The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-10-14
Books and Authors
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. American Men OF
Letters Series. BY George E. Woodberry. Co.
l ln1 College, ea Boston and New York;
Cambridge. S1.1O net.
If, as Hamilton Wright Mabie says,
greatness Of all kinds involves loneli-
ness,'' and "our souls are greater than our
vocabularies, and our deeds, he might
have added--it is not difficult to see how
difficult the task of the biographer is.
Though daily associated with great man.
or with one who is not great, one seldom
knows the character of the. one with
whom he associates. He sees actions,
hears words. and then draws his own In
ferences of the hidden springs in which
deed and word originated; but these In
ferences may be far from the truth. The
biographer's duty, therefore, Is to take
those acts, those pieces or finished WORK,
those expressions Of thought feeling or
purpose, which seem best to portray the
character and those experiences which let
the light in upon the soul. and piece them
together in such a way as to give some
idea Of the man of whom they were the
imperfect expression or partial dis
closure This, of course, Is not all, but 1t
is a large part of the biographers
work. And this is what one familiar with
the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne would
saw had been done by George e. Wood
berry in the latest addition to the Amerl-
can Men of Letters series. He has plct-
ured such a man as one feels would mt
the author ship Of those works, and that
is all that one stranger to Hawthorne
personally and one OF oliierehI lhnS
| can well say.
| In charm of literary style as well as IN
| sympathetic handling Of his subject
| Woodbury. has done a work eXceptlonal
| and noteworthy. He has produced mere
| a biography which it may be predicted,
| will take permanent place both as blog-
| ra phv and as literature. Like the other
books in the American Men of Letters
| series to which it belongs the Life OF
| Hawthorne deals primarily with Haw-
| thorne as a writer and 1t is marked by
| the critical skill and acumen which have
made Professor Woodberry's Life of Poe,
in the same series, an invaluable book.
THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESARS. BY Reg
inald Wright Kaufman. New York: D. APP
pleton & Co.
| If you owe a debt, pay It,; II 1t IS
debt to the ate-Caecar-incurred by
| violation of the law, pay it by accepting
| the penalty Of the law, and begin lie over
again. Such course OF reasoning as
that, seconded by man supposed 10 De
| wise, got John Haig into a life OF trouble.
| The author tells his readers that Ha1g
| was a Young man of high ideals, far form
! being a criminal in disposition, ana tnat
he might easily have evaded the harsh
penalty of ten years at hard labor 1or
| trivial embezzlement committed in the
thoughtlessness of youth in perfectly
proper way. That being the case Haig
might have become useful and success
| full member Of society and might have
given ten of the best years of his life
to society, thereby expiating his crime far
more worthily than by going to prison for
| ten years to come out at the end to be-
| gin the unequal battle with the stigma OF
! crime as an obstacle. ~
The flimsiness of the ground on which
the story is built is characteristic of the
entire story, plot and incidents and char
| acters. Yet there is a saving salt OF In
terest in the troubles that pursue Haig.
| This may be faint praise with it's conse-
ouent damring. But If the reading pub
lie, falling to read 1.-THE Things That Are
Caesars, '.gets nothing worse in it's place,
| 1T will have little trouble in finding much
! that is better