Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-20
NIGHT AND MORNING. BY Katrina
sl1 i Nnrk. lAln

NNBHI AND MOHN1Nu. by hdtiiis'
Trask. London and New York: John
Lane Company.
Mrs Trasks new poem must add much
to her reputation both as a poet and
thinker. With very exquisite control OF
her medium, technically correct and spon-
taneously melodic, she has given her
theme, abstract and spiritual. an embodi-
ment full of reality and color
In rebellion against the modern shibbo-
leth of acknowledgment as 1t is generally
understood Mrs Trask sets UP the Platonic
dictum that Love is the interpreter and
mediator between God and man." The new
code of conduct which permits man or
woman when love calls quickly to cut
whatever binding bonds may be and go
with love. she discountenances. remember
ing that self in man is triune-body, mind,
spirit-and that there must be triune de-
velopment. If love is to be benefcence
a constructive force in a community, there
is, she thinks. but one law which can hold
II to fulfill it's destiny, and that is the high
er inner law of love itself. In truth
beatitude rather than law. which can
not be broken. as 1t is the very heart of
great love. No living thing can be long
bound from without. With subtle construc
tive imagination she pictures Miriam.
laughter-lovng Miriam, the wife of Eleazer
the stern Pharisee. in a Judean garden
lenic and hebralc PHILOSOPHERS of life, duty
and religion are well symboliZed in them,
and Leonidas prevails. What seemed
sin when thought of from afar" by his
side did seem a sacrament With MORN
ing come, the scribes and Pharisees are seen
haling the woman along to the judgment of
Christ. The psychology of love and shame
ie given with great beauty, and the sud-
den realization before the Master of her
place in the great order of things brings
Miriam to a startling consciousness of her
selhshness. PROSTATE before him, she ex-
poets anathema. but hears only: Neither
do l condemn thee. Go, and sin no more.
Mrs Trask has given the familiar scrip
tural incident not significance merely, but
reality. The woman and her love belong to
all time. only those who love completely
attain her illumination of "circled good,
eternal harmony" And the pageantry of
phrase and glow of line with which the
poet has accompanied her story have
beauty truly symbolic of the majesty OF
the theme.
THE RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER'S WON
DER TALES. BY Louise Seymour
Houghton. Illustrated by w. T. Benda.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Washington: Woodward & Lothrop.
A discovery in fairy literature is almost
as important an event as the discovery of
q new chemical element. In THE Russian
Grandmother's Wonder Tales 1t is not i'm
probable that Mrs. Houghton may have
given to English-speaking children collec-
ton which may take place beside the sto-
ries Of Anderson and Grimm in the impreg-
nable fortress of childish recollection.
The originals of the tales, the author an
nounces in her preface, are to be found In
a German collection of Tales and Legends
of South Slavonia," published twenty years
ago by DIR. Friedrich Kraus, who was
lover and ardent student Of folk lore.
1t will be Of interest to older readers to
And again In these stories nrOOfS of the
common eastern origin Of the races. For
there are traces here of motives already
familiar in the Uncle Remus stories. in the
Arabian Nights, in Grimm and In Ander-
son. But the Slayonic tales are SO trans
formed by the personality of the race
from which they come to us that they are
practically a new fairy literature.
II would be hard to overrate the SIMPLE
fly, the sympathy with Russian peasant
types. the comprehension with the tastes
OF childhood which Mrs. Houghton has dis
played in her work. She disclaims for her
self such literary perfection as is found In
the other classics OF fairyland 1t would
seem that in this Limitation she has shown
the perfection of art, for her work is both
expressive of the child-like conditions out
Of which folklore proceeds and of the es-
sential tastes of childhood itself, to which
the book is adapted. The personality of
the grandmother herself, modelled on the
suggestions made by DR.. Kraus from recol-
lections of his own grandmother. pervades
the stories she tells and the preliminary
and supplementary discussions with the
story-craving boy. The setting of contem-
porary Russian life is artfully contrived to
be really NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., let us hasten
to state-arousing the slightest suspicion
on the part of small auditors.
1t Is easy to prophesy immediate and last
ing success for THE Russian Grandmoth-
ers Wonder Tales"
INTERNATIONAL LAW; a Treatise by
David J. Brewer. associate justice
N a1 taf n
Charles Henry Butler. United States
Supreme Court reporter. Reproduced
from the Cyclopedia of Law and Pro-
cedure. New York: The American
Law Book Company
1t appears from the authors statement
that international law as science is of
comparatively recent origin. 1t did not
exist in the modern comprehensive sense
either in the ancient world or in the middle
ages. Two views are now taken by modern
authorities as to the legal nature of inter-
national law; there are those who regard
1t as absolute law. which can be ascer-
tained, applied and enforced. and others
who regard It as merely a body of ethical
rules properly applicable as occasion arises.
but which cannot be insisted upon or en-
forced. International law is treated in this
article from the American standpoint
which is that the law of nations does exist
can be ascertaIned and can be applied. and
there is body OF laws which civilized
nations have consented should form the
rules OF their conduct in their relations
with each other.
The principal chapter contains a COM
plete exposition of the subject Claims OF
Citizens Against Foreign States" and is
divided into claims which arise by tort. and
claims which arise by contract. Where the
claim is founded a tort committed by
a foreign government, as for instance an
unlawful Imprisonment an unlawful
seizure OF property. or for prosecutions in
fiicted on account OF their nationality, the
government OF the injured party Is morally
bound to ascertain the rights of its citizens
and demand indemnity from the other gov
eminent. II is different. however. with
claims founded on contract for while the
government OF the injured citizen may
endeavor to obtain redress the moral obli-
CATION does not exist as in the case of tort
because the elements OF national honor are
not involved to such great extent. and
the citizen is merely sustaining the same
loss in a business risk that he might have
sustained had he embarked his capital in a
private enterprise and suffers loss as the
result OF delinquencies or ordinary mercan-
tile misfortune. Some OF the modern
Statesmen, especially Calvo and Drago
bax al he hot