Evening star., 1924-08-26
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM

Al nAlNDOM
THE LAKE SUPERIOR COUNTRY.
T. Morris Longytreth. The Cen
tury' Company.
Even yet tho most Of Us are place
bound. Despite the releasing mod
ern facts Of train and nivver, Of hy-
Ing machine and swift ships, the
great majority must stili gather in
its world through hearsay and re-
port. These speeding lines thrown
out over land and air and sea, net
ting up the vast world into a single
neighborhood of common concerns,
have bred a new order Of traveller, a
new kind Of reporter. With the ac-
tualities Of any corner Of the earth
within hands reach there is no long
er excuse for the half truths and
complete falsities that padded and
embellished tho accounts Of earlier
travellers, no longer federation of
these. So, whether these modern ex-
plorers be adventurers seeking far
places to bring back to US or simple
wayfarers loafing along through less
remote regions. both are committed to
clearly authentic deliveries. And
pledged to something else. of equal
their facts alive-heart pumping,
blood racing. muscles responsive,
movements prompt and free. Be-
sides, these must be srseped in their
own f1avors, soaked in their own at
mospheres. The body Of the place,
of the locality. must be animated by
its own spirit. Morris Iongstreth is
one of these modern wayfarers
through places that lie only a little
way over the borders of our own IA
miliar comings and goings-the
enuans. We went with him through
these. Let's go along with him again,
this time toward the Lake Superior
country, where it is his purpose to
spend half a year drifting about"
+ X
To catch sharply the difference be-
tween this new order Of place pur-
veyor and those who have dealt out
still are dealing out-dry- as-dust geo
graphic stuff over which along the
way of learning children strangle and
which they never do succeed in swal-
low. let u.s. before joining Longstreth,
review what we ourselves gathered
from the sames arid source about the
Lake Superior region-'1argest body Of
fresh water in the world" rich natural
resources" highly important to COM
merce." These points sum, in the
main. the inspiring nuggets of pure
knowledge to be derived from this
scholastic reservoir of geographic
fact. No. let US not stop any longer
here, lest we fall into a long and
futile. wondering over the causes of
tho deep conspiratorial unity that
M q cDn
FsubJect-and they are all average
the dryest and most depressing as
.semblage of words that ever broke
into print.
Rather let US board the Assiniboia
with Longstreth and walk its de-
serted deck with him wondering, as
he does. why the several hundred
passengers have focked below to a
Efhattering sociability, turning their
backs upon the very thing they have
come to see. Queer f1sh-folks, Let
us listen in as Longstreth and Capt
fMcCannel talk-father rs the cap
tain talks, easy-like, about his years
Of sailing the big water which. ac-
cording to him, is tremendous force,
sentient as the human is sentiment.
against which men who follow 1t must
set courage and cunning to meet its
passions OF fury, or the deep Quietude
Of its warier plans. And there are
days on days when in its languorous
irideScent swing it is a miracle of
shining beauty. The captain moves
away and we stand in the purple dusk
of q reluctant night while Longstreth
points to our westering course and
speaks of the racial instinct that has
ever driven the Anglo-Saxon out
along the course of the setting sun
or toward the glittering ice fields of
the North.
"If you go ba 4 a bit from the rails
you'll find th0 things have not
changed so very much from those
stupendous days Of the Jesuits." But
the Indians are fever?' There are
rather more of the ojibways. more
than. 10000" primarily hunters,
roamers. liberty loving. good-natured
and flliterate. LAlemant would turn
in his grave to know how short a dis
tance he and his black-robed associ-
ates had carried the redskins on their
apostolic way" And in no time at
all we are in the midst Of the proof
of this assertion. Woods and lakes
and tangled streams ring with In
dian names like the soft clang of
Ginning bells-Nipigon. Michipicoten,
T..
Full-breed and half breed and white
man come together here in these
backwoods of the Superior country
in an accommodation of race to race
and man to man that reduces pagan
religion and Christian belief, primi-
tive custom and civilized habit to the
common denominator Of mutual ad-
vantage and respect. In these stories
and stories of the Indian and the
T.
peace and simplicity. To be sure.
Longstreth is a poet. but this is not
all poetry. Even poetry must have at
least a thin layer of fact under it
Here the layers are thick and con-
vincingly substantial.
\ X + r
One hates to hurry along past those
splendid men OF the mounted police,
with whom this traveller had so many
a sturdy experience and whom he has
set out here in a grateful and appre-
ciative AN Idyl of the King" And
one hates to pass up the forest rang
ers and a certain Sky pilot" and the
guides, and the fishing and a host of
other things so completely worth
anybody's while. But we are hurry
ing on to Pawatiniki before space
closes it out. IT now took a step and
was swallowed UP by the gloom of
frs and towering birches. 1t was like
looking into a book of folklore. Each
step took me nearer the heart OF the
dark forest and into the presence Of
adventure.
THE gloom of spruce dwindled into
a twilight, the twilight was rent with
shafts of sun, and I emerged upon a
crescent shore to find myself on an
enchanted cove Of Lake Superior"
Here he came upon q log cabin, "a
home, so beautifully set within the
grand scene that it might have been
the habitation Of domestic witch