Los Angeles herald., 1908-12-26

/ 10, their cunning talleds LOT Ine manu- ol
no man might undo the miracle OF
Vasta's master stroke. So, marveling
still, they ceased to men a masterpiece.
/ Then, borrowing from the citys name,
they called 1t the Venue de Milo and
set in in the highest temple of their
arts.
"As once 1t stood in the sculptors
hail. so now it stands today as woman s
rival-a dull and senseless thing, whose
bosom never throbbed to the pulse of
! love-whose eyes stare out at nothlns-
ness through all eternity.
"a broken stone! Yet a perfect work
in place of honor-to live till the very
stars shall die"
The Mallet's Masterpiece. BY Ed
ward PEBBLE. New York: Moffat' Xaro
& Co.
Rafael de Zayas Enriquez, poet lau-
reate of Mexico, has undertaken 10
give in prose an extended sketch OF
| his country's president, Porflrio Dlaz'
While in the main lauding President
Diaz, Senior Enriquez takes occasion 10
point out a few of the many needed
reforms in Mexico If the country is TO
| escape a revolution. An example: Let
! the president return to the legislature
all its prerogatives and never ask Tor
nor accept extraordinary powers TO De
used in any branch of the government
/
danger to the maintenance of order
or the perpetuation of our institutions
Greater scope should be given to
personal initiative and to Individual
ambition in order that each one may
show his abilities, develop them and
| thus become of greater value to the
country. The people should be free to
express their opinions in writing, in
print or orally, and the country should
no longer have forced upon 1t a sub
| sidized press. Public ideas should be
allowed to grow again and everyone
should be permitted to work for the
| ideas in which he believes, without
hindrance, and with the sole condition
| that he shall not transgress the law
The president should not maintain any
ring of personal favorites, but should
ally himself to the people. This is lit
tie, but it Is all that is needed"
Porfirio Diaz. BY Rafael de Zayas
Enriquez. New York: D. Appleton
& Co.
Alfred de Musset, in his hall bed
room in a crowded quarter of Paris,
sang with note as truly inspired as
that of Browning and Tennsyson stroll
ling between the hawthorne redge-
rows in the country lanes of England,
but is is inevitable that a complacent
English temperament and the beauties
of the English landscape should produce
a lofty optimism which the French
man could not know. In Browning S
England" Helen Archibald Clarke
traces the influences of the English
out t-of-doors on Browning, in ponder
Gus volume. almost overwhelming to
those who have not made a special
study of Browning and the Browning
photography.
The work is a deep critical study of
Brovning In relation to other English
poets, and is written in a charming and
masterful literary style. The author
meets the intricate problems constantly
arising--problems appearing in any
treatise on this the greatest of English
poets, and meets them with ease and
with a strong grasp of their psyche
logical and literary subtleties.
Browning's England. BY Helen
Archibald Clarke. New York. The
Baker & Taylor company.
"The living Of life is always a mil
don times better than sitting down and
reading about it," is the conclusion of
Margaret P. Montague's "In Calvert's S
Valley" A million times better than
looking at a picture of it, or listening
to a symphony on it. For the one is
art and the other is reality.
The book is an entertaining and well
written story of Virginia life. The
love story Is developed according to
the canyons of true romantic fiction,
but the characters are clearly drawn
and there are numerous small touches
strikingly true to life.
In Calvert's Valley. BY Margaret p.
Montague. New York: The Baker &
Taylor company.
The outlook Of cultivated leisurely
man on life always is fascinating, even
to those less fortunately placed in life.
Such a person the author of ''Sappho In
Boston" apparently is, although his
or her name does not appear on the
title page.
The plots begin to unravel or rather
| to weave, with the unconventiona
meeting of a cultivated young Boston
woman with an attractive young Eng
lishman. 1t is an effervescent tale, OF
good literary technic, with enough un-
certainty about developments to make
it interesting and a surprising denou-
ment in the last chapter. The char
acters stand out clearly.
Sappho In Boston. New York: Mof-
fat, Yard & Co.
"My Life" by Josiah Flint, is an
interesting biography of an interesting
and gifted man. MIR. Flint's chronicle
of his years in the study of sociological
problems, including the experiences re-
lated in his previous book, "Trampine
| With Tramps." makes a most impor-
tant contribution to sociological litera-
! ture.
While he respects theory, he has a
most wholesome regard for facts, and
his work is at once scientific and liter
ary, abounding in narrative of the pic
turesque and adventurous. His stories
| of the lives of outcasts and criminals
ring as true as those of his acquaint-
ance with Tolstoy, Ibsen and Kuropat-
| kin.
1t is unusual for anything worth
while to come of the experiences OF
those who go voluntarily into the
underworld to study it's conditions, as
their action often is Quixotic and ILL
considered to begin with, and they lack
the faculty of really understanding the
people they find. Flint saw and under
stood and studied and wrote to pur-
| pose.
MY Life. Josiah Flint. New York:
The Outing Publishing company.
"Through Ramona's Country" au-
thoritatively points out what is fact
| and what is fiction in Helen Hunt
Jacksons fascinating romance OF
Southern California, Ramona" For
over twenty years Mr.. George Whar-
ton James has been pursuing his in
vestigation into the subject; he is per-
sonally familiar with every Indian viii
lage that Mrs. Jackson visited with Mr..
Albert Kennedy when studying the con-
dition OF the Indians in Southern Cali
fornia: his well-known studies OF the
historical conditions, as well as the
conditions from a geographical, agri-
/ HrPia science