Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-07

Clure, Phillips Il Co. washington.
Woodward 6, Lothrop.
Every country boy now toiling IN the
city, every man with the faintest memory
of the days of his youth on the farm.
should rise up and call blessed this busy
New Yorker who has found time to tell
his tales of the olden time in his simple,
beautiful and amusing style. Mr.. Wood
is beyond peradventure from the back
districts" He has attended the old red
school house and studied the three rig
under the shadow of the birch rod He
has sneaked off to view the circus come
in" despite the threat of parental chastise-
ment. He has scurried away to the old
swimming hole and lied like a gentleman
to account for a wet head and a Knot
crumpled shirt. He has tramped joyously
from booth to booth at the county fair and
chewed deliciously on the white candy that
is an institutional feature of those as
semblages. He has stood agape at the tour
nament Of the firemen and wondered if he
would ever grow up to wear one OF those
entrancingly beautiful helmets. He has sat
squrmngly on the anxious bench at meet
in and calculated on the torments of the
hereafter and compared them with the
terrors of the present. He has run the
gamut OF boyhood experiences down on the
farm, and now he tells of II all in his quaint
manner and with the invaluable aid of
worried humanity that cannot be repaid.
Such books as these do good. They pre-
vent the mind from varying too fixedy
In the city channels They keep sweet the
memories of a period of life and condi-
lions that cannot be restored. And through
all these chapters there runs sturdy spirit
OF manliness and optimism that breathes
the atmosphere of kindness and whole
some living. There is something to sigh
over In these pages, if one has ever been
a boy in the country, and plenty to laugh
about, whatever the fact of origin.
A BOOK OF GID ENGLISH LOVE
SONGS. With an introduction by Ham,
ilton Wright Mabie and an accompani-
ment of decorative drawings by
George Wharton Edwards. New York:
The Macmillan Company Washing
ton: Brentano'S.
This exquisite volume makes three dis
ttnct appeals to all who examine It, an ar
tistic appeal by reason of Mr. Edwards
charming and harmonious decorations and
designs; sentimental appeal, through the
love songs themselves culIed with care
from the best in the wide range of English
poetry, and an intellectual appeal through
Mr., Mabie's scholarly and appreciative es-
say which serves as an introduction, trac-
ing the tendencies of the English poets to
express themselves in song After a con-
sideration of the lyric and the ballad Mr.
Mabie says:
The Tyre is the universal instrument its
supreme masters have been few, but all
the world knows and loves it, because more
intimate ly than any other instrument It
gives voice to the sorrows and joys of life
The national hymns which have touched
the sources of patriotic emotion from the
days of Tyrtaeus to those of Korner and
Of the Watch on the Rhine; the odes
which have celebrated great occasions or
given a noble setting TO commanding
thoughts; the love songs of the troubadour
the trouviere the ninniesinger: the songs
of nature; the hymns of praise; the eIegies
from Bion to Matthew Arnold; the sonnets;
the vast volume of songs which children
learn and which return to their elders in
quiet hours and solitary places-all these
forms of verse indicate the range of the
Lyric and remind us that it is closer to us
and means more to most men, day by day,
than any other form of poetry. To English
readers it recalls the greatest names and
the most ravishing verse in our literature;
It reminds one of Shakespeare, Milton, Her
rick, Carew, Crashaw, Burns, Keats, Shell
ley, Wordsworth, Tennyson."
pINEY PERKINS, JUST BOY. BY Cap
tain Harold Hammond U.S.A. Illus
trated by George Narian. New York:
The Century Company.
Lads who read Captain Harold Ham
mond's story OF PIT key Perkins: Just
Boy" may gain ideas for new FRANKS; but
they will make acquaintance with whole
some and genuine boy boy overlooking
with fun and mischief yet never forgetting
nor transgressing certain sturdy ideas of
honor, which counted anything mean or
dishonest impossible. Pinkeys adventures
are just those of a healthy, happy, lively
boy of village environment; but the telling
Is evidently the work of q man who has
not travelled far, in heart, from his own
youthful days-one reason, perhaps, why
fathers and big brothers will chuckle over
Ptnkey and keep reading, once they
pick the book up.
LIFE ILLUMINED; BY Some of the Lead
ing Lights OF Literature BY Ella
Damn Moore. New York and Washing
ton: The Neale Publishing Company
Mrs. Moore, who is well known in Wash
ington. where she has long made her home,
has spent a good many years in the COM
pilation OF the quotations from the best ma
terials in the literature of the world from
which she has fashioned this admirable
work Her collections were begun solely for
her own enjoyment and mental refresh
ment and persistent habit resulted which
gave her a vast volume of extracts. Final
ly she found that the papers thus accumu-
lated were becoming so defaced by frequent
reference that there was danger of the
loss of her treasured collection, and then
the thought born to put the extracts
INTO the form OF q DOCK. Sne IeIl an IN
spiration to arrange them as one great
say for the Frightening of the human life
and after assiduous labor she realized
her ideal in a book that reads consecutively,
tremendously, almost without a break in
the sequence of the thought, although no
extract is more than a dozen lines in length
1t is as though the great minds OF the
ages had met in a convention and had
consulted as to the most effective message
that could be sent forth TO posterity. In
her brief preface the compiler says:
Whatever in literature tends to Hum
mate our mysterious earthly existence,
Tighten It's burdens. or console It's sor-
rows; whatever upllfts above the trivialities
of daily life, ennobies its purpose, or ir-
radiates its gloom is of transcendent value
and would hand on to others. the torches
which have given light to me-"
SPORTING SKETCHES. BY Edwyn San
dys, author of Upland Game Birds"
&c. Illustrated. New York: The Mac
milan Company Washington: Bren-
tanos.
Mr.. Sandys' sporting sketches. which have
appeared in large number in Outing from
time to time, acquire new force and in