Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-01-18

Company.
HESE two volumes mark the high
tide of the Emerson Journals
since thew stand for Emerson
at the crest of his fullest vigor.
> in the ripe, disentangled years
of man between forty and fifty. 10
come into a close touch with these partic-
MAR annals covering as they do the ten
vears following 1915. it is desirable to re-
call our national attitudes and move
r,ents at this period, since many or the
records here spring directly out of this
national temper. and all of them are
colored by it, The heart of this decade
is the embittered agitation over slavery.
IL Is the time of intrigue. and bargain
and compromise. in the neck-and-necA
race for slave and free states The time,
too of the Mexican war, and the miSra-
ton of thousands into the great new west
wrested from Mexico in this war The
time also, of Douglas ''squatter-sov-
ereignty" law and it's Incidence of war
for the possession of Kansas. 1t Is the
day of an older insurgency than ours
when political parties disintesrated and
..progressives" banded together In
free soil party. 1t is the period when
group of New England poets sang giori-
ously for human freedom when orators
spent the full inspiration OF their eio-
uuence upon it, when Uncle 1om
CABIN flung out at the psychological
moment became a blazing firebrand that
even yet fiickers in persistent claim 10
the permanence of greatness. IN SUI a
national setting this part OF the Journals
grew The pages fash 1nnumeraoie
facets of the common hish-keyed agita-
ton. In this respect. these two volumes
stand as an invaluable commentary VI,
the national history of the period Iheir
chief interest, hOwever-in common Win
ii at of the total of these annals-hes III
their nearneSS to, in their intimacy Win
one kind of great man S SOUL IheSe jour
nals-all of them-appear 10 one line an
immense reservoir into which Emerson
cast the odds and ends of every da!
thinkings and doings. It's sentiments
tastes, yearnings, conclusions. one mere
sees a philosophy in the MAXINE d
philosophy that later energies compete
cut and polished to the various settings
of history, culture, art, beauty. the over
soul and on in rich fulhilnent- Gut OIL
the great we'll, too, one draws the coo,
solitude of nature, that of Concord ana
roundabout that of the world in It's
transcendent atmospheres and meanings.
great chronicle. One that is necessary
TO ANYTHING like an adequate acquaintance
with Emerson. An essential supplement
to his formal public writings.
Key. author of Love and Marriage,
etc Translated by Mamah Bouton
Borthwick. \. NJ Introduction py
Havelock Ellis. New York: g. T.
PutnamS Sons.
Ellen Key is a woman whose stability
and balance, whose clear thinking and
broad seeing. command a hearing. AS a
writer, she has but one theme-women
But this theme-it must be owned-has.
since Eve desiring knowledge above all
else became the prototype of the modern
woman Whatever topic Miss Key may
announce. whatever attitude she may as
sumo, she is always. really, talking ABOUT
a single thing. And this thing-thlS per-
.uuial theme-is woman'S influence upon
the future, by way of the children that
she il able to produce Len1ent toward
the rights of women, and even an ad-
VoCate of these this woman never loses
sight of the great issue of posterity as the
supreme right in the maze of little
rights that mark the passage of wom-
anhood toward the highest point of its
lasting achievement. Miss Key is, in ef-
feet religionist. In place of ten, she
has but one commandment This is. that
neither man. nor woman. nor the two OF
them in conspiracy, nor the devil in any
of his guises. nor God in any of his man
made perversions. shall stand in the way
of fine children. This creed leads to many
MISUNDERSTANDING OF Miss Key. Or does
to her. nor to some of us. She goes on,
TRANQUILITY, in the vein of this volume,
gathering up what women have already
achieved in the way of education and vo-
cation. and in the way of reaching toward
certain political rights. She acknowledges
these rights, advocates them, even. She
Is glad of il all. and hopes for more. But
all the time she shows, infallibly, that
these are not the main issue. She warns
against mistakes, against the great mis-
take of hiding the main issue of fine
motherhood in a maze OF small outside
accomplishments that have nothing at
all to do with the case Particularly is
she averse to the present sex warfare
Particularly warm is she toward the few
superior women who realize that this is
matter OF cooperation, and not of usur-
patton.
1t is safe to say that Ellen Key and
olive Schreiner are doing more for wom-
en- than all other agencies combined.
Litter women ought to study these two
big women. for new orientation, for a
larger view. for truer conception or
what we women are for-after all has
been said and done.
SOME ENGLISH STORY TELLERS; n
Book of the Younger NOvelists. BY
Frederic Taber Cooper, author of
Some American story Teiiers.
With portraits. New York: Henry
Holt & Co.
This volume is a joy. And this means.
first. that as workman. its author is
a master of modern literary criticism
And this, in turn, means that he knows
what life is about and doing in these days.
And, again. that he is pretty sure of the
kinship of the story teller to this amaz-
ing adventure of merely being in the
world Mr.. Cooper, TO our delight, Is not
a bit afraid to talk about live men and
women who make stories Most critics
insist on serving them dead But he
freely puts upon examination fifteen hale
and hearty men and women. setting out