Evening star., 1914-07-11

- AVING gone to Stratford-on-
Avon for the Shakespeare
festivals, Mr.. Howells. on the
very day of his arrival. feli
in. by a happy chance, with
the shade of William Shakespeare him.
self Drawn together. no douot, ny
their kinship III craft, the two gre" 10
he prodigious friends and constant coih-
panions during those days OF 1estlVity.
Seemingly bit strange ana ioHeiS'
Shakespeare In particular became freely
talkative, and. at length. connoentiaA'
As IL turned out. the ghost of the man
had come back to his own ceieoFatioh
in the express hope of finding there
some co,nprehending and sympathetic
soul with whom he could talk out the
,housand-and-one topics of daily dis
pute to which the Shakespeare plays
have given rise in their three-hundreo-
wear survival of Shakespeare himself
In wholly artless manner the poet
ghost confessed to a genuine liking Tor
th. increasing reverberation OF men
praise"-as Mr.. IIowells. naturally
elated by the company he was In,
grandiloquentIy put the question ana
it was because of his respect and fond
ness for this particular ''reverberauon
that his spirit had come back at thls
plain, what of dross and Stag these
amazingly critical modern folks ma
mixed with the pure metal OF his WORK.
BY nature the most genial ana klhony II.
1t squarely up to the ghost OF W imam
Shakespeare to explain the PATCHWORK
of some of Shakespeare's plays. 10
Justify the humor that disowned at
home. took shelter with rough and
roistering farce. to account Tor IilS nure
pilfcrings and brazen borrowings. Thus
pressed. il must be admitted tnat tne
s.urit gave Il splendid account or the
pna- Al the time. II is needless to
say there was supreme Difference TO
ward the great supernail on the part
of his iuterlocutor. and. equally al !ne
time there was complete good feelne
between the two. Toward the last, Sip
ping into more private matters. Snake
speare spoke with much anection OF
now for three centuries as pattern OF
the neglected wife. He told, by the
way. too. how he came to will her his
second best bed, instead of his first
long and public grievance against his
own memory Taken all in all, these
two shade and man. aloof in the midst
of the celebration, settled to every
Shakespeare question. including the side
to which Francis Bacon is made to lay
claim by enthusiastic champions AS
for the festival itself, that is here In
its many colors and meanings But the
pure joy of this record centers In
ShakesDeares inspired return to earth
and his happy encounter with TINS
prince of interpreters and chroniclers.
JOSEPH PILITZER: "Reminiscences of
Secretary. By Alleyne Ireland.
New York: Mitchell Kennerley.
Joseph Pulitzer. in the years following
fis blindness. surrounded himself with
l,a'r q dozen men, each of special gift or
Ge all of exceptional experience
8 training. In so far as it was posi-
TIE business of this group was to
50 lin the stead of eyes to Mr.. Pulitzer.
- :t'5 business was by no means
q rlTtter OF daily observation and re-
~ quite to the contrary. it was the
I %: seeing things in Mr.. Pulitzer's
E1r1er. instantaneously. with far
III hes Of vision. seiZing meanings, signs,
! o eats and grasping Immediately a GER
fa-. line Of action for each important sit
ration and event In these "reminiscences
Sir. Ireland. one of this group. presents
the astonishing phenomenon of a human
dynamo. supplied with clean-sifted mate
rial to work upon. through the efforts Of
these half dozen men toiling literally
night and day to condense to their least
bulk bodies of outside fact. news. infor-
nation of every sort, to arrange these to
their most striking and seizable form.
and in many cases practicing to present
them in their tersest as well as in their
most felicitous phrase. And the aston
ishing power developed in this exacting
school. the power that made one and
another of these men SO useful in trans
ferring the facts of the outer world to
the inner vision of Mr.. Pulitzer. is pre-
cisely the power that makes Mr.. Ireland
himself so urpassingly effective in pre-
senting Mr.. Pulitzer to readers in this
vivid and living likeness Reading here,
IL s111c haon q
part of the group circling around this tre-
mendous personality. one literally sees
the man and hears him talk. Here in
his least moods as we'll as in his great
est. Mr.. Pulitzer stands. Now he is the
most brilliant, the most lovable of COM
panions. and in the next tortured mo-
ment, intractable, unreasonable, insulting
the victim of riot of raw nerves. Mr.
Ireland has ina gination. humor. and al
ways a thorough consciousness Of the
high quality of his man. His story Of
Mr. Pulitzer is more absorbing than a
novel. more illuminating than any mere
biography. 1t is hard to realize that
words can be so aptly and artfully strung
together to actually re-embody a man
as Mr. Ireland's words serve to re-em-
body Mr.. Pulitzer.
FULL SWING. BY Frank Dandy author
of Pigs In Clover etc. Philadel-
phia: J. B. Lippincott Company.
This Is serious and exceptionally
we'll wrought story. whose people and
scenes and situations sum to a lfelike
demonstration that a thoroughly good
person rigidiy pursuing what is called
duty may finally compass in this pursuit
the entire round of human failure and
wrongdoing Bent not only upon her
own duty as she saw it. but self-installed
as the conscience of those about her
Agatha Wanstead. Lady Grindelay. works
a pretty complete wreckage of her own
life. of the life of the man she should
have married, of the life of her own son
and. in less marked degree of the lives
of everybody about her. Had she not
died. this would have been a dismal story
to the very end. Her masterful presence
removed at the last. there is still little
time for readjustment along easier and
happier lines Though uncommonly strong
and dramatic as a story. Full Swing
is. in effect. a study of human nature
thwarted by the warning of its own ele-
ments.
THE LAST SHOT. BY Frederick Palmer.
author of over the Pass" etc New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Washington: Woodward & Lothrop
This is a novel of modern warfare.
Holding human nature constant to the
groundless and unreal hatreds that re-
cruit into opposing armies, this
writer organizes the 'Grays' on the one