The Washington herald., 1908-02-16


regiment of dragons to the post of a
police chief I'm Ismail and one day, as
chief executive official. he was called
upon to be present at the execution Of a
Jewish criminal. The condemned man
hung the required number of minutes,
and was taken down from the gallows.
when the physician was supposed to con-
firm his death. But it appeared that
they had forgotten to cut off the Jew 5
long thick beard, thanks 10 which, al
though the moose had deprived the man
Of consciousness, il had not killed him.
Imagine yourself in my position, said
RI the doctor told me the Jew
would come back 10 life in five minutes.
What was / to do? To hang him a sec
ond time / held to be impossible, and yet
/ had to execute the death sentence.
q But what did you do, them / asked,
and received the memorable answer:
I had him buried quickly before he
regaineG consciousness
DR. W. J Rolfe, a Shakespearean
scholar and editor of worldwide reputa-
ton, with whose editions of the plays Of
Shakespeare many of us have been ac-
quainted since our school days, recently
celebrated his eightieth birthday by the
completion of a new volume entitled
Shakespeare Proverbs. What a book
it viii be! How rich i'm wit and wisdom
in salt and savor Has the world ever
I known any man but Shakespeare who
/ has so often summed up the moral con
| illusions Of the race in pithy, sententious
/ phrases that give the final. perfect, and
memorable expression to its thoughts and
/ feelings? What a table book this viii be
TO have at ones elbow. Dr. Rolfe is TO
provide an introduction and notes. The
selection of proverbs, maxims, aphorisms
| and apOthegms included in the 70. thcom-
| ing volume were originally made by Mrs
| Cowden-Ciarke. and selected from the
plays only. Additional selections from
| the sonnets and other poems of Shakes
peare have been made by Dr. Rolfe him
self.
Besides THE Great Secret" by r
Phillips Oppenheim. and Janet of the
/ Dunes. by Harriet T. Comstock. already
published Little, Brown & CO.'S early
/ 1905 novels include "The Reaping," by
| Mary INLAY Taylor. author of The I'M
! personator &c; The HemlOCk Avenue
/ Mystery ii detective story by Roman
/ Doubleday q new writer; The Supreme
/ Gift" by Grace DEMO Litchfeld a new
/ novel by Anna Chaplin Ray; "The Weight
| of the Name, by Paul BoGrget. trans
! lated by George Burnham Ives; THE
Heart of the Red FRS story Of the
| Northwest. by Ada Woodruff Anderson;
/ THE Adventures of Charles Edward" by
! Harrison Rhodes. and The Five Knots,
! a new mystery story by Fred NJ White.
] s. ont fsar
/ in a recent essay on the subject. that
! there is no possibility OF naming the hun
/ dred best books. The naming OF them
/ for any large general audience is quite
/ impossible. All that is possible in such
/ connection is 10 state emphatically
that there are very few books that are
equally suitable To every kind of intel
+ lCct Temperament as we'll as intellectual
endowment makes for so much in read
/ ing Take, for example the Imitation OF
Christ George Eliot. although not
! Christian found 1t soul-satisfying Thack-
cray, as I think a more robust intellect.
found il well-nigh as mischievous as did
Eugene Sue. There are great books that
can be read only by the few. but surely
the very greatest appeal alike to the man
of rich Intellectual endowment and TO
ing are incomprehensible' AS "a part Of
this essay. which Mr.. Shorter includes IN
his volume Immortal Memories pub
/ lished by the Harpers recently i'm this
country, is q list of his own choosing.
/ The list begins. as such lists custOmarily
do, with the Bible
Henry Mills Alden editor OF IIarper's
Magazine. contributes To Harpers Week
~ for February ] "a tribute TO the late
Edmund Clarence Stedman, in which he
says:
The sudden death q AIr Stedman. January IS. re-
moved from the last Of that triad Il American
poets stoddari, Aldrich, and Stedman- naturally
grouped together. because in their old New York
days. in the SOS they were personally acquainted
ard had the same associates. worked under the same
conditions an n them just beginning their careers
at a time when the writers who made our earliest
Eteature-IUiug and Cooper and Poe-Eer3 passing
away. aud those 81 the New England group, Whit
tier. Holmes. Emerson, Lowell. and L4rgfsllJv-
had reached their maturity. There were Others Who
were also &C that time winning their first l9uTels
I III those New YORK days-GeHFe Willian Curtis,
Bayard Taylor Donald q. Mitchell Walt Whitman,
and William Winter. But the three poets We mtu-
toned at the start are always thought O. together
By all American resders. They IN a disunct-e sense
maintained the traditions Of English poetry with
which Whitman had broken from the FIRST How
little while ago were looking upon them
young poets and comparing their lrk with that
OF their elders Now they, too, have PASSED. OF
these three Stedmau was If not the mos aIueuty,
still the most steadfasy, pledged - poetry by Tie
bond as wsl as the gift y song-that bond
Severe as fate, fixed and interchangeable"
He spoke Of the poet as one TO whom Tivtl1Gic
phrases come as the natural utters ~ cf his ex-
tremest hope, regret, devotion. At tEe mreSt
crises he finds that without and t,eH beyond lis
viii. life and death and all things Issc and sacred
are made auxiliary 10 the C0mFiljyg Purpose Of
his ant This was his own case. the poets l0t. b"
When he did not write poetry Itself i: was Al Cut
poetry and poets that he seemed bound 90 HTlte.
His ilUminatiTe comment and creative criticism. j.
bis tTeatises on the Victorian and American Ucets.
and his genial and clear analysis Of the clements Of
poetry are invaluable contributions 10 literature. In
this respect Stedman was the natural successor 10
Lowell il without his lambert light and hmnor
also without his frequent whimsiellty. he IS frmer
and more direct in his Interpretation. with more
classic mold. His insight made him She best
Of auth0l0gists. While wisely academic as the
scholar must be- if the sanity Of culture is % be
preserved his poetic sensibility was the Tound OF
plastic thought and judgment, Of which mOdernity
was the Characteristic trait.
Prof Albert Bushnell Hart. editor Of
the American Nation" writes In the last
volume Of the series the following inter-
esting comment upon the political boss
regarded from the historical viewpoint:
Tt is a great mistake to think that the
boss is wholly evil; like Boss Tweed, he
may be personally abstemious: he may
have a bulldog force of character. like
Boss Croker; he may be fond OF books,
like Boss Quay; he may be an easy
boss considerate of his subalterns, like
Boss Plat; but under all circumstances
his prestige depends upon bringing things
about When the governor and Iegisla-
ture are at loggerheads, the boss if he
owns the one and controls the other.
may bring about harmony. OF late years
the boss has sometimes been a courageous