The New York herald., 1922-03-19

many different persons, we are helped
to see Douglas as he was seen by
those who came in direct contact
with him. No two of those agreed
completely in their judgment of him,
and none OF them held the same
opinion Of him all the time He al
ways was something of a puzzle to
those who saw and heard him, and
a puzzle he must to some extent re-
main even to US who see and hear
him through the clarifying medium
Of Mr.. Masters's analysis.
But the picture evolved by Mr..
Masters in that process is, to me at
least, so humanity attractive and so
far reachingly instructive that ul-
innate conclusions appear strangely
irrelevant. Douglas, as he stands
revealed to me by the Children of
the Market Place" may have been
a symbol invented by the Life Spirit
| for. the expression of the best and
the worst in the national character
Of this country. ''These men think
! the world is run by righteousness"
he is quoted as saying OF Emerson
and Lowell and Seward, especially
| if you let. them prescribe the right
eousness. But it is not. 1t is run
by interests" And one of the other
| characters in the book says of him:
THE trouble with Douglas is that he
does not see that idealism is as real
as realism" IL Douglas were living
to-day he would be a power, as he
was in his own day, and he would be
as fully at home with US as he was
with his buried and forgotten con-
| temporaries, and much of what he
had to say would perhaps be better
understood by US than it was by
those who actually heard him.
Douglas, as we see him with the help
of Mr.. Masters, was living enbodi-
ment of the spirit that has made 1t
possible for America to proclaim
itself the most successful country in
the world.
"For the dreamer, the visionary.
he had no patience" says MIR. Mas
ters; "he felt contempt for the agi-
tator and the radical. In a theory
preoccupying the human mind he
saw something akin to madness"
That is q mental portrait Of the men
| who rule the destinies of our nation
to-day. And elsewhere Mr.. Masters,
under the alias of James Miles, says
that "the aggregate feelings and
thoughts of a people make a super
intelligence which may be mistaken
for God.' and "of this superintelli-
gence Douglass voice was the great
expression But this is only ono
side of it. And it's complement and
corrective are suggested by Mr.. Mas
tiers when he lets James Miles say:
"If / were recording the life of an
artist I should be dealing with diff
ferent causes acting upon his devel-
opment, or with different effects
produced by the same times in which
Douglas lived. Instead I am trying
to set forth the soul of a great man
who extracted from his environment
other things than beauty; or rather
the beauty Of national progress"
Turning from this aspect of the
book to its thread of pure history,
we enter more debatable ground.
Not as far as Mr.. Masters's opinions
are concerned. though some Of them
| undoubtedly will be questioned by
specially informed persons. but in
regard to his art. This part of the
book is little too stark. There are
too many statistics. too many pas
sages that seem mere enumerations,
too many literary and historical
landmarks dragged in by the hair,
so to speak. Yet, must repeat once
more, the total impression remains
one of vivid realization. The work.
manship may be questionable in de-
tails. The resulting picture brings
us back to those bygone days with a
sense of familiarity as If we wero
browsing among half forgotten men,
cries of our own. And with all due
allowance for inevitable criticisms, I
am inclined to consider this phase of
the book one of the most important,
even though to many it prove its
least attractive.