Ghent, W. J. Our benevolent feudalism.
12, $1.25 net.
Contents: Utopias and other forecasts;
Combination and coalescence ; Our magnets ;
Our farmers and wage-earners ; Our makers
of law ; Our interpreters of law ; Our mould-
ers of opinion ; General social changes ;
Transition and fulfilment.
Mahan, Alfred Thayer. Retrospect and
prospect : studies in international relations,
naval and political. Little, B. 12, $1.60
net.
Contents: 1, Retrospect and prospect; 2,
Conditions determining the naval expansion
of the United States; 3, Effect of the South
African War on the prestige of the British
Empire; 4, Motives of imperial federation;
5, Considerations on the disposition of (Eu-
ropean) navies ; 6, The Persian Gulf and in-
ternational relations ; 7, The military rule of
obedience ; 8, Admiral Sampson.
Potter, Henry Codman, {Bp.) The citizen
in his relation to the industrial situation:
Yale lectures. Scribner. 12, (Yale lec-
tures on the responsibilities of citizenship.)
$1 net.
Riis, Jacob A. The battle with the slum.
Macmillan. por. 8, $2 net.
Mr. Riis has taken his book published some
years ago under the title of "A ten years'
war" and completely rewritten it, adding
practically a third more material than the
original volume contained, besides entirely
rewriting the text. He has brought the sub-
ject up to date. It is a complement and, as it
were, a following volume to "How the other
half lives." That was the pioneer work show-
ing the conditions. This shows the battle
which has been waged with these conditions,
the improvement that has been effected, and
the means which were used and which are
still being used.
Zueblin, Chas. American municipal pro-
gress; chapters in municipal sociology.
Macmillan. 12, (Citizen's lib.) $1.25 net.
"This book is almost encyclopedic in its
wealth of illustration as to what American
municipalities have done during the past few
years towards the solution of problems con-
nected with transportation, public works, san-
itation, public schools, public libraries and
buildings, parks and boulevards and public
recreation. Naturally Professor Zueblin's
book is taken up almost exclusively with what
American cities have done rather than with
the question of how they have done it. Pro-
fessor Zueblin has given us an excellent book,
which ought greatly to encourage those who
are struggling to obtain the ideal city." F. J.
Goodnow, in Political Science Quarterly.
32
THE LITERARY ^NEWS.
UanmKy^J992y~
fciterars iniscellonp.
John R. Carling. It now appears that
J(ihn R, Carling, the author of "The Shadow
of-'the Czar," is a veteran schoolmaster in
England. His romance has been warmly
commended by the press in England and in
this country.
Mrs. Humphry Ward in French. Mrs.
Humphry Ward's latest novel, "Lady Rose's
Daughter," is to be published in a French
translation in Paris with the title "La Fille de
Lady Rose." It will appear first as a serial
in the Revue des Deux Mondes.
Kate Douglas Wiggin's Popularity. It
is reported by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. that
in the sixteen years since the publication of
Kate Douglas Wiggin's "The Birds' Christ-
mas Carol" the sale has amounted to almost
300,000 copies. Of these, 25,000 have been
taken during the last twelve months.
"The Strenuous Life" in French. A
French translation of President Roosevelt's
"Strenuous Life," bearing the title "La Vie
Intense," has attracted much interest in Paris.
The translation is by Princesse Ferdinand de
Lucinge-Faucigny and M. Jean Izoulet, who
declare that their work has the authorization
of Mr. Roosevelt.
Charles Wagner's New Book. "The Bet-
ter Way" will be the title under which Charles
Wagner's new book will be published by Mc-
Clure, Phillips & Co. early in the spring. It
does not follow the French title, "L'Ami."
Wagner is the nastor of the Lutheran Church
in Paris, whose doctrines of simplicity and
sanity in modes of living have so impressed
that capital. His "The Simple Life" is now
in its sixth edition. This is the volume which
President Roosevelt has mentioned in several
of his public speeches.
George Alfred Henty, correspondent and
author, died November 16, on board his yacht
at Weymouth. He was born at Trumpington,
Cambridgeshire, England, December 8, 1832.
Leaving Cambridge he went to the Crimea in
the purveyor's department. Later as a news-
paper correspondent he witnessed many cam-
paigns in various countries. He also made a
tour of the United States and Canada, visiting
particularly the mining regions. He accom-
panied King Edward, then Prince of Wales,
on his tour of India. He witnessed the Italo-
Austrian War ; was with Garibaldi in his cam-
paigns in the Tyrol; at the opening of the
Suez Canal ; with the Abyssinian expedition
to Magdala and the Ashanti expedition to
Coomassie, He went through the Franco-
German War, the Communal Siege of Paris,
and was out in the Carlist Insurrection. Mr.
Henty was editor of a boy's paper, the Union
Jack. He wrote upwards of seventy books
for boys, nearly all of them of a historical
character.
Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood, au-
thor of "Lazarre," etc., died at her home,
4852 Washington Avenue, Chicago, Decem-
ber 26. Mrs. Catherwood was born at Lau-
ray. Licking County, Ohio, December 16, 1847.
Her parents died when she was terv years oldj
and she was placed in the Granville (0.)
Female College, from which she was gradu-
ated in 1868. She removed to Danville, III.,
where she obtained a position as a school
teacher. While in Danville sh0 became in-
terested in French history, out of the study of
which grew many of her novels. In 1887 she
was married to James Steel Catherwood, who,
with a daughter, survives her. She wrote
the following: "Craque-o'-Doom," "Old Cara-
van Days," "The Secret of Roseladies," "The
Romance of Dollard," "The Bells of Ste.
Anne," "The Story of Tonty," "The Lady of
Fort St. John, "Old Kaskaskia," "The White
Islander," "The Chase of St. Castin, and
Other Tales," "The Spirit of an Illinois Town
and the Little Renault," "The Days of
Jeanne d'Arc," "Bony and Ban," "Mackinac
and Lake Stories," "Spanish Peggy," and
"Lazarre."
iTreatjest IN^etos.
Little, Brown & Co. have in preparation a
special issue of their National edition of the
complete works of Daniel Webster, in eigh-
teen volumes, to be brought out this year.
Frederick A. Stokes Company will pub-
lish during the last week in February a new
story by Agnes and Egerton Castle, entitled
"The Star Dreamer." It is a story of Eng-
lish life at the period when George iii. lay
dying, and when Bath was in its heyday. Its
vein is that of the author's "The Light of
Scarthey" and "Young April," rather than of
"The Secret Orchard."
McClure, Phillips & Co. will publish next
month a novel of life in a small English vil-
lage, in Staffordshire, entitled "Anna of the
Five Towns," by Arnold Bennett; also, "The
Chameleon," by James Weber Linn, who uses
as his theme that trait in human nature which
leads some men and women to seek always
the lime light, to endeavor always to be the
protagonist, even at the expense of truth.
They also announce a book of short stories
by Joseph Conrad, entitled "Youth."
D. Appleton & Co.'s new offerings include
Chauncey C. Hotchkiss's stirring romance of
Revolutionary times, "For a Maiden Brave."
Though having nothing to do with battle and
bloodshed, the story hinges on the secret
method of collecting funds for the patriot
army by parolled prisoners of war. "A Vir-
ginia Girl in the Civil War" is a true narra-
tive, stranger than fiction, of the experiences
of a Confederate officer's wife who followed
her husband into camp and through many
exciting periods of the war. Other announce-
ments include Sereno S. Pratt's "The Work
of Wall Street," a succinct and practical
presentation of a many-sided question ; "Rac-
quets, Tennis and Squash," by Eustace H.
Miles, an English and American sportsman,
who knows whereof he speaks ; and "The
Journal of Arthur Stirling," describing the
trials and disappointments of a man of cul-
ture who tries to adopt literature as a profes-
sion.
The Literary News
3n tainttt gou ma^ rea&e t^em, <a> tsnem, 6{ fQe fittbibt; arib in tummtt, od umBram, unber some B^it free,
and f^temif^ faM afvaf t^t tttnoui (otimre*.
Vol. XXIV.
FEBRUARY, 1903.
No. 2.
From ' Through the Heart of Patagonia.''
D. Appleton i Co.
CHILDREN OF THE TOLDOS.
Through the Heart Patagonia.
In these days of travel and exploration,
when the earth has been getting smaller and
smaller as mechanical invention has anni-
hilated distance and the spread of knowledge
dissipated ignorance, it might seem surpris-
ing that a country of gigantic proportions
should exist almost at our very doors whose
interior has been practically a sealed book
to the world and whose physical characteris-
tics have been almost unknown. Yet such
is the case with Patagonia, which stretches
from about parallel 40 degrees to the Straits
of Magellan and embraces 300,000 square
miles. This enormous country, as is now
shown by the book "Through the Heart of
Patagonia," by H. Hesketh Prichard, has a
great variety of climates, flat pampas with
hardly a visible undulation, snow-covered,
inaccessible mountain peaks, unnamed lakes
where the flamingo sports and others where
glaciers are always to be found. Mr. Prich-
ard and his party of explorers travelled over
10,000 miles through this unknown country,
and the information brought back has not only
cleared up many mysteries about its inte-
rior, but has added materially to scientific
knowledge. He found hitherto unknown ani-
mals, which have now been given a name and
classified by British authorities; discovered
strange plants which previously had no place
in botany, defined the limits of big rivers
whose outlets only had been known, and
found lakes of large proportions whose exis-
tence had not been suspected.
Mr. Prichard wandered for months over
extensive pampas inhabited by countless herds
of guanaco, on whose western rim the Cor-
dilleras stood against the sky, their loftier
gorges choked with glaciers, their hollows
holding great steel-blue lakes, and about their
bastions were thousands of square miles of
shaggy forests cf which but the mere edges
have yet been explored. He found the de-
scendants of Welshmen who had fled to Pata-
34
THE LITERARY NEWS.
{February, 1903
gonia to preserve their native language, now
purely Spanish except in name, but much
improved physically above their ancestors
through the outdoor life and fine climatic
conditions of the country. (Appleton. $5.50
net.) A'^. Y. Times Sat. Rev.
The Pit.
One day, his publishers tell us, Norris came
to a member of the firm almost trembling
with enthusiasm.
"I've got a great idea," he said, and he told
his plan of "The Epic of the Wheat," perhaps
the largest constructive task any American
novelist has ever given himself.
The first novel was to deal with the war
between the wheat grower and the railroad
trust, the second would be the fictitious nar-
rative of a "deal" in the Chicago wheat pit,
while the third would probably have for
its pivotal episode the relieving of a famine
in an Old World community. In other words,
the three novels, each complete and distinct
in itself, were to be connected together in
their relation to, first, the production ; sec-
ond, the distribution, and third, the con-
sumption of American wheat. When com-
plete, they would form the story of a crop of
wheat from the time of its sowing as seed
in California to the time of its consumption
as bread in a village of Western Europe.
Both "The Octopus" and "The Pit" show
distinct traces of Zolaesque influence. This
does not mean that Norris followed Zola
into the cloacal mysteries. He made no
studies in morbid moral pathology. He did
not gloat over the seamy side of human na-
ture. But he looked at men and their mo-
tives, as exhibited in the clear light of day,
with the calm and serene gaze of the social
philosopher. He possessed the X-ray of
genius. He could detect the secret springs
of human action. He could make them visi-
ble to the multitude. In "The Octopus,"
however, he had been more the disciple. In
"The Pit" he is more the prophet of a new
dispensation. In the first he had become, in an
inoffensive sense, the American Zola. In
"The Pit" he becomes more distinctively the
founder of a new school, which may prelude
a French Norris.
In "The Octopus," as in most of Zola's
novels, there are a crowd of characters, each
sharply individualized, but confusing and dis-
tracting at a first perusal. In "The Pit" the
characters who count may be numbered on
your fingers, and dominating them all are the
hero and the heroine, Curtis Jadwin, capi-
talist and speculator, who brings about the
corner that constitutes the crisis, and Laura
Dearborn, the woman whom he loves and
marries, and who is whirled, an innocent vic-
tim, into the maelstrom of his own creation.
To this comedy and the tragedy, the ro-
mance and the melodrama of these two cen-
tral figures all the others are artistically sub-
ordinated.
They are a vividly imagined couple. Laura,
because through her feminine complexity she
was the more difficult of the two to manage,
is perhaps the greater triumph. Her co-
quettish heartlessness before she discovered
that she had a heart, her self-surrender when
she found herself immutably in love with
the man whom she had married without the
consciousness of love, are alike admirably
presented. Yet she is not a faultless monster.
When baflled in the endeavor to win from
her husband the external evidence of the pas-
sion he really feels, but which is subordmated
and for the moment almost overwhelmed by
his greater passion for speculation, she turns
in despair to the lover who has not only the
inner feeling, but the outer semblance, and
she is only saved from moral wreck by the
financial wreck that overtakes her husband.
Her victory is based upon her husband's
defeat.
The whole story moves swiftly and in-
evitably to the final catastrophe through a
series of intensely dramatic scenes. Laura's
sensations at the opera and in her desolated
home are as acutely described as the sensa-
tions of her husband in the whirl and toss
of the wheat exchange. (Doubleday, Page.
$1.50.) A^. Y. Herald.
Three Years' War.
Gen. De Wet's story of the Boer-British
struggle of 1899-1902, is told with a grave
simplicity, lighted up by touches of humor,
and is devoid of the passionate declamation
which might not unnaturally be looked for in
the account of a war fought with such sacri-
fices, at such odds, and with so many grounds
for bitter criticism of his adversaries. He
does devote a few pages to the sufferings of
the Boer women, both upon their devastated
farms and in the concentration camps, but
while his feelings are deep, his expressions
are restrained, and more in sorrow than in
anger.
As an addition to the mass of facts al-
ready at our command with regard to the
motives and conduct of the war, the narra-
tive is not important, for the ground has
February, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
been thoroughly traversed before; its field
of description is confined to the active war-
fare which began in October, 1899, and
there is no discussion of the previous South
African affairs which led up to the out-
break of hostilities. The weight of the story
Across Coveted Lands.
Henry Savage Landor has again produced
a volume describing adventures encountered
and strange discoveries made in a practically
unknown land, and for thrilling incident and
vivid description rivals, if it does not surpass,
From Across Coveted Lands.'
Charles Scribner's Sons.
KERMAN AND ZERIS, THE TWO KITTENS WHO ACCOMPANIED
AUTHOR ON HIS WANDERINGS.
is derived chiefly from the character and
achievements of the author, who, at an early
period of the military operations, was ad-
vanced from the ranks, as a private, to the
leadership of the army, when his fertility of
resource and unwearied energy showed him
to possess extraordinary fitness for his work.
From his inside view. Gen. DeWet con-
firms all that has been elsewhere told of the
contemptuous audacity with which these farm-
ers habitually assailed forces many times their
numbers. (Scribner. $2.50 net.) The Na-
tion.
the work with which he startled the world
four years ago on his return from Thibet.
This book deals with the semi-civilized peo-
ples of Persia, whose principal cities are in-
accessible except by camel train, and whose
far-stretching deserts, infested with robber
bands and beset with natural dangers, are
almost as trackless and uncharted as the
ocean. Mr. Landor provided himself with
the best official English and German maps,
but found not only dry grooves marked as
important rivers and towns and cities put
down in places where they had no existence^
36
THE LITERARY NEWS.
[February, 1903
but he also discovered mountains in places
where the maps showed deserts and oases
situated hundreds of miles from where they
were placed.
Mr. Landor says he crossed an "electric
desert," where the air and soil were highly
charged with the magnetic fluid, and all he
had to do to light his pipe was to snap his
fingers over it; declares he found another
desert where the normal temperature at day
was 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and where icicles
formed on his face at night; was twice at-
tacked by bands of robbers, rescued people
Courtesy of The Century Co.
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
lost in the desert, got lost himself with his
entire caravan, found fossil remains of gigan-
tic turtles on the tops of mountains, discov-
ered a large town not down on any map
whose inhabitants did not know its name, and
finally came to a half-buried city the ruins of
which were eighty-six miles long.
In the larger cities Mr. Landor was treated
with consideration, and he was received by
the Shah. The palace of the latter at Tehe-
ran he describes as truly barbaric, containing
beautiful old mosaics alongside cheap chromo
advertisement of soap, exquisite rugs and
cheap oilcloth, statues presented by crowned
heads alongside, penny-in-the-slot machines
and phonographs, old armor and thirty-cent
clocks. (Scribner. 2 v. $7.50 net.) N. Y.
Times Sat. Rev.
Aladdin O'Brien.
GouvERNEUR MoRRis has gone back to the
opening of the Civil War for the scene of
his latest romance, "Aladdin O'Brie -," but
his book is removed as far as possible from
the many tales which have lately been built
upon that much-abused theme, and its title,
with its odd suggestion of East and West,
is quite in harmony with the quaint fancies
and delicate humor that are so adroitly
mingled with strong and pathetic situations.
Anything more human, lovable, and capti-
vating than the rollicking Aladdin whom Mr.
Morris has made his hero it has not been our
fortune for a long time to come across in
fiction, and it adds to that good luck that
he has not expended all his energy and skill
on the creation of the one character, leaving
the rest more or less to the imagination of
his readers, but has given them a goodly
company of living, breathing men and women,
whom to know is a thorough pleasure a
thing hard to say concerning the doubtful
society into which many writers conduct us
under the notion that they are accomplishing
something novel and spicy. Moreover, Mr.
Morris has a delightful and easy style that
is distinctively his own and prophetic of
good things yet to come from this promising
young writer.
It is on the familiar plot of two men in
love with the same girl that Mr. Morris has
based his story, but there is nothing trite in
the way he has worked it out from the well-
nigh tragic casting away of two babies upon
a desert island in Portland harbor down to the
good old-fashioned ending in which as many
people as possible are made "happy ever after."
It is unnecessary to reveal the vicissitudes
through which Margaret and her two lovers
passed before things straightened out to a
right conclusion, for that would be to spoil
the author's artistic telling of it. Love stor-
ies are apt to be more or less sad in war
time, and this is no exception. Self-sacrifice
and simple, unquestioning heroism play their
part, and even tragedy is not lacking at the
end ; but. for all that, the prevailing spirit
in "Aladdin O'Brien" is that of the happy-go-
lucky hero himself, and it was his mission in
life to add to the sum of human happiness.
(Century. $1.25.) A^". Y. Times Sat. Rev.
The Biography of a Prairie Girl.
That the author has "dipped her pen in
herself" in writing this book, seems a fact
not to be questioned,- so faithful is the draw-
ing, so true the coloring.
February, 1903]
THE LITERARY NEWS.
37
From the "Coming of the stork" to the de-
parture of the Little Girl for that long-
dreamed-of Mecca, College, every page is full
of interest. To the "problem" hunter, the
student of the "higher hysterics," the book
will prove a disappointment. It is the clean,
direct, pathetic story of the life of a little
girl on a Dakota prairie.
The Little Girl was not a "model child."
She did have a propensity for "scrapes" of
divers kinds, and accepted her punishments
therefor unflinchingly. At four and a half
years of age she begins a career of usefulness
by being tied to a pinto pony, to "round up"
the herds. Poor baby ! One hardly gets
through that episode, and many other chap-
ters, with dry eyes. Later we find her assist-
ing in the planting, in breaking horses doing,
in short, a boy's work on the farm, until, at
sixteen, she is emancipated by the efforts of
the "biggest brother."
Portions of the book are dramatic ; and
while a certain homely tragicalness predomi-
nates, there are touches of comedy, even of
farce ; as witness the undoing of the school-
master, and the Professor's discovery of
archaeological inscriptions." These
bring vmrestrained laughter.
From title page to end the at-
tention of most readers will not
flag, and one is not the less inter-
ested for knowing that through
warp and woof of this simple
biography, so finely intermeshed
that the glitter is scarcely visi-
ble, runs a golden thread of ro-
mance. (Century. $1.50.) Bost.
Literary World.
Mr^. Earle passes from sun-dials to roses and
back again with a unity of sentiment that makes
the phrase in the sub-title of "Garden De-
lights" wholly appropriate. The earlier two-
thirds of the book is given over to sun-dials,
and examples of this time-honored method of
telling the time of day have been gathered from
Italy, Greece, France, Germany, and even
dis-tant Mexico and Japan ; but with hardly
more than a single example from each of
these countries. England and Scotland supply
an element which, under Mrs. Earle's treat-
ment, is not felt as foreign. These examples,
delineated in both letter-press and illustra-
tion, are numerous and inclusive (the dial
vvithout the gnomon on Massachusetts Hall
in Cambridge being the only instance of any
i;ote that seems to be omitted), and the whole
constitutes a veritable encyclopaedia on the
subject within the limits of civilization.
Roses are discussed in something less
of the discursive and more of the histori-
cal manner, but with the same play of
delightful and thoroughly assimilated im-
agination. (Macmillan. $2.50 net.) The
Dial.
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday.
Not limiting her field to our
rather modern American "antiqui-
ties" at all, Mrs. Alice Morse
Earle has still kept pretty well
within the geographical limits of
the island of Great Britain and of
the thirteen original States of the
Union for the charming materials
that, culled and sorted, go to make
up her "Sun-dials and Roses of
Yesterday : Garden Delights which
are Here Displayed in very Truth
and are Moreover Regarded as
Emblems," The quaintness of a
day far more remote than the
mere passing of time can hint per-
vades the pleasant narrative, giv-
ing it a notable literary quality.
" Sun-ilials and Roses of Yesterdiiy,
Copyright, 1902, by The Macmillan Lo.
A SUN-DIAL.
3H
THE LITERARY NEWS.
{February, 1903
Where American Independence Began.
American independence can hardly be said
tD have found its rise in any one place, since
it was born in the hearts and minds of those
irdomitable first colonists who escaped from
England and Holland, daring to brave the
unknown, undaunted by hardships, in order