The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1907-09-26
Literary News and Notes.

The Woman's Home Companion for
| October; is primarily fashion num-
| Der; not that the other regular depart
ments are sighted in the least, nor
that the fiction is in any way below the
excellent standard the Woman's Home
| Companion has set for ITSELF Grace
| Margaret Gould, the fashion editor,
| has done more than any other one per-
son to make this October issue interest
| ing and helpful, contributing, as she
| does, page after page of attractive and
practical designs for fall and winter
costumes. A particularly novel and
helpful page gives Photographic illus
! trations of the newest silks, fabrics and
trimmings: another shows the new
hats, going into detail as to shapes and
colors. There are still others OF waists
and lingerie.
| In variety and interest the October
McCiure's is remarkable. After break
of two months Ellen Terry resumes her
delightful Memoirs with an account of
| her domestic life called 'My Children
| and L. which has much amusing gossip
OF Rossetti, Irving, Bernhard, Charles
Reade and other famous people. 1t is
strong fiction number. Villa Sibert
SdIuCi uCIlCdlc lSyCHOlOS-
ical study of the intangible relations of
a man, his living wife, his dead wife
and the dead woman's friend. Perceval
Gibbon in his IN eagre Life" again dis
plays his art of making adventure
spring up from barren soil. Viola Rose
boroS ''Mr. Weeks" is a humorous
character sketch with setting of army
life in the Philippines. Casper Day
completes this brilliant array of fiction
with ''Slaterville'S Apostate," story
/ of heroism and the triumph of personal
ity over circumstance.
In the "Foreword" to her volume Oh
''The Younger American Poets" Jessie
B. Rittenhouse speaks of "the verse;
stories of Holman F. Day, bringing
from the pines of Maine their pungent
lows with this just appreciation of his
work: "Mr. Day covers an individual
field representing such phases of New
England life as have been little cele-
DRAFTED hitherto even by writers of 6c-
ton. He is familiar with every corner
of Maine from the mountains to the
sea, and writes of humanity in the con-
crete, sketching his types equally from
the lumber camp or from the sailors and
fishermen of the shore. In his latest
volume they are drawn from the Kin O.
ktaadn' and hold their way throughout
its pages with a reality provoking both
laughter and tears; indeed one must
seek far to find keener humor, or one
more infectious, than that of Mr.. Day
or a more sympathetic penetration with
the pathos of life. The heart is the
book of his reading, and, in turn, the
heart is the book of his writing"
This is not an epic age, and poems of
fifty lines are now regarded as monsters
preying on magazines. The September
Atlantic, however, dares to print eleven
consecutive pages of verse, under the
title OF 'Mary Armistead," story of
veteran cavalryman in the Civil War,
by Edward William Thomson. The
metre is the regular blank verse pen
tameter; it is a firm, compacted fibre
suiting admirably the military tread
and swing of the narrative. Some one
has said that our great war will event
ually become our heroic age and that
future American literature will develop
a Homer for it. Mr.. Thomson's poem
without question points towards this
result, being essentially monumental in
iIS mouldlng OF the principal figures.
The dignity, the familiarity, the humor,
the red grimness of war are masterfully
expressed in this story of the incident |
of a wet night by Tunstall's Run. The
following lines indicate better than
other words the peculiarly tense reso-
nant quality of this remarkable pro- |
duction:-
"Beyond the April-swollen, narrow stream,
SfnhhOrn I'd
Lay prone amid last years tobacco stalks
Shooting hot Enfelds straight from red |
mud pools,
While from their rear four angry howitzers |
High set on Armistead's Plantation Hill
Flamed shrieking shell O'erhead across the |
bridge
That Custer ragged to seize before black |
night
Should close his daylOng toll in mud and |
rain" |