The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-09-20

Mr. Stanley Waterloo is nothing II
not independent in the choice of his
heroes. His STORY of Alb" and Christ
mas 100000 B. c." show his magma
which his imagination unites. the. sci
entifie spirit is possibly explained by
the fact that Darwin. Huxley and
Tyndal were in the fplness of their pro-
duction of notable works about the time
Mr. Waterloo's mind was the tabula
rasa (to use John Locke's phrase) Oh a
college students.
In this new story of his the scient1hc
qualities are not so notably present as
in some of it's predecessors, and the
time is nOw-of the last half century
His hero, or anti-hero, is an adVen-
turer playing minor sort of game, an
American boy of good parentage whose
willfulness precipitates him to the un-
hallowed confines of sailors boarding
houses. where he meets by like games
the inmates and their tricks.
The book is the interests of life OF
such a young man told with his spirit
and with the effluvia of the slums in
the air But the very human nature is
behind it that is behind the knights
and duchesses and millionaires of the
common, swagger, duelling tale. Only
in this book they gamble in sixteenth
parts of a ticket of the Havana lottery,
while the duchesses and lords go to
Monte Carlo and stake thousands. and
the millionaires break the constitution
of the state of New York and gamble III
sort is in it's yachts; the other is u
common seaman, deserving from one
ratty brig to another, in irons, maui
teal tough and keeper of the tradition
of the sailor on land.
Such books show US how much Eu-
man nature we have in common with
rogues, and those which Americans are
unfortunately beginning to call the
lowest classes,''I say 'unfortune tely"
for in this country We should have no
classes if we expect our democratic
institutions to persist. Moreover no one
of US. either here or in any land, knows
how far the check of relatives. conven-
tional friends, conventional environ
ment have acted to keep us in the
straighter path. Many of us go through
life with very misty ideas of right and
wrong-most of us, and the number is
not made no of the unsuccessful or the
poor in purse by a very large quota
But this anti-hero of a strange caSeer
is not always before the mast He
grows to be an officer during the civil
war, and becomes a prisoner of the con-
federaey- He is in Charleston and Rich
@mond and New York T. and at Fort
Fisher. and he does not spare criticisms
of the conduct of affairs at important
junctures. This matter is rather strik-
ing after the rivers of buncomb from
less vigorous writer's of those days and
events.
Through all the book is air of the sea
and dashing of waves, and the boiling
of the surf in the sands. The author
must have Nautical experience, and love
of the great salt thoroughfare Of ali
peoples in all ages.
And this brings us to the method with
which this book is written. In reading
it 1 was reminded of a saying of a
novelist who has lately left US, Mr..
Frank Stockton. Upon the lower shelves
of a book case in his work-room he
had some five years ago, arranged the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and upon the
tiers above had put the many novels
h11 f,er
position seemed to me to make I.
strange medley. and I remarked upon it
when 1 was at his house Il put it So
purposely," Mr.. Stockton answered INV
stories are founded upon the Britain
MICA" A little further on he said that
for the basis of his ta1es-and their
topsy-turviness always has a sane, ra-
rlonal natural law at bottom-he stud
led the admirably scientific exnositions
of the ninth edition of the Britannica
This remark of Mr. Stockton came to
me while was reading 1.-The Story of
Strange Career" 1t seemed by the de-
tail and minutae of the description that
the author must have seen by more
than the eye of the mind much that he
relates; nevertheless now and then there
was an 1ntrusiveness ofcommercial geog-
raphy-in DESCRIPTIONS of the produce
tons of exports and of harbors for ex-
ample-and one felt as if some such
useful book had been at the elbow of
the writer. Moreover a knowish boy A
rogue by nature, picaroon by necessi-
tous evolution. does not commonly take
such stock of the lands to which he
wanders,-even so superior picaroon
as the one of this career.
And this last matter about the detail
and minutae of description brings us
still further to consider the method of
the author in this little tale 1t is the
method which to my mind is associated
with the chiefest production of a chief
writer in English of picturesque tales
1t is the method of Daniel Defoe-of
Robinson Crusoe." 'Crusoe" was very
similar in type to the youth of the
strange career'-both are hayward
wilful. wandering. But it is the manner
OF the bcok-the carefully told incident
introducing matter which in no way
pears upon the general plan, but which
Hills in and out and gives form and re-
atty and vraisemblance to the MARIA
tive-it is that that I mean. Defoe
could describe a West India hurricane
and Crusoe's shipwreck and lonely. is
land at the mouth of the Orinoco river
with such strength that the occurrence
and place were before YOU And yet
De1oe was never nearer than England TO
the t,r1noco. But with that marvellous
imagination in details which he possess
ed, he was able to make vivid condi-
tons wholly unlike what he knew He
lived and struggled in the busy London
OF Anne's time: he perfectly deoicted
the daily round of solitary life ON the
tropical island.
l speak in some detail of this method
Tor 1t seems the method of all writer's of
picturesque literature, of all detailers of
the adventures of rogues vagabonds
and thieves. 1 am not aware that this
fact has ever been noted 1t was the
method of Defoe in -Roxana." 1.-THE
Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll
Flanders" Colonel Jack" 1t was the
method of Fielding in 1.-The History of
Jonathan Wild" It fell in with Dick
ems lines in 'sOliver Twist" In the old
French story of 'Gil Bias" we flid 1T.
4 is in many other stories of rogues,
indeed recall an old Greek tale thar
has it to degree. 1t is not that the
eame method is not sometimes used