The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-08-20

am interested to see what will be
the fate in America of n book called
The Letters Which Never Reached
Him" of which Messrs. Z. p. Dutton
az Co. are the publishers. The story was
published originally in a newspaper in
Germany. and later in book form in
that country. where it was run through
90 editions.
The author of 1.-The Letters Which
Never Reached Him prefers to be UNI
known. There is not even a pen name
on the title page; but happen to know
that she is a lady of title, whose hus-
band is a distinguished member of the
German diplomatic corps. She has lived
I'm various countries of the world, and
I suppose that il is on account of her
husbands political position that she
prefers to publish her book anonymous
". The author, while not seeming to
describe. gives admirable snapshots of
picturesque scenes in various countries.
For example, this little bit out of Jap
an:
The tea house girls, who served the
rickshaw coolies with the same grace
full pOliteness as us; the laborers who
waded knee deep in the muddy rice
fields, and during rainy weather, cover
ed themselves with iced mats, whose
sticking out points gave them the APP
pearance of big. busy hedgehogs-they
all seemed like figures out of u well
known picture book. to whom one is
inclined to say: %. yes, that's you, and
you; 1 am pleased to meet you once
more
In another letter she recalls the scene
from the town wall in Pekin:
DO you remember? Far below us the
great town stretched out, all the little
one stored houses of Il uniform gray.
the roofs curved up, with rows of small |
stone lions sitting on their edges. From |
above we could look right into the |
nF q
what we saw there was always the |
same-the same incomprehensible he |
ings who led the identical existence |
which other similar beings have led /
since thousands of years. There was /
always the unchar ging throng of num- |
berless people, who appeared so enig- /
NAUTICAL to our eyes in their monotOn-
GUS similarity, and whose ivory browS |
are like doors shut on worlds into |
which we shall never penetrate Year
after year the same crowd passed !
through the streets, which were filled /
during the months with thick, black,
sticky mud. whilst they disappeared /
during the rest of the year in dense
clouds of gray dust. And never was
the slightest attempt made to change
OF to improve anything, for as it was
so had it ever been. nobody has known
other and better conditions, nobody was
disturbed by them-particularly none of
those who lived behind the reddish
walls and under the yellow glittering
roofs of the imperial town, leading an
existence even more mysterious and
more enigmatical than all the others
Finally, she reached New York,
where she and her party made straight
for the Waldorf-Astoria. Writing on
general terms of Americans the au-
thor says:
LAS the individual American always
has felt himself to be the equal of the
best of any people, and just as he
knows of no limit for his personal en-
terprise, thus America as a nation now
49, l.. --TE IL Id
to obtain all she wants. And what
America wants is the world. Well,
everybody who has the slightest
chance of it wants the world, but the
chances of America are amazingly
good ones. The Americans lookout is
SO favorable because they apply to all
their great sense of the
practical and their Unborn gift of or I
ganization, because they are a nation I
Of independent men, who, taken at an
average, are superior to the Euro ]
peans. Originally they descended from
those who found themselves too much Z
hampered and confined in old Europe,
rom men who were driven by their
owe of independence into new worlds
where their personality could develop
This inherited quality
forms the fundamental trait of the
new race. and it has bred a higher in ,
tiative and sense of personal respon-
sibility than in the old world. The
irst thing which the American learns
s to provide for himself, without rely !
ng on the guidance of Others" y
I understand that the author of J
hese letters not only wrote them in :
German. which is her own language, g
put in English also. The English is c
exceedingly good for a foreigner, but [
,nce in a while there are laDses which /
how that they were not written by S
either an English or an American born t
writer. The social position of the Q
.uthor if her name were known, /
aff Iaf.- fn
think that they will be attracted O
Without the personal element. %)r they z
re interesting on their own account I
nd this seems to be a day when '
tories told in letters have a popular n
iche of their own.-Jeannette L. Gill
Ter in the Critic.