The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1902-12-23
WOODROW WILSON'S HISTORY
OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Amusing Story Of Thomas Dixon. DR.. kingsbury on
THaCkeray, MaCaulay, Tennyson. and Brown
ing. More North Carolina Books.

posed his view upon the English reading
world. which does not find Itself attract
Cd BY the refutation. Doubtless Macau-
lay was a partisan. doubtless he vas a
publicist. wen a politician. rather than
an artist. But one does not like to hear
men with not a hundrcdth part either OF
his or his equipment sheer
ing at him"
For some months l nave felt like writ
ing several columns on Macaulay. filling
two CT three numbers. He is now. and
has been since 1919. one OF my chief
favorites. l can read him when / can
scarcely read any other author. l wish
to write of him and the greatest genius
of the American continent-E Edgar 4.
Poe. and at length.
The late Lord Acton owned an enorm-
Gus library-the greatest private library
IN all the world. But he was not the
greatest man and not the greatest
scholar. He left il all TO Hon. John
Morley, one of the foremost living liter
airy men OF Great Britain. It is said 10
contain 10000 volumes. and would fill
seven shelves 1000 feet long-or -four
rooms measuring fifty feet long by TWEEN
ty wide. The question Is asked in Eng
land, what will Mr.. Morley do with it?
He may give it to one of the great Uni
versities. Mr.. Morley is OF middle age.
or even Older, and he can not possibly
have much use for it.
~ History of the American People
by Woodrow Wilson, a Nirginian. but
now president of Princeton University.
is forging ahead in popularity. 1t grows
steadily in favor in the North and in
England. 1t is in five volumes. l have
seen no review of it as yet. 1t is stated
that it is the first attempt to give a
single complete narrative history Of the
United States in existence today. 1t be-
gins at the beginning and ends with
Teddy Roosevelt, the Artful Dodgcr. 1t
is eXcellently printed by Harper x
Brothers,. A notice of it, probably fur
nished by the publishers, says that re
mote historical archives and long-for-
gotten government records were search
ed for material, yet the final presentation
is in an easy, flowing style which clothes
hard facts with a romantic atmosphere"
Lik all other publications of interest
and value of the last five or six years,
it is of high price and practically cuts
off nine-tenths of the genuine bookmen
u lIt SouhlI y IL 10 Ti'-oO x ~ ~
set. Books not reprints of the old books
are extremity high.
l find a funny paragraph relative to
my friend. Thomas Dixon, Jr.. the brill
liant North Carolina novelist, and the
most gifted of all American living lee
turers. He has a son that promises TO
follow on the clever lines of the father.
He has inherited evidently some of the
brightness and point of his rarely gifted
father. The story runs:
'"The other day the boy asked Mr..
Dixon for a goat, to which the father re-
piled: That is one combination that
positively refuse to have on this farm
YOU and a goat Mr.. Dixon went away
to lecture. and on his return his son said
to him Papa, why have you given up
preaching and given all your time TO
lecturing?' i am after the almighty
dollar said Mr.. Dixon. And the boy an
swered, Yes, more after the dollar than
the Almighty"
People who attentively watch the trend
of politics., the growth of the enormous
money power, the steady departures from
the original Constitution and the silent,
mysterious working of usurpation by
Congress-, will be seen to be interested
in a recent work of rare force, entitled
Our Benevolent Feudalism. 1t is by
w. J. Client, and even some Northern
Republican papers have written more 1T
Endorsement than in condemnation OF It's
courage and vigor. | see that the great
est writer perhaps now living of English
birth, Prof. Goodwin Smith, has written
ir praise and appreciation of this timely
work. He holds that the author can
not be contradicted when he asserts thai
3Io r,,Iti- n,jJJjnnoira in a Wpa1th-WOr-
shipping age has everything pretty mucf
in his powed-legislatures, judiciaries
| churches, universities, and perhaps
worst of all, the press. What is
behind the press is about the most seri-
Gus question of the day"
People who are of cultivated taste, anc
have a genuine appreciation OF and IN
sight into poetic composition, and nav
carefully studied the poetry OF the VIC
torian Era, have formed their udSmen
as to the two great opponents in this de
partment of production. Since the tim
of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shell
ley and Keats, the two masters nav
been TennysOn and Robert Browning
Probably the very best critic IN pOetr,
of the last quarter OF a century !
Stopford Brooke, an Engllsnman OF let
ters. Of great insight, Of many qualitie
as an author, master of a highly cultl
waited style. He has written impOrtan
books on Milton, Tennyoon and Brown
ing. Tho last is hut recectly published
It is q mo.- finished production, and 2
commanding interest. Its insight
most acute. He does not place Brown
ing first like his selected few admirer