The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1904-03-31
MEN analMAaYERS IN
THE F0RE. she WORLD
MONIES

depict human character IN its frailty
and its strength, and failure, than this
tsilor's block or that jointed automa-
ton.
IF Miss Yonge and her generation
avoided the realities of life our authors
Of to-day emphasize them in a quite
unnecessary manner, and the one pic
ture is fully more untrue than the
other One can only rub ones eyes
and wonder il this is the twentieth CEN
fury. Is fiction deteriorating? 1t be-
gan with Tom JONES' let us say. Are
we never to extricate ourselves from
the net of mid-Victorian anti-macassars
and prudery? We have no master
pieces to place beside 'Esmond'-
which, by the way, was highly i'm
proper; and 'Pickwick,' which treated
drunkenness much too lightly-but
the level OF English fiction to-day is
far higher, and. on the whole, 1t is
healthier than fifty years ago.
Two Of the new books of the spring
season relate to Matthew Arnold and
his influence in letters, thus indicat-
ing the belief of experienced publish
ers that Arnolds influence is not only
still potent, but is likely to grow with
the increase of literary culture. Mat
thew Arnold and His Relation to the
Thought of Our Time; An Apprecia-
ton and a Criticism" was written by
William Harbutt Dawson, who asserts
that the cult of Matthew Arnold" is
growing and must grow. This cult,
Mr. Dawson explains, is the cult of
''idealism,' using that word to indi-
cate "the pursuit of perfection as the
worthiest working principle of life. -
The book is in three parts, entitled
Culture" Religion and Politics"
and there are chapters on Arnold
Philosophy of Life ''Hellenism and
Hebraism," 'The Three Estates, -
THE Critic of Dogma" 1.-The State and
the Church." The Science of Govern
ment' and The Party SYSTEM" Mr..
Dawson holds that than Matthew
Arnold no man more ardently preach
ed the duty Of opening the mind TO
the free play of ideas as the first step
to clear and independent thought, and
no man justified the precept more
completely in himself" G. w. E. Rus
volume of a new series of Literary
Lives" edited by DR.. Robinson Nicoll.
Mr.. Russell edited two volumes of
Arnold's letters for publication in
1895. His new book is not nearly so
long or so formidable in appearance
as Mr.. Dawson's. 1t is divided into six
chapters. 1t ought to serve admir-
ably as an introduction to the sys-
tematic reading of Arnold.
While the public has grown thorough
ly tired of the Carlyle Froude dispute,
and while ii is undoubtedly true that
Carlyle himself is not read as he was
generation ago, it would be exceed
ineiy rash to assume that the reading
world has lost interest in the philos-
opher of Chelsea. A new volume of
his letters. dating from 1886, where the
second volume of the correspondence
edited by Professor Charles Eliot Nor
ton ends. is about TO be published by
John Lane, and will be a literary event
of moment. The letters are edited by
Alexander Carlyle, and bring the cor
respondence up TO Carlyle's death in
1881. Here is an amusing example from
these new letters of Carlyle's, one to
his brother John about a new hat:
Why do 1 babble all these things to
a judicious doctor? Let me add, how
ever, that 1 have got my white hatl
A most noble broad-brim; price IS Cd;
of great comfort to me, and this not
by the brim alone, / find, but also by
the size, which lets in the air about
me and prevents the intrusion of head
ache. I find my last three or four hats
have been far too little. Jane shrieked,
nay, almost literally graf Cwept) when
she first saw me in such headgear
However, 1 persisted (resolute against
headache), and she now says 1 do very
well in 1t. Cockneydom happily does
not seem to mind me at all, tho prob
ably there is not such another beaver
within the four parts of London"
Rudyard Kipling's most famous and
Characteristic sentence, But that is
another story" has now been traced
to Sterne's ''Tristram Shandy," and all
the writer's who have found it impos-
sible to resist the temptation to pla-
giarize will no doubt rejoice 1t is hard
TO say just how much Of the fascina-
ton of Mr.. Kipling's tales must be at
tributed precisely to those "other stor-
ies"-the glimpses he gives us of a
whole world of glamour which he might
reveal If he chose. The cynical may
call il "bluff"-despite Mr.. Chamber
lain's aversion to the word and thing
but it really is legitimate part of
Kipling's trade The force of literature
depends as much upon what is sug-
gested as upon what is revealed, and
IN the matter of stimulating hints the
author of plain Tales From the Hills"
is almost unrivaled. Kim" for in
stance, is throughout a suggestion Of
adventures that are about to happen,
but are always postponed.
Richard Whiteing's THE Yellow
Van" is listed among the books in
steady and popular demand at public
libraries and in the book stores and
the authors views on the province of
the novel take on fresh interest. At
a recent English literary club dinner
Mr.. Whiteing is quoted as having said