The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-04-14
NEW BOOKS
MESSAGE AND MELODY. BY Richard Burton.
Boston: Lothrop Publishing company. Price

MESSAGE AND MELODY. BY Richard Burton.
Boston: Lothrop Publishing company. Price
81.
Some Of the poems appearing in this
fourth volume of DR.. Buttons fine verse
have already attracted wide attention
since they appeared in the periodicals.
Noticeable among these is the swinging
rhy thin of his Song of the Unsuccessful, -
with it final emphatic and imploring line:
God give us another chance!' Mr.. Bur
ton is an artist in words. In the little
poem, 1.-The Deserted School," the picture
is realistic and it calls up memories Of
playground tumult and the possible life
trend of the youths of the elder day,
whom the old schoolhouse knows no more:
1 people all the playground up and down
With rushing forms and sound of laughter
I watch the light Of evening like crown
Upon the walls till pales the western sky.
l wonder how those sturdy limbs have Jared
That since have wandered far as east and west;
l wonder who from sorrows have been spared,
l strive to read the hearts that have been
blest.
There arc little poems which are master
strokes of the artists colors, as, 1.-The
Wind-Broom, Star Ships" sound in
Silence 'Sea Moods.'' Mr.. Burton's sim
plicity of style never degenerates into triv-
iality. His verse is manly and rings true
EXITS AND ENTRANCES. BOOK OF, Es.
SAYS AND SKETCHES. BY Charles Warren
Stoddard, author of South Sea ldylls." Bos.
ton: The Lothrop Publishing company. Price,
SIPS.
This volume embodies some of the
choicest of Mr.. Stoddards literary prod
uct. In his always charming way he
gives his personal "reminiscences of Rob
ert Louis Stevenson, George Eliot, Bret
Harte, Charles Kingsley, Mark Twain and
others. One Of the finest sketches in the
volume relates to his visit to Anne Hath
away's cottage at Shottery, a mile from
-Stratford, where, as Mr.. Stoddard says
''the flower Of Wills glorious youth was
perfected, and whittier, let us trust, hi
oft repaired III reverie and to contem
plate in that summer garden the mellow
ing harvest of his later years. There i:
keen humor in THE Strolling Player II
Stratford," and a pleasant memory. Thu
sketch of Robert Louis Stevenson is de
| lightful reading. His was a superior
organization" says Mr.. Stoddard. tina
seems never to, have been tainted will
| things common or unclean; one more
| likely to be revolted than appealed to b,
| carnality~i in any form. A man unfleshl,
| to the verge of ema relation, and in thi
| connection, am not unmindful of a mar
ket in f1eshpots not beneath the considera
ton of sanctimonious spectators; bu
here was a man whose sympathies -wer,
literary and artistic; whose intimacies
were born and bred above the ears.
| The sketch of George Eliot is fine
Speaking of her before George Lewe.
died. Mr.. Stoddard says: with her i
seemed as if the tides had all come in
as if she had weathered the ultimate
| storm: as if the circumstance and no
desire had swept her apart from her kline
and left her isolated, the unrivaled mis-
tress of all passionless experience" TIL
| London sketches and within Fou
Walls make many bright pages in tn
| volume