The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-25

the readiness of Webster" We are giv.
 en a fine survey in this review express sive of the idea of success. as illustrated in the life and character of men a de- cade past. Indeed. 1t was a very sane vice of the distinctness in success which was maintained by the aristocracies of our towns and cities up to a recent pe- riod; and though the influence of this aristocracy, the same standards were ac- cepted by all. We are gratified that Mir. Bellamy has this to say of a worthy ex- ample: Enough to live on in simplicity. was all this old aristocrat demanded, but he could not do without the distinction of following 1t to the end, with unwast- ing impetuosity, the ideals of his youth. ' Certain ideals of excellence, valued above wealth. is illustrated in such lives as Presidents Eliot and Harper; as Thomas Edison. as Prof Lanfley. Steinmetz and Nicholson: as the Rev. Dr. Rainsford: as
 Mir. St. Clair McElway. MT. McElway Is this way epitomized: His vocation in life is the writing of editorials. and his recommendations have been the weary meas | ured ones that go to brains that can be
 hired. But his culture is broad and in- | fluential: his custom and converse ton
 are of the finest American caste; wher- ever he goes his personality is imposing and dominant. Mir. McElway's success presents a distinction and dignity worth
 any ambitious young mans emulation" Prof. LeConte on Agassiz.-"The Tramp contains a contribution Letters and Life" being a review of the autobiogra-
 phy of Layard and LeConte. We append LeConte's view of his teacher Agassiz
 There are two types of great men; those who are great by reason of the quantity and importance of their work, but who
 when one comes in contact with them and measures them Intellectually, seem of ordinary stature-men whose work Is greater than themselves; and on the oth- CT hand. those ''who grow greater as they are approached-men who are greater than all their visible results"
 George Moore in Lippincott's.-'The second of a new series of confessions or young man, is Mir Moore's explanation of the "Avowals'' running in Lippin- cott's. In the first "avowaf' he declared that there was no fine English prose- as compared with Balsac and Turgenieff
 He says that their tales came out Of as fine mental substance as the poems or Wadsworth and Shelley. This literary
 inquest. as he calls it--is both interest ing and amusing, and as usual with
 Moore. searching. He eays in the later confession that Goethe was an Olympian prig-that we are not Olympians. and are
 
 is, nothing in literary history more in- l teresting than the inability of one man Of genius to understand another. He re- calls that Weber misunderstood Beethov- en. do not know that he described Bethoven's melodies as trivial. but many contemporary critics did. and weber, no doubt. shared the prevailing feeling. The
 charge of triviality is the last that we should prefer against Bethoven as well
 might be uteered against Shakespeare
 himself. Yet Beethoven's contemporaries were great men. and to appreciate their mistakes we have to remember how ears
 filled with Mozart's ample melodies would hear the court theme which starts the first movement in the "C Minor sym
 phony." Beethoven sought nature mo- lives in the Pastoral Symphony" and his contemporaries mistook naturalness
 for triviliality.
 Dr. Wilson on the Influence of Slavery We must add paragraph quoted in ne Forum by Horwill. which occurs In tnls paper on "Literature; the making ana re-
 making of nations" "The South, she hao
 men of leisure. because she had slaves; ond nowhere else In the country was there a ruling class like hers Where men are masters, they are most hkeiy to he statesmen to have an outlook upon affairs and an instinct and habit or ieau,
 ership. Privilege and undisputed sociaI
 eminence beget in them a pride whlcn IS
 not wholly private, pride which maKes
 of them a planning and governing or
 der. It was this advantage of always
 knowing her leaders and in keeping them
 tbus in a school of privilege and author
 ity. that had given the South from the
 first. her marked pre-eminence in af- airs. Her statesmen had the nation in
 the era of the Revolution. The Union
 seemed largely of her making.
 Aron Nosrrah