davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

TT HE imminence of Margot, an
i unshrinking soul all alone
about to explore the spacious
possibilities Of the American Republic,
is fact to be noted even in a time
full of incident, or even of calamity
Mrs. Asquith, now on the bounding
pillows, is not the person to be
daunted even by the chewing gum
signs in Longacre. She has seen men
and customs in England and many
other lands; she will not fail to be en-
tertained here by others besides those
privileged to be her hosts. She is COM
ing at a fortunate moment; for New
York-never quite empty-is still full
of people intelligent enough to know
lady when they see her, to welcome
her with delight. and to find a keen
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

duction of a special element, the con-
troversial. Both Koheleth (the Cen
tie Cynic" whom the Greek translator
renamed Ecclesiastes) and job were
distinctly free thinkers. Koheleth was
a cynic and Job was a rebel. They
are quite different enough2as differ
ent we may say, as the two pessi-
mists of Moliere's "Misanthrope." AL
ceste. who frowns at the world like
Job, and Philinte. who smiles at it like
koheleth-but they were alike I'm that
both ran counter to the approved
teachings of their times. In the in
terests of orthodoxy pious commenta-
tors felt IL their duty to remove or at
least to neutralize the skeptical trend
Of both books by whatever omissions,
additions or substitutions presented
themselves to them. They did not, of
course, make a perfect job of It: the
work when they were through with it,
so far as they ever did get through
with it, was often inconsistent. often
inartistic; but in an uncritical age all
this passed unnoticed, and even We
ourselves. as DIR. Jastrow reminds us
our critical instinct warped by tradi-
ton and lulled by oun admiration for
what we have so frequently been told
is a literary masterpiece. will read
quite unsuspiciously passage after
passage which upon analysis can be
shown to give no sense"
Thus the Book of Job is not a unit.
It grew up by various steps and out
OF various strata. Let us follow DIR.
Jastrow in tracing these.
Originally there was a folk tale
represented by the two opening chap
ters and part of the closing one. which
in the Hebrew version are in prose
about a man named Job who suffered
greatly yet never ceased to love and
trust and elorify God. This Job is a
type--the type of the good man which,
like that of the bad man. is found so
often i'm primitive story. 1--WE may
compare the Evander and the Cacus
of the early Roman legend. whose
very names are tacit yet eloquent wit
nesses.) The tone is thoroughly prim-
tive and popular. There is. as DR.
Jastrow says, delightful touch OF
bonhomie" in the dialogue between
Yahweh and Satan. And yet even this
dialogue may not belong to the earliest
form of the myth. AS DR.. Jastrow
says, THE folk spirit would have in
stinctively rejected the suggestion that
Jobs fate was merely prompted by a
cynical suspicion that Jobs goodness
was calculated selfishness, and that
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

interest in the physical part of this
truly extraordinary being.
AS to this detail, let her speak tor
herself: she has drawn herself more
vividly than anybody else could sketch
her:
"In appearance she was small, with
rapid. nervous movements.
Her face did not betray the intelligence
she possessed, as her eyes. though
clear and well shaped, were too close
together. Her hawlxy nose was bent
over a short upper lip and a meaning
less mouth. The chin showed more
definite character than her other fea
lures, being large, bony and promi
nent, and she had curly, pretty hair
growing well on a finely cut forehead;
the ensemble healthy and mobile in
manner easy. unself-conscious. en-
phatic, inclined to be noisy from over
keenness and perfectly self-possessed.
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

not differentiate the gloss from the
original passage: he would run the
two together, very likely with further
comment of his own. It was a com
pliment to treat a book in this way.
If a book reached final, defnitive
form 1t was because 1t was finished,
dead. 1t was like a language that
does not crystalline until It has ceased
to grow. No one dreamed of distin-
gushing the first author from the
last; and indeed to do so would have
been difficult, for the later writer's reg
ularly initiated the style Of the earlier
ones whose work they were altering or
augmenting.
All the Old Testament books in gen.
eral doubtless received this confusing
treatment; but in the case of Job, as
in that of Ecclesiastes. matters are
still further complicated by the intro
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

a pious and proper NATURE must be
attributed to him. This result was
obtained sometimes by dovetailing
speeches so that some of the words of
his more orthodox "comforters" were
attributed to him, sometimes by in
Producing actual additions or alteru-
tons, including so daring a change AZ
that which turns the defiant AYE.
though He slay me, 1 tremble not" ESQ
rendered by DR.. Jastrow), into its pre-
else opposite. Though He slay me, yet
will / trust in Him." as we find il in
1S, > of the traditional translation. In
deed. they even went to work on the
thoroughly innocent prologue and sub
stituted "bless" for "curse" four times.
because IL did not seem proper TO SO
much as suggest the possibility OF
s"cursing God: but this sensees. all
teration was early recognized and Is
not preserved i'm the English version
Nor was the end yet. Even now
orthodoxy could scarcely be said TO
have won the day. Even the accepted
version admits that Job was "still
righteous In his own eyes'-whereas
in the original wording, as rendered
by Or. Jastrow, his triumph was still
greater-'he was justified in their
eyes" that Is. i'm the eyes of the three
friends who had been vainly trying 10
convince him. So still fourth friend
was presented, Elihu. Hebrew
(Which the others are not). who. in
six successive chapters (32-3D. pleads
the cause Of orthodoxy These chap.
ters. which constitute the second stra-
tum of the Book OF Job. are themselves
Of composite and complicated struc.
ture. and are not without inconsisten-
cies--both internally and with the rest
of the book. Naturally. even they
could scarcely be accepted as conclu-
sive, and so, as last result. the cham
pions OF orthodoxy finally added still a
third stratum, the magnificent series
of eleven nature poems tchapters IS
Az, put into the mouth of Yahweh
himself. This little anthology doubt
less represents a selection from large
body OF similar poems. from which
some Of the Psalms too Ce. e.. the
1oith), arc very likely extracts. They
have no more 10 do with Job than thc
Psalms have. and are Conceived I'm
totally different spirit from that which
pervades the Symposium" Yet il was
this appendix and the preceding onc
dealing with Elihu) that insured he
preservation Of the Book Of Job; for
the original form Of this book OllSe
that Of the Words Of Koheleth'D
would never have been included IN
the sacred canon"
The New York herald., 1922-01-22
AfterWells Mrs. AsQuith

Conversation graphic and exaggerated,
eager and concentrated, with nat
ural gift of expression. Her honesty
more popularity than virtue
And then, in this f-portrait, she
goes on to talk about herself in other
manifestations than the physical. The
readers of her wonderful book may
draw their own conclusions, but at
least she has told them her own view
of herself 1t is neither kind nor
reasonable to doubt her frankness in
speaking of herself; she says what
she thinks about anybody, and il is
only fair TO suppose she has a de-
tached view of herself Certainly she
is capable of such a thing if anybody
is, though the possibility remains
doubtful. in human nature.
Her American publisher is cele-
brating her arrival by bringing out
popular edition of her famous Auto
biography" as well as a new edition
of Mr.. Benson's "Dodo,' a book which
astonished the natives in England a
quarter century ago, of which she
was the undeniable heroine. In years
no volume of personal comment and
self-revelation has evoked such tor
rents of suggested and suggestive
criticism and rejoinder as her Auto
biography has reused; q central
African savage would feel the sting
and stimulus of her flashing pen; its
effect upon what some persons call
an overcivilized world has been in
slant and unique.
Among its important details none
is better worth attention than the
meager space given to her note of
"The Souls" a circle of the '9Os in
England, which was formed as a pro
test against the Smart Set of that
day clustered around Newmarket and
the Prince of Wales. Arthur Balfour
was the most distinguished member.
as well as one of the most brilliant
and he once remarked: mo history
of our time will be complete unless
the influence of the Souls upon SO
ciety is dispassionately and accurately
recorded" Margot is nothing If not
/ dispassionate and probably accurate
enough"
| Social events in New York are as
/ thick as peas in a pod, from Piping
| Rock to Riverside Drive, but not often
/ is an opportunity afforded for the
sharpest wits in our community TO
wket upon an intelligence and per-
sonality of the quality of Mrs. AS
quith's. Nobody wants 10 strike fire
at dinner, particularly; bus If anybody
should happen to have tie impulse
the visit of this most interesting
woman should furnish a flint worthy
of any steel hereabouts. w. d. NJ.
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

Yahweh, in order to prove that He
was right and Satan wrong. was will
ing TO impose cruel sufferings on an
innocent man."
This folk tale formed the basis of a
discussion--a literary symposium--on
the part of what we should like to
call, if Don Marquis had not spoiled
a perfectly good phrase. little group
of serious thinkers. This circle raised
the question, first, as to whether a real
Job would act as the Sunday school
hero of the folk tale did, and, second,
granted the truth of the tale, as to
what we are to think of the character
of God as portrayed in the story.
These two questioDs-the one psyche
logical the other theological-they
tried TO answer for themselves to the
best of their ability. "The symposium
in which arguments and counter argu-
ments are exchanged by Job and his
friends is the outcome of these discus
sions."
This Symposium, which is in verse,
comedies with chapters 1927 of the
Book of Job as we have it to-day. To
it were early added chapter IS, IAN
entirely Independent composition set
ting forth mans vain search for wis
DOM" and chapters 29-31. two sup
Elemental speeches of Job, added by
some one or by various writer's. who
wished to try their hand In putting
speeches of a different character into
the mouth OF job" The conclusion
Of the thirty first chapter marks the
close of the earliest stratum apart
from the folk tale) of the Book OF Job.
where we actually read. The words
of Job are ended"
But this was not the end Of them
by any means. The group of the
Symposium had not answered their
two questions in an orthodox manner.
They had represented Job who is
impatient and rebelious. and. accord
ing to accepted modes OF thought.
blasphemous They had regarded u
Deity who would treat blameless
man in the manner that Yahweh did
Job as unreasonable and even un-
thinkable. (They we're, perhaps, like
Euripides, whom his fellow Athenians
called an atheist because he would
not accept such inconsistent and un-
admirable conceptions of the gods as
they did, The Symposium says DR..
Jastrow. must have fallen like a
bombshell into the orthodox camp"
So the pious commentators set 20
work. Jobs blasphemies must not he
permitted. or. at least. they must not
be left unjustihed. Some remarks Of
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

from the sun and had established a
fixed relation between color and sound
tones, anticipating by some centuries
Mr.. Henderson and others. Their
medicine men took shells found in
their magic Corn Mountain, a giant
mesa overshadowing the village, pol
ished them to tissue thinness and then
painted each shell pure color, cor
responding to the colors of the prism.
One by one they placed these shells
over the ear nearest the sum- The
corresponding ray from the sun would
strike musical note, so that care had
to be taken to prevent the ear drum
being broken. These absolute color
tones the medicine men noted and
used exclusively in sacred ceremonies
but did not prevent their use in secu-
lar music. Are the red men more
subtly attuned to rhythms of the uni
The New York herald., 1922-01-22
he Book Of job Said the Late Professor Jasrow rs My job

tongue can render the words of an
other tongue in a manner at once
faithful and so flawless. How much
Of the Rubaiyat is Omar and how
much Fitz Gerald? Only a student of
the original Persian can tell us. And
the King James Version of the Bible,
for all its hallowed associations. both
literary and religious, is not an accu-
rate or an adequate guide to one who
would fain know the true content of
the Writings that it presents so gra-
ciously yet often interprets so wrong
fully. For not only did the scholars
of 1611 render incorrectly many of the
Hebrew passages that lay before them:
they committed a still more funda-
mental error i'm failing to realize that
a great number of these passages as
they found them were already actually
corrupt. How? And why? And how
and why can we be so sure?
To answer these questions we must
follow DIR. Jastrow's explanation of
"the time honored method, prevalent
throughout the ancient East. of anony-
nous and composite authorship" Into
this question he had already gone at
even greater length in "A Gentle
Cynic," whore he reminds us that book
writing was i'm the literal sense of the
word composition~-that is. a putting
together of documents which might
date from various periods" To-day, to
sink to "a pun, we might say that writ
ing is quite a different proposition.
Originality we at least aspire TO. If we
do not achieve. The laws of the court
and those of the manual of punctuation
alike force us thereto. But the ancient
world knew neither copyrights nor
quotation marks. The East did not
even have titles or authors. Greek lit
crature, as Prof. Jastrow points out,
may be said 90 have invented the
author" And yet 1t did not quite per-
feet its invention, otherwise where
would Wolf be and the other endless
writer's on the Homeric Question?
Classical antiquity made virtue of
what TO us is a vice called plagiarism.
II Vergil copied Homer rrr everything,
from a simile to a situation, 1t was be-
cause IL was the proper thing 20 do; il
he embodied in one Of his poems a line
from one of his friends, it was as a
delicate and graceful compliment
But vergil, at least is still indubitably
Vergil. And many are beginning to
believe, as It was believed in the be-
ginning, that Homer is indubitably
Homer. However, how many of the
almost 1,4OO lines grouped under the
name Of Theognis in the Greek An
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

LOST VALLEY. BY Katherine Fuller
ton Gerould. Harper & Brothers.
THERE is a double satisfaction
in taking up first novel by
= one who has long held high
place among the creators of the short
freshness, of discovery. But the firm,
light hand of the tried artist is sure
tc work all the modelling of detail.
Mrs. Gerould extends herself in more
than a special sense over the $50
pages of this tale.
And it has happy ending. If a
reader of her somber stories looked
first to the last pages, he might al
most question the authors name on
the title page. Yet Mrs. Gerould has
not-she could not have-written the
obvious kind of story, even in it's close
The overture is dark as Dantean
hell. Indeed, the poet left several
possibilities of anguish uneXplored
which modern psychological and socio-
logical fiction has relentlessly searched
out. He never read the reports of
New England neighborhoods where
the human stock has been going to
seed for generations-all its best
youth going West or to cities, and it's
remnants making matters worse by
inbreeding.
Yet even in the atmosphere of in
sanity and hopeless mremunerative
labor there is ray of light. The con-
=. Il Oh .l1.. IaNx I1
two sisters:
"Madge breathed the spirit and
strength of the Valley, but Lola cit
must be Lola) had the heartbreaking,
nonhuman delicacy of a Botticelli
child. Her gaze was rapt; she seemed
to be listening, in her divine mmatu-
rity, to celestial shawms and psalteries
She took his breath away. Then he
was forced to realize that the eyes,
too wide apart, were vacant; ~that
their periwinkle blue expressed no
thought; that another hand must have
plated her hair so neatly, and that
what seemed the artless wonder of
sanity child was the painful, abortive
cerebration of half wit. The Valley,
triumphant one last time i'm Madge,
had bowed to it's doom in Lola. In
"a few years, when mere bodily beauty
was gone or marred, she would be a
thing to flee from. The inward dis
ease would wreck itself upon the flesh.
Even now one moments contemplation
was enough. You saw the breakdown
coming. But just there in the door,
by her darker sister, she made an un-
forgetable vision-as if the Manger of
roof"
This exquisite Madonna figure with
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

darkened mind becomes the center of
the plot. She strays away and the
major part of the tale is occupied with
Madge's search for her. 1t is a kind
of prose Evangeline. The trail leads
to New York and there, in Chinatown,
is disclosed one of the most engaging
personages of current fiction-a blind
Chinese musician and philosopher.
while the strange tinkle was slow
ly but surely filling the room, pene-
trating the atmosphere a little more
deeply with each bar and stave, the
sound of the door latch made Quong
open his eyes. Jee Gam went on with
his music, and Madge Lockerby en-
tered the cellar. She lowered on the
tide of sound like a bit of fiotsam on
an alien wave; a piece of northern
oak spar on a junk strewn sea. Madge
nodded at Quong, smiled at The blind
rapt face of the old man, and seated
herself. She was broke to the dull
elmer, accustomed to the little cellar,
and sense of the exotic was long since
gone for her from this niche of Doyers
street. Since she had stumbled into it
for refuge from insult it had become
a familiar haven. Her eyes. grown
wise with many contacts, rested with
reverence on Jee Cams benevolent
face. She had trusted many counte-
nances of her own race, only to find
them masks for treachery or contempt.
Now. she could not be put off by acci-
dents of shape or color. She had
grown shrewd as a kicked dog. and
her tolerance would have given Sarah
Martin fever and ague."
Beside Jee Gam must be set Madge's
other friend, Sarah Martin. though the
two never meet. And we get an in
direct sense of the rightness of
Madge's nature through her valuation
of these two. Here is a bit of Madge's
talk, after her search for her sister has
ended
81 feel as if / could help lots of
people with what I've learned. If the
young man at the settlement had
known as much as I know now I'd
have found Lola quicker. And he was
college educated, too. The great mys-
terry in this life isn't books, Miss Mar
tin--it's people. | know book learning
is important: mean TO study as hard
as ever / can. But when you come
right down to it what you need to know
about is human beings. Twouldnt
have helped me one bit the last year
to know Latin, but il would have
helped me a lot if I'd had more expert
ence of people. There are several mis-
takes wouldn't have made. You
wouldn't have made them, probably.
But it wouldn't have been because you
knew history and Latin: it would have
been because you had more knowledge
of the world"
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

thology are truly to be attributed to
Theognis? And If we travel eastward
we shall find similar collections of
equally varied authorship, without
even a name such as that of Theognis
at their head.
OF course IL one were interested i'll
another mans writings one would
want to explain them, improve them,
add to them, answer them. And one
did not do such things in foot notes
or hand books. One might write in the
margin of ones manuscript, but the
next copyist that came along would
The New York herald., 1922-01-22
Two Girls Explore West

cross beams rested on bent backs on
which, the whisper went, were bound
the spiky cactus, whose every curved
needle pressing on the flesh spells tor
ture. Blood ran down their shaky
legs, joining blood already crusted.
Their heads were hooded"
Naturally the Indians also came in
for a share of the travellers curiosity.
Miss Dixon has much of interest to
say Of them, but perhaps nothing more
Illuminating and suggestive than this:
I'm the Casa Grande ruins is tiny
hole through which the sun shines the
first day it crosses the vernal equinox.
Like lens of telescope this focuses
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

The recent death of one of Amer
ioa's greatest Oriental scholars sug-
gests a study of his literary life
work. But this has far more than
a personal interest, since it involves
the whole matter of modern re-
translation of the Bible. Miss
Hahn's essay will be completed
next week, when Benjamin De Cas-
seres will review DIR. Jastrow S
posthumous volume, ".The Song of
Songs"
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

Hugh Lofting, author and illustrator
of "The Story of Doctor Doolittle"
(Stokes). will make his appearance in
New York as a playwright in Febru-
airy when the Comedy Club will pro-
duce three act drama written by
him. Mr. Lofting is spending the win
ter at work i'm a garage studio" al
Westport, Conn.
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

THE BOOK OF JOB. It's origin. grown
and Interpretation. Together with
new translation based on "A revised
text. BY Morris Jastrow. Philadel-
phia ]. y. Lippincott Company.
..T HE Book of job" to which the
late Prof. Jastrow, with
H. characteristic humor, used
frequently to refer as his job, is indeed
colossal undertaking. 1t is the Sec
ond volume of a trilogy dealing with
his three favorite Biblical books-Ec-
clesiastes, Job and The Song of Songs
on which he had been engaged for
at least a dozen years. Fortunately,
this monumental work was completed
before his death last spring, and the
three volumes are issued in the same
attractive style--a form really worthy
Of their content.
The plan of these books is the same.
A long and extended commentary,
which apparently answers every ques-
ton that could conceivably arise, is
followed by a new and original transN
lation of the Hebrew text, accompanied
10y footnotes both critical and epexe-
getical
Creatures of convention that we are,
and admirers of tradition that we
doubtless ought to be, we are at first
thought inclined almost to shrink from
the mere suggestion of new transa-
tion of the Book OF Books. We
Americans are blessed I'm having as
part of our precious heritage from our
English forebears-for the forebears
of all Of us they surely are, if not
racially, at least intellectually and
spiritually--two examples of that most
rare treasure, a first class translation.
One is Edward Fitz Gerald's rendering
Of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; I;
the other is the King James Bible. But
the very perfection Of these gems
should bid us pause. No man can rem
Ger the ideas of another man, no
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

Mrs. Gertrude Atherton has just ar
rived on visit here from San Fran
cisco after an absence of over two
years. Her latest novel, Sleeping
Fires" (Stokes) is expected to be
ready the latter part of this month.
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

into tiny holes in other parts of the
building. Why it is there nobody
knows, but it indicates knowledge of
astronomy which places the prehistoric
Pima on, equal footing with modern
scientists. Before the Zuni Indians
knew a white race existed, according
to Gushing, Powell and the musician
Carlos Troyer. they had evolved the
theory of prismatic waves coming
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

verse than the superior white race?
Has the dirty, half naked medicine
man somehow found the parent stem
of the banyan tree of life while we are
still digging around its offshoots?"
1t is difficult to say to which class
of people this book will be of greater
value: those who know the West or
those who see it first through the eyes
of these young women.
The New York herald., 1922-01-22

THE BOOK OF JOB. It's origin. growth
and Interpretation. Together with
new translation based on a revised
text. BY Morris Jastrow. Philadel-
phia ]. b. Lippincott Company.