The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-18

Valentines The other four were: From the Book of Myths" From the Green Book of the Bards," Songs From a Northern Garden" and Songs Of the Sea Children"
 The book contains about twenty five of Bliss Carman's choicest poems, one of them. Ballad of the Young Kings Madness" being very beauti- ful and admirers of poetry will joyful ly welcome another volume of the work of living poet who ranks high among our sympathetic interpreters of nature.
 An example of his style in his full rhymed measure is this from the open ing of 'T'he Song of the Four Worlds" Is it northward, little friend?
 And she whispered, What is there?" There are people who are loyal to the
 glory of their past,
 Who hold by hearts tradition, and will
 hold 1t to the last;
 Who would not sell in shame
 The honor of their name,
 Though the world were in the balance and a sword thereon were cast.
 This is also from the new volume:
 THE PLAYERS.
 We are the players of play
 As old as earth,
 Between the wings of night and day, With tears of mirth.
 There is no record of the land
 From whence it came,
 No legend of the playwright's hand,
 No bruited fame
 Of those who for the piece were cast
 Tn that first night,
 When God drew up His curtain vast And there was light
 Before our eyes as we came on
 From age to age,
 Flare up the footlights of the dawn On this round stage.
 In front, unknown, beyond the glare Vague shadows loom:
 And sounds like muttering winds are
 there
 Foreboding doom.
 Yet wistfully we keep the boards;
 And as we mend
 The blundering forgotten words
 Hope to the end
 To hear the sf6rm=beat of applause
 Fill our desire
 When the dark prompter gives pause And we retire.
 "Celebrated Crimes of the Russian Court" by Alexander Dumas: L. c. Page and Company, Boston.
 Of peculiar interest at this time when Russia and things Russian are So in the public eye is this new publi- cation. The sixteen chapters deal with ronances and deeds of Russias nota- bles and ends with chapter on Rus sian corruption and chronological ta- ble of the country's rulers. It contains also portraits of many of the czars and czarinas and other notable characters. From Ivan, the Terrible, q5SS-15S4), with whose doings the book opens, to 1887 to the death of the poet Pushkine, the pages do not lose in interest for moment, Two chapters are devoted to the Siberian convict road, the one as fraveled by the nobles, the other as trayeled by the people, Among the chapters are the romances of the False Demetrius, Peter the Great, the Stre- litz Guard, Cinderella the Czarina of the Boy Czar, Catherine the Great, the Russian Bastile, the Frfgid Neva and others. Probably no book will give a keener insight into Russian ways than the anecdotes the book contains.
 Dumas visited Russia apparently for the one sole purpose of learning as much as he could of the secret history of the court. This was done before the alliance between Russia and France. In 1863 the two countries were recovering from the effects of the Cri- mean campaign, in which the two na- tions had learned something of each other. Russia was rich field for the novelist to explore, and he used what ever he found without any regard as to how the story might read if ever it were translated into Russian. The book is replete with incidents of trea- son, crime and oppression varying only in minor details. The reader may pity, If he does not loathe, the victims of imperial rage. The inherent savagery of the government in the time of Ivan IS SIIUWu ny LAlC u0CEeeu upon bell which had been rung by rebels. "The bell which knelled the alarm was tried. like all connected with the drama, it's upshot more dreadful than the outset It was doomed to constant exile; one of it's ears was knocked off. it was knouted, and lost it's natural rights-that is. it was forbidden to be rung again!''
 Has Russia profited by her past and improved in the meantime?? It did not so appear to Dumas, for he says at the end of his recital of court crimes: "The saddest thing is that wrongs go on without being stigma tized. Russia has no voice of public opinion: that is, no punishment for those whom law does not Aos." The book is intensely interesting ana per haps the more so as the scenes of kor- TOT told of are being more than dupli- cated to-day, even when the Czar him. self terrorized, is holding out reforms of immense value to the Russian peo- pie.
 ttNfrs Alderman rasav" h,, Trena