The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-09-10


schoolfellows his play, and, above all
of his mental operations, his point OF
view, mis- envisaging of himself and his
environment. It's versimiltude and the
skill and artistry with which 1t is done
ought to win for it a place beside tina {
classic of English adolescence, the Tom
Brown books of Thomas Hughes. But
there is the difference between them,
that Mr. Bensons story is more psycholo-
gically inquiring and interpretative than
the old-time tales, while they are more
specifically pictorial and more concerned
with the telling of their story. 1t is a
difference to be expected when one con-
siders the social, Intellectual, and liter
airy differences between the times which
produced the two books.
Mr.. Benson takes his David Blaize
through a short period at a small school
and then transfers him to large estab-
lishment of the kind the English, FOR
some undiscoverable reason, call public. -
He is a winning and admirable boy, in
his early teens, manly, brave. and IN
able by native moral endowment to do
mean, disloyal things The account of
his school work, bearing out as 1t does
all the similar accounts In English school
life stories, fills one with wonder that
all English schoolboys, even to the last
one, have not run away and gone to sea.
THE DAUGHTER OF THE STORAGE
AND OTHER THINGS IN PROSE
AND VERSE
BY William Dean Howells. Harper
Brothers, publishers, New York.
Whenever 1t is announced that William
Dean Howells is to publish a new book
the literary world feels that 1t has
treat in store
All of Mr. Howells' stories-both long
and short-have been enjoyed by perhaps
larger clientele than nearly any other
American writer of the day and his
latest volume entitled THE Daughter of
the Storage and Other Things in Prose
and Verse;" makes a particular appeal
since Mr.. Howells has dropped into the
fashion Of the day, which, for want of
better name, we call "vers libre," or
free verse"
The meter that gave us John Mase-
fields deliciously enchanting widow in
Bye Street" Is used by Mr.. Howells.
There Is, for example, Captain Dun
levy's Last Trip the story is told by
the pilot on a pilot boat in Ohio, and
as he turns the big wheel of the boat,
he thus delivers the Captain
I suppose no man ever knew the Ohio
Better than Captain Dunlevy, il any one
else knew 1t like him.
Man and Boy, he had been pretty much
his whole life on the river:
Cabin boy first on a keelboat before the
day of the steamboats,,
Back in the pioneer times; and Waterman
then on a steamboat;
Then second mate, and then mate, and
then pilot and captain and owner
But he was proudest, I reckon, OF being
about the best pilot
On the Ohio. He knew 1t as well as he
knew his own Bible,
And I don't hardly believe that ever Cap
tain Dunlevy
Let single day go by without reading
a chapter.
There follows this bit, which gives the
sensation of the swing Of the boat, and
the movement of the talker and the effect
on the listeners as perhaps no other form
could have done:
While the pilot went on with his talk,
and in regular rythmical motion
Swayed from one side to the other before
his wheel, and we listened,
Certain typical facts of the picturesque
life of the river
Won their way to our consciousness as
without help of our senses.
Another attractive story Is told in real
rhyme, and Is called Breakfast Is My
Best Meal" and has a swing which en-
thus:
Breakfast is my best meal, and reckon
it's always been
Ever since I was old enough to know
what breakfast could mean.
I mind when we lived in the cabin out
on the Illinoy,
Where father had took up quarter Sec
ton when l was a boy,
70 fAv. hn
was light;
And when started back home, before 1
come in sight,
come In smell of the cabin, where
mother was frying the ham,
And boiling the coffee, that reached
through the air like mile O. balm,
M I bet you I didn't wait to see what
it was that the dog
Thought he'd got under the stump or
inside O. the hollow log!
But made the old cows canter till their
hoof-joints cracked-you know
That dry funny kind of noise that cows
make when they go
And never stopped to wash when / got
to the cabin door;
1 pulled up my chair and ct like 1 never
had ct before.
These effusions charming and capti-
NdtiHS dT6 mere samples OF the Oellght-
full things contained in THE Daughter of
the Storage and Other Things in Prose
and Verse;" and the entire contents of
the volume are redolent with philosophy
tempered with a striking picturing of
American thought and feeling.
shimmering touch of hurhor infests
each character Mr.. Howells draws and
no sawdust dolls ever illuminated any
window Of his, because his is the shop
window Of life-vibrating, pulsating, pal-
plating.
PEOPLE LIKE THAT"
BY Kate Langley Bosher Illustrated
Harper Brothers, publishers, New York.
Kate Langley Bosher in her story
People Like That" has achieved an
other tremendously enviable success as
writer The story Is equally as charm
Ing as its predecessors, and that is say
ing great DEAL for no other author of
today knows more entirely how to reach
the hearts of her readers than this clever
woman. N&N
In People Like That" the scene is
laid in some unnamed southern city, big
enough to have slums and regions Of de-
caying responsibility and streets Of self
complacent wealth and social Importance
The title is from an expression used
often by many of the characters when
ever they are referring to people of some
other social class than their own IT
seems to symbolic the sense of differ
ence that springs quickly to life in the
minds of human beings when they see
others in the midst of different material
surroundings. The author shows either