
seams TO rest ArnOld's really most per-
manent claim to gratitude and honor.
There is a sparkle, an acuteness, and
at the same time, a delicacy in Prof.
Gates diction which the reader will
miss in Mr.. Burton's more intimate and
ioieureIv. and at the same time more
roTnIllent and comprehensive volume.
NJ. burton is sometimes hard to read
to one self. so full of surprises are his
Sentences, and he would be hazardous
Z ia atteTlOt in pUDlc, Wtllle 1Ip4.
C.tes' sentences flow from the tip Of his
/ nen as shining and regular and perfect
rs so many dew drops from the point Of
| a blade of grass.
FROM Robert Louis stevenson, Mr..
| rurton rambles through The Demo-
| cra+ic and Aristocratic in Literature
| ..I}ioernson. Daudet. James Ga study in
! the literary time spiriD,' to Ideals IN
| american literature, Renaissance
/ njct,Ires in Browning's poetry to
Which commend med and "Old Eng
I;eb noetrv." and so by easy stages TO
"American English and Literature
fo,, children" which conclude the
t,n1ur7e One one two sentences from
the ESSAY on Stevenson must be made to
/ serve AS a sample Of the fine literary
/ aavor the subtle discrimination oil TINS
i bool- of Stevenson's relation TO nc
tion the author says: He looked upon
life (for the purpose of fiction) not only
nc stage for high hearted actlon, Dul
&C sort of continuous performance
fuII of change. hustle, and indehnlte
| onortunities of amusement
Stevenson's tales offer a kind OF COM
mon meeting ground for readers Oh op-
nosinv minds and creeds. The lovers o.
roy,7ance hail them gleefully. as a mat
te, of course. believers in realism yield
eucb fiction grudging approval
since. after all. they belong to man
Lind and enjoy what is enjoyable MhlIe
they who sickle for style are leu 30