Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-05-19
TRAUBEL COMPARED
WITHSWHTTMAN in
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Two Bards and Philosophers
Identified With Philadelphia
Summed Up in Enter
tanning Book
ESSAYS AND FICTION

! r. ) ) A Y ) A N IL + i y L L " IN
Here Is a book-"whitman and Traubel"
| by william English walling CA. & c,
Boni New Yorly)-that cannot be ignored.
In the first place. It ought to appeal pecu-
liarly to Philadelphia because it treats of
two men whose names are closely inter
woven with the life of the city; the book
ought to enlist the attention of the literary
world because it is concerned with two
gifted writer's Of distinctive style and world
wide vision and again. 1t ought TO interest
all observers of the trend Of things, be-
cause 1t deals with two of mankind's most
noteworthy interpreters of manlklnd's own
meaning.
wallng sums up wait whitman as an
ndlvldualst Horace Traubel he terms
humanist. Whitman is the idealst
Traubel the realist. whitman was the
prophet of democracy; Traubel is its phi
losopher. Whitman believed in the Idea"
OF the bard Traubel stands for the social
movement of the age. Whitman placed his
confidence In the small property owner as
the foundation stone on which a new civilI-
cation was to be built; Traubel salutes the
common propertyless man as the rock to
which a shaken world may cling.
Who was Whitman? We all know. Who
is Traubel? It is n commentary on Phila-
delphias. Pennsylvania's. Americas con-
seriousness that he must be identified. AS
he says of himself. he is never named by
those who make out the lists" For more
than 25 years he has edited his weekly. the
Conservator. in this city. and yet, just as
Philadelphia gave itself little concern about
whitman when he was n living. breathing
presence in our streets, so II has been large
ly unconscious of Traubel, but it will not
be able to remain unconscious of him much
longer. Walling who is no superficial critic
or inCOherent analyst calls him the fore
runner of a new literature, and that is an
immensely important thing for n man to be.
Waling writes entertainngly in a style of
terse incisvcness
The eternal triangle" is employed
once again in Gouverneur Morris latest
novel. I'VE Three" (D. Appleton & Co..
New York;, but that fact should not dis
courage any reader, however weary he may
deem himself of this sadly ovcrworl;ed
theme. Impossible as it may seem. Mr..
Morris has brought about really original
situation from hackneyed subject Not
only does he keep his three principals out
of the divorce court. but he keeps them
out of the miry path that leads to that
tribunal They skirt its edge, but never
once do they set foot in the mud.
Notwithstanding this marked departure
from the ordinary triangle story Mr.. Nor
IT'S mas Sutttthtu III UldklllE MS tldl
convincingly real The young wife. with a
penchant for falling in love and falling out
again; the youth who plays with edged
tools and cuts himself when he feels most
certain that there is no danger; the hus-
band whose early blindness gives place to
wisdom worthy of Solomons-all these
seem perfectly natural characters, so skill
fully has the author drawn them. of course,
Mr.. Morris is plain spoken-sometimes too
plain spoken. Plain -spokenness seems to be
,yt nd f,Or of oil In for ri hIYf
his style is always so charming that one is
inclined to forgive him when he touches
upon subjects which might better be ig-
Eored
To follow the life of a Russian boy on
his fathers estate, in the brutally managed
gymnasia and in the revolutionary circles
of the university. is fascinating enough for
any young American; but when the author
is a noted revolutionist. an outlawed noble
living in constant fear of the police for six
years. n prisoner escaped from Siberia and
at the last an exile, still Cherishlng the
patriotic ideals which prompted the daring
actions of his youth, the story of his early
life becomes one of absorbing interest.
Having once embarked upon the desper-
ate adventures of Vladimir de Bogory
Mokrievitch as told by him in when l Was
n Boy in Russia" dLothrop, Lee & Shepard
Coz no boy can put the book down until
he reads the last page and no grown person
can rest satisfied with the tantalizing
glimpse that the author has given of Revo.
lutionary Russia.
The style is simple and readable and the
story itself a piquant introduction to the
spirit of modern Russia.
A story about a boy, II It he the right
kind of n story, tends to keep the mind
young 10 make the reader feel boyish also
Such a ightsome book is Cam Clarke"
by John H. Walsh macmillan Company,
New York;. Cam is a red-blooded creature.
He is like all real boys of the Amer !can
breed He has his bad times and his good
times, his goody-gOody spells and his more
frequent and protracted times OF mischief
The story is laid in the Palouse country of
the West, and throughout it runs a strain
of delicious humor. To lovers of boys
and that means lovers of all humanity
this book can be heartily commended.
1.-The Golden Hope" by Grace Sartwel
Mason ID Appleton & Co.. New York; is
an excellent tale of the far West In this
story Eastern settlers in the West are
thrown against a band of land thieves
who plot to irrigate the surrounding coun-
try and turn it to their own advantage. The
story also deals with the fortunes of a
young woman and her unfortunate husband,
who by his wifes devotion becomes a man.
on May 30 Messrs. Henry Holt & Co
will issue John koren's Alcohol and So
clety," which has been exciting so much
| comment as his papers have appeared i'm
| the Atlantic Monthly. Mr.. Koren is ad-
| mirably impartial, and both the 'wets" and
the "drys" may get comfort from his pages
on the same day the same house will issue
prof Lucius Hopkins Miller's volume on
| "Bergsen and Religion" of which some ae-
count has already appeared.