The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-13
Literary Lights And Shadows
BY S. MA Ys BALL

with death Technically, consumption to which Keats's classic consumption was child's play. It is so easy to fight any thing, even consumption, if you have nothing else to do; but if you have a home to keep going as well, and only a pen to keep 1t going with-well, you look upon John Keats as one of the sybarites or immortality. Only nine months before hls death we read that when too feeble to raise his food to his mouth, with a fever temperature of 1O4 degrees. he danier) pencilled his finest poem, called
 Sunrise Such, indeed, Is what MT Will | liam Watson calls the imperative
 breath of song'"
 It is very interesting review MT. Gal
 ienne makes of bit of MT Lanier's
 work
 Attitudes and Avowals' contains dis cussions of all sorts of things All quite interesting things and people and all en- l tertainingly discussed by Mr Gallienne.
 MT Galhenne, for instance, in "The World and the Lover," does not believe that the whole world loves the lover as we have been given proverbially to un- derstand; but only the successful lover. as the world lawns on anything that has conquered 1t. "The moment Romeo and Juliet are safely dead in each other s arms, the world Is voluble with sympa- thy-but not until it is quite sure that its sympathy can be of no possible ser vice to the lovers. While sympathy would be of some use, the world, which is the embodied cowardice and cant of humanity-stands firm with Montague and Capulet, seniors" This department wishes it knew some lovers whom 1t could ask regarding MT. Ganienne's opin- ions just quoted.
 But, notwithstanding that lack "at the present moment" as the English say, the fact remains that the most formidable battleship ever built is safety itself compared with a beau l tiful woman;' as Mir. Gallienne has it in Concerning A Woman's Smile" and continues correctly thusly, "and as she grows older and watches the human drama more and more as a spectator, taking less and less of a personal place in it, one is more and more impressed with the devastating part played by woman's beauty.
 Perhaps on the whole the most ter rifying thing a man can meet is beau- tiful woman. There should be a society for the protection of the unprotected male against beautiful women. So long as there are no beautiful women in the story all goes we'll Men do their work strenuously and dwell peaceably together, but the moment the beauti- I1ul woman enters there Is the devil to pay. strong men become as babies fierce rivalries divide bosom friends, duties and principles are forgotten all for this little rainbow strangely painted on the air. this vain little pinch of swet rose-colored dust"
 Flamsted Quarries." by Mary E. Wal Ter Gittle, Brown & Co.)
 Mary E. Waller taught in a private school in New York, later to establish and maintain for five years a school for girls in Chicago, while she wrote short stories for the magazines.
 "The Wood Carver of 'Lympus,n pub | lished In 1904, and which, 1t is stated
 has just gone into its 26th edition. brought Miss Waller prominently be- fore the reading public. In that book, as many readers recall the heart in-
 terest Is more than among tn ose pres ent, dealing with a poor countryman full of vigorous life who was. struck down, crippled, bed-ridden, "all for the best sort of thing. The hero at first didn't see it all-for the-best but cursed God. Soon he realized as we all do. how foolish he was, and accepted his fate. It is wonderful, really, how quickly we come in this life to ac- cepting those things placed upon us. l The French have a proverb. the sense of which is that God never places upon