The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1907-01-27

turned from Mdncnufid again. he an
noBnces q new volume, "A Truce in the
Far East" for this spring, and 1t is evi-
dent that his recent Investigations have
convinced him that the truce on the re-
cent battlefelds is not TO be of very
/ long duration.
In a public library some days ago, the
library attendant saw a young. we'll
dressed lady taking the books from the
open shelf and shifting at them in a
curious way. When asked the reason for
this strange conduct, or whether there
was anything wrong with the books. she
replied, frankly: No. / sniff at a book
TO see if 1t smells of tobacco. If it
does. then I know it's a book that a
man has been reading, and it is pretty
sure TO be a good one This seems to
open up a fine new field of speculative
criticism
The editor of Public Libraries has sum-
med up, in an interesting way, the most
important movements in the library world
during the past year. He finds there
have been nine important movements, as
follows: First, the agitations over the
restrictions to Libraries threatened in the
proposed copyright bill Second, the
growing recognition in their programmes
of the Importance of the library by the
various bodies organized for social or edu-
catiYnaI improvement. Third. the open
ing of permanent headquarters for the
American Library Association. Fourth
the opening Of the Wisconsin Library
School Fifth the inauguration Of a sys-
TEN Of expert library supervision over the
libraries Of the penal, charitable, and
TcfOTmatOry institutions In Iowa. Sixth,
the blow 10 the library development Of
San Francisco by the earthquake and
FIRE. Seventh, the expansion of the library
movement in the South and West. Eighth,
the death of DIT Richard Ganett the
most notable example of the librarian in
his fullest development Ninth, the IN
creasing number of library workers who
have been forced to give up their work
by reason Of nervous breakdown.
The American extension Of the English
Men Of Letters series is 10 include a vol
ume on Emerson. written by George Ed
ward Woodberry, formerly professor of
comparative literature at Columbia Uni
versity.
Probably the last literary work done
this column. was the Introduction he
wrote for the new edition Of Heine trans
lated by various persons. only the avow-
ed literary person, we fear reads Heine
nowadays, and Garnetrs introduction
tends 10 show how much readers are miss /
ing If they neglect him. we should
say" ne remarks. that Heine. more
than any of the great men, excepting
Shelley, was a poet by the grace of God, /
and that he carried the happy instinct of /
verse into prose. As "a poet he was es-
seutiallv a Notwithstanding same sort Of /
"a person, that is 10 say, as the unknown /
musician whose Border Minstrelsies'
and Spanish CauciOHeros' are the envy
and admiration of an artificial age Mr.. /
Garrett believed that Heine possessed the /
dual literary gift of perfect lucidity and /
perfect proportion. The same charm
peTvades all he wrote" says Mr.. Gar
nett, and hence, whatever judgment /
may be passed on the moral Characters
tics of his work. from literary point Of
view there is absolutely nothing in ir /
which a translator is not justified in rem /
deriug-if he can This judgment differs !
little from that of Matthew Arnold /
who held that Heine was a great uber- /
atOT, the destroyer of opinions and habits 1
that had become petri6ed formulas said /
Arnold: .Heine liked 10 be called the /
German Aristophanes. but he was even
more OF a Socrates, whose mission. apart /
from his poetic gift, it was TO make /
men consider whether they really meant I
what they said
In Maud Powers ''Wayside India" we \
get the following passage on the ever-in- /
teresting problem Of mixed marriages: /
That curse Of the East mixed marriages. Iro-
ducCs h,art-trCakiug race called Eura-iaus-
They look down on their native fathers mothers.
sensitive, yengeful and unreliable. The dark and
the fair child Of the same family are deadly enc Z
mics,
This recalls in way Lafcadio Hearu's |
pathetic picture I'm his letters Of the DO /
siti0n Of his own fair-haired boy in ia /
pan. The son of q japanese mother the
''throwback' had a hard time fin the /
midst OF his more Oriental and dark
brothers and sisters. Thus It has always /
been. VIII always be; and the lesson of /
il is that miscegenauon means degener-
alton.
A delightful book, Just published, is
The Vagabond in Literature" by Ar /
thur Ricketts,. who has chosen William /
Borrow. Henry d. ThOreau. Robert Louis
Stevenson, Richard Jenries. and Walt
Whitman as specimens of the men of let
tiers into whose souls the vagrant spirit
had entered. and would not be denied.
This wanderlust i'm literature Mr.. Ricketts,
finds is due TO the Gothic revival a re-
action from the Journalism that so long
held our books in thraI IT is the i'm
pulse To wander away from the set and
mechanical things in letters as In life.
Il is THE impulse to digress SuperbIv; 10
scale some peak in Darien for the low
of a wild sUrmise.- Stevenson had q
We know, wei; about Hazlitt. the world
knows less. though Hazlitt has written:
What 1 like best is to lie whole morn
ings on Salisbury Plain. without any OBJ
ject before me, neither knowing nor car
ing how time passes, and thus, with light
winged toys. and feathered idleness. TO
melt down hours to moments
But the frankest of the lot. perhaps.
was Jeffries, that stout-hearted pagan
and wistful idealist, who ran riot thus:
Everything on a scale Of splendid waste Such
noble broadcast, opeu-armed waste is delicious to
behold. Never vas there such a lying proyerb as /
Enough Is as good as a feast Give me the
feast give me sqUaudered millions cf seeds luXuri-
Gus carpets Of petals, green mountains Of oak
leaves. The greater the waste the greater the en-
joyment-the nearer the approach o. real life /
CasIistry is of avail; the fact IS obrious Nature
filings treasures abroad. Tutfs them with open Iips
along on every breeze. piles ND lavish LAYERS Of them
IN free oD5a air, packs countless numbers together
Ia the needles Of a FIR tree Prodigality and super
fluffy are stamped everything she does.
Rex Beach, who wrote the story from
which he and James Macarthur have
made the play Of The Spoilers" is a
man still under thirty, but ne has crowd
cd those years TO the full with expert