The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-02-28

| Outfng PuDnSnlng CO. naNlHB eoAtS VI
 of the book business, magazine par
 (now under another name), but out oi
 books. Any news dealer can tell you ths purchaser of certain book publications ol
 the old book Outing Go. If he does?
 And, you begin to think to yourself | What do you know about your country
 Its merchant marine, Its wondrous mines
 its new American farmer 1t forests ano | its plains? It's real men who are making
 our Greater America and it's fire-line?
 Do you then believe in our Country | and it's Destiny?" If so. you can lind all
 about it in 'The Greater America. The author intends that this book shall
 be record of impressions of western | journey, undertaken for the purpose oi | getting out among some of the miiiions ol l good Americans who are doing their I days work as they find it, with faith l fuI cheer in themselves and an aboundins l confidence in the future of their coun- try.
 Later on Mir Payne tells us that this | book product of his note books, contains nothing that is startlingly new, nor does
 1t pretend to be more than a series or | the splendid activities of the west or | America of today MT. Payne was cor rectly attmpting to catch here and there 1 the spirit of that creative energy Wnich | has wrought such marvellous trahslor- nation within the span of single l1e- time and of the dauntless vigor ana en- terprise which have not yet lost the bold and picturesque flavor. that Is essentially and typically American.
 MT Payne says: "I know an old town on the Kennebec, in the state O Maine, which upholds, embalmed in fragrant traditions, the life and memories or py- gone generations that played nople
 part in the early building of the nation.
 Beside the river winds the main street, beneath whose majestic elms are rows or white houses with green blinds, not one of which was built less than century ago. Along the valley beyond the town are weather-worn farm houses. with shambling barns, some of them deserted. They nestled in rock-ribbed valleys or climb the slopes wind-swept hills, and their boundaries are marked by low stone walls built with vast toll. Dew young men are left on the little farms along the valley. The fathers are always working from dawn to dark and when the year ends it shows scanty livelihood in net re- suits. with not much more in cash Tn hand than will pay taxes. The mothers achieve miracles of household economy. vet the struggles to make both ends meet wears them down before their time' It was in such towns as this descrioeo by MT. Paine that sent their pest piooo forward and onward, that is, at that
 time, westward; at this time, we nope southwark
 In every village graveyard sleep those
 men and women who tanned the NC"
 England wilderness, and on the slaps you
 may read hundreds of names, all oi
 Americans of pioneer stock: names when
 today are scattered as far as the Paciiic
 coast and will stand for the quaities UT
 manhood and Americanism
 As MT. Payne puts 1t himself:
 "The old homo towns of these old pion-
 eers and the churchyard in which they
 sleep recall the building of nation in It's
 heroic building Their work IS done'
 their towns are little more than me
 morials of what they did and the spirit
 that animated them has vanished from
 them b,It only to inspire newer genera lions of kindred breed to far greater work of the same kind"
 Tn the first place the book is beautifully illustrated from photographs, the 1rontls- piece being a good photograph or On Puget Sound, Where Commerce seeks the Orient
 yrit,no this hook. as he heads the first chapter; The Call of the Inland Sea. He describes most interestingly all of the scenes passed through and around that section; passing thence to The 500,
 well worth a chapter on it's past ana us present. By visiting 1t, knowing 1t thor oughly. the third chapter is devoted to the reporting of a copper mine-hone oi .,h,,t ua have as vet in Birmingham but wait! ,,,,, MT. Payne writes on the Great Jim Hill, nronerly known, as everyone believes, as the Maker of the Vest, or next to 1t.
 Tn a word. MT. Payne simply gives you in a beautifully bound volume apout all there is to be told regarding journey Gnae ef n Sound. Where Commerce Seeks the Orient
 The book is worth much more than the price. vyesti This scribe was in Los Ang1ese III 1904 only for a short time, but no. not a | creeping or crawling creature dared claim more than 1750Oo or 2ooooo popuia,,.oi Whereas now the howlers are yeiilns for nothing less than 350,0O0 for 1S1o .sThe Spirit of the South,' by Will Wal lace Harney (Rich c. Badger. Esa.) srrhe Spirit of the South" is particular ly interesting of stories and poems. ine author-poet has always lived In the south and these songs and stories form the TO- nance of southern lives, showing, as the author himself observes, the spirit of the south as truly than If 1t could be done by any more formal study.
 We feel as we read the stories which form the first portion of the book that they reflect incidents which were person. ally known to the author.
 The verse is not unmusical. on the con trary, in many place. 1t rises to poetry. | inasmuch as the author-poet is writing from a personal emotion which he re- | fleets in beautiful and shimmering lan- guage.
 | The cover design is very striking. "A Girl of the Limberlost," by Gene stratton- Porter. Doubleday, Page & l Col
 l From down south, 1t may or may not | be. that Miss Gene Stratton- Porter writes and publishes flrst-rate books. This
 scribe knows of several who believe that
 she writes up-to-the-minute stories.
 This reviewer often has requests for re- view of one book, but never. hardly
 ever," for two. It happened with 'The | Girl of the Limebrlost."
 It took about a year to pull from Pey- | ton Stegor of D. P. & Co.,, review copy | for this scribe
 The story deals largely with Elnora, | who collects moths to pay for her ed ucation and lives the golden rule-good | little girl. Of course, there must be a male moth hunter, who happens to be in this case Philip Ammon, who was forced l necessarily into moth hunting and gains
 a new conception of love" Love hunters
 whether moth or otherwise, always ''gain a new conception of love" Mrs. Com
 stock found a treasure while losing a de- fusion: people do not that every day, eh
 Think of it Then there was Edith Carr
 who discovers herself-and If again an
 every day performance-"for which there
 ts fha usually much thanks-eyen 'tis