The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-21
NEW EXPLANATIONS.

Philadelphia, make speciality of Popular Hand Books" their series of which is most commendable and de- servedly popular and successful, as great care is taken to make them vehi- cles of useful information for every day wants and entertaining as well. These little hand books are replete with val uable information, presented compact in form and are unequalled in point of merit and cheapness. They are the lat est as well as the best books on the sub
 jects of which they treat. They are
 good paper, handsomely bound in green cloth, with a heavy paper wrapper to
 match. Cloth, each 50 cents; for sale by all leading booksellers.
 Among these publications are the fol- lowing: Love Letters," by Isabelle Graham, containing the etiquette of in- reductions, courtship and proposals, also large number of new and original letters to be used as models for any style of love letter
 Fortune Telling" by Madame Zanto and illustrated by Nina G. Barlow, comprising various methods of telling fortunes by cards, tea and coffee grounds, love charms, pbrenology palnistry, etc, also "Napoleon's $ OraCulum."
 Magic" by Ellis Stanyon, author of Card Tricks" with an introduction by Henry R. Evans, in which are given clear and concise explanations of all the well known Illusions, as well as many new ones, here presented for the first time
 Nursing" by S. Virginia Lewis, Y, $. N., which is practical and very use full treatise giving the fullest direc- tions for the care of the sick in all the simple as well as the more serious ail- ments.
 James Robinson Smith, Yale '9S son of the late James A. Smith of Hartford, is the author of "The Soul at Arms and other Poems," just issued, which is of more than ordinary merit and gives rare promise of future poetic work of high class from his pen. With much approval of its tenor, the following kindly but just estimate of this little work from the Hartford Courant is transferred to our columns: Perhaps no further explanati ton of the title piece and the noble spirit of the book itself is needed than the line on the title page quoted from Plato We are like men on guard and two lines from poem xvii: "O let me be a spirit militant And rout the cowardice of selfish fears"
 That Mir. Smith is an optimist there can be no doubt He is of the number of those whose hearts are stirred by the contemplation of high and heroic things. Yet his is not that facile op timsm which is blind to the worlds as one of the finest of his declares:
 "Too much dwell with sadness by de-
 grees, The great blue heavens have darkened
 with the pain
 And death of everything that lives the Borrowing and the burdened moan of let me purge myself of such disease And wed my hardships to a nobler
 strain I'll fight with heroes on the Trojan plain | Or listen purified to Socrates.''
 It is this optimism which makes him | lble to pluck joy even out of the heart | # pain. There is in it something of that | ofty stOic courage which frees the soul 1 rom the fear of any disaster from without and makes it dread only that | disappointment in ourselves" of l which he writes. Except the sonnet he | las used the simplest verse forms and | me may easily believe Wordsworth to ,e one of his masters The "Ode to the does not seem up to the evel of the best sonnets and a number if the quatrains could have been omit ed without any loss to the volume. That his versifcation is not perfect al- ways will be no surprise to anyone who as learned from experience how hard is to learn to beat ones music out" Yet he has done his best work with the nost difficult form, the sonnet. One of he best of these is VI. whose equal in conception it would not be easy to find
 
 where he writes of the real heroism nd grea tness in the lives cons dered that sometimes flashes ut to view in all it's sublimity making ne feel as did that remnant of the ireek band when they came out into he open and shouted in wild deli ium, The Sea The conception is po- tical and original but the sonnet es- apes that perfection which comes only through complete mastery of expres- ion. The most ambitious of the oems "A Brief Truce" a bit of rama ii three scenes, is also one of the est and maturest pieces of work. Whether or not it partakes of the in uence of Stephen Phillips, it breathes le spirit which is abroad among all the ounger generation both English and merican--a yearniRg back to the sim licity and beauty of dramatic blank erse It will be evident that we seem discern not little promise in MT. lnth's book We need a message of neer and courage like his and we ] nall be glad in the future to have him lake us realize again that, in his own ( ords, "the stars renew ( heir heavenly invitation to be strnos." ( Copies of MT Smith's book can be ob- tined al Judd's and at the Coop price