The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-17
O AMI

sylvester Baxter Contributes III aTtlclO
on public squares and minor open spaces
to the April Ctpturu In which he has the
temerity to argue that the Boston Public
Garden has exerted a most demoralizing
influence upon gardening art in the United
States because Of it's lavish employment Of
rich and expensive material sin a fashion
unguided by any true principle OF design
other examples Of open spaces at the con-
junction Of important streets and public
squares In different cities will be treated
by Mr.. Baxter.
The German Emperor is the subject OF
an enthusia stio article In the March Atlantic
by A. Maurice Low. The author, who
writes from an admiring appreciation OF
the Kaiser's many sided activities and
remarkable personality, concludes, some
what surprisingly, that the Kaiser, 80 far
from being, as has been commonly sup
posed, a great war lord, is really a man
Of peace. 1.-THE Hohenzollerns,' he says,
shave given to history a great eleotor and
a great king and William I. has been called
a great emperor. History may yet find
that greater thar the greatest OF his race
Is the reigning sovereign, because while
the claims Of his ancestors are written in
war his title to greatness is the dover OF
peace
"It's al'ays a resk to do your duty; sd
a heap rather trust my friends and get
fooled than not to trust EN- and have EN-
all right; -You learn just about the same
bein' happy as you do bein' miserable
only you learn it quicker and various
other homely and humorous epigrams
appear in uncle William Jennette Lees
new book, which will be published next
week. Mrs. Lee Is a Smith College gradu-
ate and professor of English. Her husband
Is the Rev. Gerald Stanley Lee, writer,
critic and lecturer The Lee home is at
Northampton just out Of the town. She
spends three mornings a week with her
classes at Smith College and her days are
filed with diligent literary work. The
new book is a study Of life on a Nova Scotia
island. "A homely, realistic character
Mrs. Lee calls uncle William adding
further that she writes Of humble things
because she likes to and not because she
does not know any better.
Maid of Athens is a romance dealing
with the love of Byron for Thyrza, the
Maid of Athens to whom he wrote immortal
verse and whom the author portrays him
as wooing with abandon and disre gard OF
danger. The book, which presents a bril-
liant picture Of court life on the shores OF
the Bosporus, will be published March IA.
The author, Lafayette McLaws, is a native
Of Georgia and at present Is one OF the
ooterie of Southern literary workers living
in New York. She was born in Augusta
less than thirty years ago and was educated
at home and In private schools. When
the Land Was Young" a romance OF the
days when EDglishmen and ~Spaniards
fought for the Florida border, which Miss
MoLaws published a few years ago was
one Of the popular successes OF the day
on account of its creative imagination.
Now that THE Sage Brush Parson' has
gone into a fifth edition 30 Soon after
publication 1t is interesting to learn that
the author, A. B, Ward, Is a woman, a Smith
College graduate, whose real name Ia Alice
Ward Bailey. How a young woman living
in Massachusetts, can 80 wildly portray
life in a Nevada mining camp in the early
1908 is explained by the fact that while
the plot Of the story andth writing are the
work of Mrs. Bailey, the local color was
given to her verbally by an author and
Ieoturer-a man who lived In Eureka, New.
twenty-five years ago and who, it is said,
has been in a measure depicted as the hero
Of the book.
A work OF interest and value lie the new
limited issue of THE Triumph" by Pc
trarch, translated by Henry Boyd. 1t is
printed at the University Press from hui
manistic type made especially for the publi-
cation, together with six plates from ancient
Florentine engravings.
GThe Heart of the Railroad Problem is
the title Of an important book dealing with
discrimination Of railroad rates by Prof
Frank Parsons, Phi. d. Prof. Parsons has
been writing and speaking on the rela-
lions between the railroads and the public
fortwenty years. Hehast through
nine countries Of Europe and three-fourths
of the United States studying railways and
made an extensive examination Of railroad
literature, reports, decisions Of committees,
&C., and has become convinced that the
heart of the railroad problem lies in the
question Of impartial treatment Of shippers.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson's remi-
niscences OF Elizabeth Barrett Browning in
the current Book Netos include interesting
and unfamiliar incidents-how her poem,
Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' was written
in twelve hours to catch the vessel that was
to carry the sheets of the volume to America.
Mr.. Higginson also writes Of those letters to
James and Maria Lowell in which Mrs.
Browning told of her m~arriage-"an event
never 30 tersely summed up as in that beau
tiful passage when she spoke Of her young
husband as having borne her away from a
sickbed to life and light and Italy and more
happiness thar a woman ought, perhaps,
to speak of except when she thanks Cod"
Books Received.
Jesus: An Unfinished Portrait" Charles Van
N,.,d.n n n II. n. Funk A. Wapnalls Com