Part 7

I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp, comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, sepulchral tones when I appeared. The dog became at once wildly demonstrative, half-strangling himself in his collar, his eyes and tongue hanging out in the excess of his uncomprehensible affection for me. This was before he caught sight of the cake in my hand. A series of vertical springs high up in the air followed, and then, when he got the cake, he instantly lost his interest in everything else.

No, this illustration is not of Conrad's finest, but in a homely way it illustrates a deep sympathy with life, which this strong worker and writer gives in such bountiful measure in all his literature; and, to quote an eminent writer, "Literature and Conrad are interchangeable terms."

--Henry Blackman Sell.

AN AMERICAN NOVEL

_Clark's Field_, by Robert Herrick. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.]

It was but the other day that Mr. Herrick told us what he thought about the American novel. Those who read the trenchant article found not only a criticism of our machine-like fictionists and their half-baked methods, but also a sturdy conviction that the day was surely approaching when we should demand and receive a truer and more vital presentation of our national life in our literature. And if Mr. Herrick, long since tagged an apostate to our national creed of turgid optimism, believes this, we can safely trust to his cool vision and be glad that the tide has turned. The rich human material lies ready at hand, and the audience is fast growing intelligent and discriminating. As yet, however, "we await the writer or writers keen enough to perceive the opportunity, powerful enough to interest the public in what it has been unwilling to heed, and of course endowed with sufficient insight to comprehend our big new world."

Whatever may be said for our other novelists, surely not one of them can exhibit a mingling of the powers of insight and artistry equal to that of Robert Herrick. His work from the beginning has been an honest and incisive attempt to interpret our life in its peculiar and universal aspects, in spite of the clamor of the public at his tearing away of the veils of sentimentality and prudery. The errors into which he fell were due to the ardor of his spiritual vision, which drove him into an impassioned taking of sides. He has emerged from that stage into what his critics call his "old manner," a more objective treatment of his material. But in the process of change something was lost--the element of flaming intensity which gave the reader a similar capacity to feel. In this latest performance, as well as in _One Woman's Life_, he is always cool, clear-sighted, and admirably efficient in the task he sets himself; but never passionate. On the contrary, despite the pervading atmosphere of earnestness, he often assumes a playful satiric tone, mordant but not bitter,--a method well suited to his matter and purpose.

_Clark's Field_ tells the story of the influence of property upon the human beings who own it and hope to reap gold from its increasing value. All that is left of the great Clark farm is a fifty-acre field in a growing New England town, bequeathed jointly to the two brothers, Edward and Samuel, the former of whom has emigrated to the West and wholly disappeared from the ken of his relatives. So at first the tale is of the baleful influence of expectation delayed again and again: in the case of Samuel who cannot sell the land because of his brother's half-interest, and who in consequence sinks into a sodden inertia; in his son's disintegration into a lazy and drunken "Vet"; in his sister Addie's sordid and pathetic sally into life resulting in the birth of another human being destined to taste of the fruit of their tree and to find it, one day, very bitter.

The greater portion of the novel, then, deals with the influence of the realized wealth upon the unformed, colorless little girl, Adelle, the last of the Clarks. It is a masterly piece of work--the gradual development of the pale rooming-house drudge into the silly and insolent woman of fashion, and slowly but certainly into a human being with a soul. Less promising stuff for a heroine neither fate nor Mr. Herrick could have chosen; the latter delights in ample admissions throughout the book of Adelle's lack of beauty, brains, and charm. Yet he is always sufficiently temperate to escape the danger of caricature. Adelle is a convincing figure. The slow dawning upon her consciousness of the power of money, her "magic lamp" which she need only rub to gratify any desire, is followed by swift and constant use of the new weapon. It brings her a fresh assurance, a few scatter-brained friends, some stylish clothes, and, at length, a callow youth for a husband. It never brings her contact with a real person or friendship with a stimulating individual; nor can it save her from the failure of her marriage, nor compensate her for the death of her little boy.

Adelle's story, then, turns out to be what we least expected it,--a hopeful one. It leaves us with almost a sense of security, for is she not one of those who can "derive good from her mistakes," and therefore "the safest sort of human being to raise in this garden plot of souls"? And although we are still saddled with "that absurd code of inheritance and property rights that the Anglo-Saxon peoples have preserved from their ancient tribal days in the gloomy forests of the lower Rhine," the situation is not without hope, since it has yielded a man of the judge's type, in whom the beauty of a past idealism is coupled with the freshness of a new vision of responsibility.

To hark back to the recent article in _The Yale Review_, we believe that Mr. Herrick himself has given us an American novel--thoroughly American in situation, character, treatment, and even in philosophy. We, as a people, are beginning to suspect our boastful optimism as we become aware of the sordidness beneath the fair exterior of our glorious civilization. And in accordance with the western temperament, the awareness of wrong leads not to bitter cynicism but to sturdy efforts toward amelioration. Such, then, is the spirit of _Clark's Field_--a hopefulness in the power of courage, and labor, and a growing sense of social responsibility to move mounds that seem to have become immovable mountains through a tenacious fostering of tradition.

--Marguerite Swawite.

THE "SAVAGE" PAINTERS

_Cubists and Post Impressionism_, by Arthur Jerome Eddy. [A. C. McClurg and Company, Chicago.]

An attempt to explain the new schools in art "in plain, every-day terms." An earnest appeal for tolerance in regard to seemingly perversive forms. The book has a wealth of material and numerous quotations from Picasso, Picabia, Cézanne, Matisse, and others, considerably more interesting and instructive than Mr. Eddy's own truisms. Although the author repeatedly resents any accusation in his adherence to Cubism, the reader gets the impression that the Cubistic movement has received a more thorough and fair treatment than the other new schools. Of the sixty-nine reproductions of Post-Impressionistic paintings and sculpture, only five represent the Futurists. Idillon Redon, who gave us the greater delight in last year's International Exhibition, is totally ignored. Among the Self-Portraits that of Matisse is sorely missed--a work that helps greatly in understanding the quaint painter of the Woman in Red Madras. Whether Mr. Eddy will succeed in convincing the prejudiced conservatives is doubtful; but in those who have appreciated the daring attempts of the new schools his book will arouse a renewed longing for the foreign "savages" and an ardent hope for their further invasions in our "sane and healthful" galleries.

THE SAME BOOK FROM ANOTHER STANDPOINT

(With apologies to the author of _Tender Buttons_)

_Oil and Water_

Enough water is plenty and more, more is almost plenty enough. Enthusiastically hurting sad size, such size, same size slighter, same splendor simpler, same sore sounder. Glazed glitter, eddy eddies discover discovered discoveries, discover Mediterranean sea, large print large. Small print small, picked plumes painters and penmen, pretty pieces Picasso, Picabia plus Plato, Hegel, Cézanne, Kandinsky, more plenty more, small print single sign of oil supposing shattering scatter and scattering certainly splendidly. Suppose oil surrounded with watery sauce, suppose spare solely inside, suppose the rest.

--A. S. K.

SENTENCE REVIEWS

(Inclusion in this category does not preclude a more extended notice.)

_The Return of the Prodigal_, by May Sinclair. [The Macmillan Company, New York.] Eight short stories, all subtly done. _The Cosmopolitan_ proves beyond a doubt that women, or at least the thousandth woman, is capable of a disinterested love of life and of nature. It is a big story and a very finished one.

_John Addington Symonds_, by Van Wyck Brooks. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] A biography of rare charm and distinction in which Mr. Brooks builds a clear picture of Symonds's life as it is related to our day.

_The Sister of the Wind_, and _Other Poems_, by Grace Fallow Norton. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] Some of this will disappoint lovers of _Little Gray Songs From St. Joseph's_--in fact, none of the poems here has such extraordinary poignancy. But there are many that are worth knowing.

_The Continental Drama of Today_, by Barrett H. Clark. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.] Invaluable to the student of continental drama. A half dozen pages of critical analysis devoted to each of thirty modern playwrights.

_Stories and Poems and Other Uncollected Writing_, by Bret Harte, compiled by Charles Meeker Kozlay, with an introductory account of Harte's early contributions to the California press. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] A very beautiful Riverside Press volume with photogravures.

_I Should Say So_, by James Montgomery Flagg. [George H. Doran Company, New York.] Yes, he is silly; but Mr. Flagg is so nicely naughty and so naughtily human that you simply must laugh.

_Broken Music_, by Phyllis Bottome. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] Charming and well done. The story of a young French boy's struggle to create music, and his success after the tradition of a "broken heart" had been fulfilled.

_The Old Game_, by Samuel G. Blythe. [George H. Doran Company, New York.] A temperance tract by a man who knows; minus sanctimoniousness and plus a punch.

_Dramatic Portaits_, by P. P. Howe. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] One man's opinion of the modern dramatists. A "shelf book" for occasional reference.

_Billy and Hans_, by W. J. Stillman. [Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine.] A charming story of the most temperamental of pets, the squirrel. A Mosher book bound in a cover dark enough to stand wear. A distinct relief from the Alice blue and pale old rose of Mr. Mosher's more delicate periods.

_Billy_, by Maud Thornhill Porter. [Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Maine.] The true story of a canary bird. One of those little documents written for the enjoyment of a family circle and read on winter evenings. Bright, human, and personal.

_The Social Significance of the Modern Drama_, by Emma Goldman. [Richard G. Badger, Boston.] Miss Goldman discusses Ibsen, Strindberg, Sudermann, Hauptmann, Wedekind, Maeterlinck, Rostand, Brieux, Shaw, Galsworthy, Stanley Houghton, Githa Sowerby, Yeats, Lenox Robinson, T. G. Murray, Tolstoy, Tchekhof, Gorki, and Andreyev, outlining the plays of each and emphasizing their relation to the problem of modern society. She is the interpreter here rather than the propagandist, and her interpretations are not academic discourses. They give you the plays partly by quotation, partly in crisp narrative, and they are not the kind of interpretations that make the authors wish they had never written plays. Whether you like Emma Goldman or not, you will get a more compact and comprehensive working-knowledge of the modern drama from her book than from any other recent compilation we know of.

DEDICATED TO THAT HISTORIC MOMENT WHEN THEODORE ROOSEVELT THE GREAT AMERICAN CHANTECLIER SHALL AWAKE TO FIND THE SUN HIGH IN HEAVEN AND THAT HE HAD CROWED NOT

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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WALT WHITMAN

[AUTHORIZED BY THE EXECUTORS]

COMPLETE LEAVES OF GRASS

This edition contains the text and arrangement preferred by Walt Whitman. All other editions of "Leaves of Grass" are imperfect in this respect and incomplete. There are one hundred and six poems in "Complete Leaves of Grass" not contained in any other edition.

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"The most truthful biography in the language." To be complete in eight volumes, of which three are now ready.

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BY BASIL DE SELINCOURT

The latest book on Whitman (April, 1914). A study of unusual penetration.

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MITCHELL KENNERLEY, PUBLISHER 32 West 58th Street NEW YORK

Vol. IV · PRICE 15 CENTS · No. IV

Poetry

A Magazine of Verse

Edited by Harriet Monroe

JULY, 1914

Poems to be Chanted Nicholas Vachel Lindsay The Fireman's Ball--The Santa Fé Trail, A Humoresque--The Black Hawk War of the Artists.

Poems Richard Butler Glaenzer From a Club Window--Rodin--Star Magic.

Sitting Blind by the Sea Ruth McEnery Stuart

Roumanian Poems Maurice Aisen We Want Land--Peasant Love Songs I-VII--The Conscript I-IV.

Comments and Reviews A French Poet on Tradition--Mr. Lindsay on "Primitive Singing"--Doina--Reviews--Notes.

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_The Mosher Books_

_LATEST ANNOUNCEMENTS_

_I_

Billy: The True Story of a Canary Bird

By MAUD THORNHILL PORTER

_950 copies, Fcap 8vo. $1.00 net_

This pathetic little story was first issued by Mr. Mosher in a privately printed edition of 500 copies and was practically sold out before January 1, 1913. The late Dr. Weir Mitchell in a letter to the owner of the copyright said among other things: "Certainly no more beautiful piece of English has been printed of late years." And again: "May I ask if this lady did not leave other literary products? The one you print is so unusual in style and quality and imagination that after I read it I felt convinced there must be other matter of like character."

_II_

Billy and Hans: My Squirrel Friends. A True History

By W. J. STILLMAN

_950 copies, Fcap 8vo. 75 cents net_

Reprinted from the revised London edition of 1907 by kind permission of Mrs. W. J. Stillman.

_III_

Books and the Quiet Life: Being Some Pages from The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

By GEORGE GISSING

_950 copies, Fcap 8vo. 75 cents net_

To the lover of what may be called spiritual autobiography, perhaps no other book in recent English literature appeals with so potent a charm as "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft." It is the highest expression of Gissing's genius--a book that deserves a place on the same shelf with the Journals of De Guérin and Amiel. For the present publication, the numerous passages of the "Papers" relating to books and reading have been brought together and given an external setting appropriate to their exquisite literary flavor.

_Mr. Mosher also begs to state that the following new editions are now ready_:

_I_

Under a Fool's Cap: Songs

By DANIEL HENRY HOLMES

_900 copies, Fcap 8vo, old-rose boards. $1.25 net_

For an Appreciation of this book read Mr. Larned's article in the February Century.

_II_

Amphora: A Collection of Prose and Verse chosen by the Editor of The Bibelot

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_THOMAS B. MOSHER_ _Portland, Maine_

Nancy The Joyous _By Edith Stow_

For a Lift on the Road to Happiness _read_ Nancy the Joyous A Novel of pure Delight

"_Here, at the bend of the road I stop to wave, and to play you a gay little snatch of tune on my pipes, like any other true gypsy._"--_Nancy._

Nancy the Joyous is a simple little story--simple and clean and true--like a ray of sunshine in a bleak corner; like a wind-and-rain-and-sun-bathed flower on a steep mountainside. It is a story of sentiment, but without weak sentimentality, without tears, a kind of "salt-of-the-earth" optimism.

¶ Brisk with the air of the Tennessee mountains, where Nancy finds the "true values of life," and warm with the joy of living and loving and laughing, here is a "character" story--a "heart interest" story--a "local color" story of a picturesque locality--and yet a straightforward, unpretentious romance whose charm is based on more than mere uniqueness of characters or setting. Nancy is buoyant with life itself. Nancy is a real girl, a likable girl, and the love she inspires in her fellow creatures of the story is a real affection that shines outside the pages of the book and seizes hold of the heart of the reader.

A delightful book to read. An ideal book to give to a friend.

_The make-up of the book is in keeping with the story. A frontispiece in cheerful colors of Nancy herself; each chapter has a specially drawn initial; each cheery letter has a full-width pictorial heading. Bound in extra cloth; decorated cover, with ornaments in gold. Pictorial jacket in full color and gold. 12mo. $1.00 net._

Publishers Reilly & Britton Chicago

A new novel by Robert Herrick

CLARK'S FIELD

"In this virile book, Mr. Herrick studies the part played by 'unearned increment' in the life of a girl. A notable contribution to American realistic fiction."