The Washington herald., 1906-12-09

healthy outdoor sports. carries with him
a love of reading, and has been a haunt
er Of the public library. He has display
ed a fondness for the books OF Eugene
Field and James Whircomb Riley and
the chiId-verses Of Stevenson. but If these
1 have inspired him to become a "pote, %
which is his announced ambition, there
! is little in the quality of his work to
/ suggest slavish imitation Of his masters.
/ II seems that he was grateful 10 one of
/ the attendants n the Louisville library for
/ her care Of him. and so he sent her a
collection Of his PONIES" They really
/ show quite a Wonderful feeling. not only
/ for the verse form. but for the soul Of
/ verse itself and, barring the bad spell
+ ing-not bad for a boy going on ten
/ some of these verses would DO credit to
( older minds. One IN particular Is re
markable for the fine feeling and the
power Of observation The little lad calls
/ il Easter and it goes thus:
/ Bue. green. yellow and red.
/ Easter eggs dancing through little ones head;
Whiie every one snug in their bed,
/ Christ arose from the dead.
While they eWOke
/ Tlry looked al there things and speak.
The rabbit with arrows and bowes;
They was glad when they heard
That Christ had arose.
/ Il needs very little Of the work OF the
/ skilled craftsman to take that verse and
make real poetry Of ii. In the perfect
/ ness Of its simplicity and its sentiment
/ it reminds one strikingiy Of Sidney Ian
/ ier's-
out Of the woods the Master came;
Clean f0rspent clean forspeut-
The little "potes" name is Thomas
Fincel. and the librarian TO whom he
/ wrote mis- verses tells US that he is in
/ the fourth grade at school
/ Gilbert K. Chesterton, the virile Eng
! lish critic. who says things in an unusual
/ way-is, in fact, a sort of heavyweight
+ and heavier-minded Bernard Shaw-has
/ been discussing in England the modern
novelist. He finds little hope in him,
/ but as he goes down the list Of those
/ whose names figure in the popular fic-
I tion Of the day he lets out some pointed
remarks, which. if they are a bit arbi-
/ trary. are poignant and clear-eyed criti-
/ csm He says, for instance: Even II
/ Marie CorelH is not a novelist. she Is not
+ "A fool" He does not think much. either,
OF Mrs. HumDhry Ward. but affects TO
/ believe she would have found a truer me-
/ tier as the head OF a salon, or with
/ fairly good luck she might have made
/ a splendid lady abbess. He character
/ ICES the romantic school Of fiction writers
I as those who work back through Stev-
/ ensOn TO Scott. but he thinks that these
Anthony Hope Stanley Weyman. and the
/ rest have made the mistake Of leaving
/ out the dull part of Scott. He holds that
/ no one can be as poetical as Scott with
I out also being as pTOsaiC- That there may
/ be no possible doubt as TO the iconOclasm
4 of his criticism. ne declares that the
/ two best writer's Of English stories to-day
are ". ". Jacobs and Henry James.
/ At the Washington Public Library dur
/ ing the past week there has been a con-
/ stant throng Of visitors to the room set
/ apart by Librarian Bowerman to a dis
| play of the best books suitable for Christ
I mas gifts. They make a brave showing
/ and not the least interesting part of the
/ exhibit is the collection of original draw
/ ings and paintings used to illustrate
! some Of the books. Publishers, IL seems
I are making a speciality of handsome re-
! prints for the Christmas holidays. and
/ these books, with fine bindings, ornate let
! ter-press, and good illustrations, are a
/ fine relief to the horde of fiimsily con-
! structed new novels. The record of the
/ librarian shows that during the week
/ the most popular six books have been:
/ In nOnfictiOn. Hauptmanns The Sunk
/ en- Bell and Prof. Hyslop's "The Bor-
/ deriand of PsyChical Research" In fc-
/ ton, Reeds The Spinner in the Sun
/ and Burnham's Opened Shutters while
/ among the juveniles there are Alcott :
/ Eight Cousins and Barbour's THE
! Half Back"
! Much has been written about the ad-
/ vantages of the English system of pub
/ lie school education for boys. and there
are many parents who still hold up tom
! Browns School Days" as an ideal they
would wish TO attain for their own lads.
| In his Social Silhouettes." published in
/ London this week. @. W. z. Russell tells
an amusing anecdOte tending TO show
/ the different kinds of men turned out at
/ the leading public schools. He says that
! at a college concert held at oxford there
was a lady who arrived late and found
| there were no vacant seats. She was met
by three stewards Of the concert. men
who had come. respectively, from Eton.
/ from Winchester and from Rugby The
EtOn man met the lady with a thousand
| apologies; he could not possibly con-
ceive how such a mishap could have oc-
| CURED. imDlOTed her to walt moment
! and was quite sure that there would be
a vacant seat directly The Wykeham-
/ list scholar never said a word. but went
/ out at once and fetched a chair for the
/ lady. The Rugbyan waited patiently un-
/ til the Wykehamist fetched in the addi-
tional chair. and theu-promptly sat on
/ it himself.
! It seems pretty late in the day to seek
to rehabilitate the character of Jean
| Jacques Rousseau. especially in view Of
| his own frank Confessions" But Mrs
/ Fredericka Macdonald has attempted the
/ task of showing that Rousseau was NOT
as black as he was painted in a book
/ called A Criticism of Jean jacques
/ Rousseau" imported into this country bv
G. P. Putnam's Sons. Mrs. Macdonald de-
! clares the purpose of her book thus:
The purpose Is to establish by newly discovered
/ historical evidence fact which, presented as a
Theory has been pronounced too improbable to de-
serve serious consideration the fact viz that as the
result of a conspiracy between two men OF letters
who were his contemporaries, an entirely false
reputation Of R0ssesu has been handed down TO us
( Condemned by the voice Of public opinion in his
own day and by the minds Of the best men in the
generation succeeding his own this false reputation
gained acceptance IN an epoch wien the last OF