Bisbee daily review., 1906-02-18

CTS. ll WOuiQ De we'll TUT tue WOFiu irf we could have a revival of the old all along the line.
 Let us search the attics where our old books have been stored and pro- duee for the benefit of the children better and more entertaining tales than have ever been written by the boasted novelists of today. There is no occasion for one to go into ecstasy over such books as 'To Have and to Hold or Alice of Old Vincennes,' ! while the stories of James Fennimore | Cooper, much more realistic. much more probable, much more interest ing, remain hidden in our attics GOV cred with the dust of years and unper- 1 used by the people of today. Edward Eggleston's Hoosier Schoolmaster' is a better story than William Dean Howells ever wrote. Louise M. Al cott's Little Men and Little Women have never yet been matched as in- teresting and entertaining reading l for the young and old. The boys of | today who search for right and lively ! fiction know little or nothing of Col | onel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the great Massachusetts writer of boy stories. or of Horatio Alger-men who wrote tales at once interesting and instructive.
 Books, and books. and books are written today, and yet they are not nearly so satisfactory as some of the few volumes that were published in the long ago.
 "We are all too apt to worship at some new shrine and all too apt to forget the merit of the old in our anxiety to pay undue tribute to the new.
 we go into ecstasy over some of the recent day songs, yet we forget the many very interesting things that have been presented by the bards of the past.
 Il " Ben Bolt one of the sweetest of all the verses ever penned by man. would be practically unknown today but for the fact that it was set to music and that it figured in a recent novel. Its high character as touch ing piece of poetry is not fully appre- ciated by the men of today. Abraham Lincoln, perhaps, could not make a rhyme, but there was poetry as well as music in his soul, and he knew what genuine poetry was when he se- lected Oh, Why Should the Spirit of
 Mortal Be Proud?' as his favorite poem. The member of the literary society who would subscribe to the statement that Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?' is entitled to high rank in literature would be immediately written down as unde- serving of place in polite society, but Abraham Lincoln's favorite poem will bear re-reading. where some of fthe productions of the present day would be cast aside after a mere glance.
 Tt would be well, too, if the dispo- | sition toward a revival of the old could take a firm hold upon our church choirs. Sunday after Sunday great congregations composed of men and women anxiously seeking not for | profound things, but for those things that strike a responsive chord in the | human heart, Assemble throughout | this country to listen to airs they can | not appreciate, straining their ears | for words made unintelligible by the necessity of obtaining what we be- lieve the choir master calls the range of voice. Nearer, My God to Thee | the greatest song that was ever writ ten, set to the sweetest music that was ever sung, is not heard and can not be heard in the average church. The old fashioned books are full of better songs, of more exquisite music rnan are produced by the average
 ;hurch choir.
 While we are o5ta:ning more of the old flowers, of the old books, of
 the old poems, of the old songs, let
 as have more of the old fashioned
 women, who like our mothers, lived
 sad loved, and loved and lived, not
 conspicuous for ability as club lee Curers, or as impossible reformers, but notable as thoughtful and devoted mothers, as earnest and faithful wives and uncrowned queens of perfect homes.
 Let us have more of the old fash. toned girl, who was taught that no woman was so well-to-do that she
 should not be educated in the arts of the good housewife. Let us have more of the old fashioned girl, whose
 beauty was adorned the most because it was adorned the least; who knew more about healthy outdoor exercise and practical indoor household du ties than she did of pink teas.