"No might nor greatness in mortalityCan censure 'scape; backwounding calumnyThe whitest virtue strikes. What King so strongCan tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue."
"No might nor greatness in mortalityCan censure 'scape; backwounding calumnyThe whitest virtue strikes. What King so strongCan tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue."
Under it all he was calm and strong, and confident; never lost his self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered word. Indeed, nothing in his whole life is more remarkable or more creditable than his bearing through those five full months of vituperation—a prolongedagony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draught upon the powers of moral endurance. The great mass of these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and with the general debris of the campaign fell into oblivion. But, in a few instances, the iron entered his soul, and he died with the injury unforgotten, if not unforgiven.
One aspect of Garfield's candidacy was unprecedented. Never before in the history of partisan contests in this country had a successful presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and current issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even desperate. The older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, in which Mr. Clay was supposed to have signed his political death warrant. They remembered, also, the hot-tempered effusion by which General Scott lost a large share of his popularity before his nomination, and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly consumed the remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley, in a series of vigorous and original addresses, preparing the pathway for his own defeat. Unmindful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends, Garfield spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York in August, to a great multitude in that city, to delegations and deputations of every kind that called at Mentor during the summer and autumn. With innumerable critics,watchful and eager to catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a sentence that might be distorted to his own or his party's injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any one of his seventy speeches. This seems all the more remarkable when it is remembered that he did not write what he said, and yet spoke with such logical consecutiveness of thought and such admirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of misreport and the malignity of misrepresentation.
In the beginning of his presidential life, Garfield's experience did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. The duties that engross so large a portion of the President's time were distasteful to him, and were unfavorably contrasted with his legislative work. "I have been dealing all these years with ideas," he impatiently exclaimed one day, "and here I am dealing only with persons. I have been heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of government, and here I am considering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this or that office." He was earnestly seeking some practical way of correcting the evils arising from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldy patronage—evils always appreciated and often discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply impressed upon his mind since his accession to the Presidency. Had he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of appointmentand in the tenure of office, would have been proposed by him, and, with the aid of Congress, no doubt perfected.
But, while many of the executive duties were not grateful to him, he was assiduous and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset he exhibited administrative talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of office with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he constantly surprised many who were most intimately associated with him in the government, and especially those who had feared that he might be lacking in the executive faculty. His disposition of business was orderly and rapid. His power of analysis, and his skill in classification, enabled him to dispatch a vast mass of detail with singular promptness and ease. His cabinet meetings were admirably conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-considered suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show a thoroughness of mental training, as rare as his natural ability and his facile adaptation to a new and enlarged field of labor.
With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be done by his administration towardrestoring harmony between the different sections of the Union. He was anxious to go South and speak to the people. As early as April he had ineffectually endeavored to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially invited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that he could not go to South Carolina to attend the centennial celebration of the victory of the Cowpens.
But for the autumn he definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies in the South—the celebration at Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meeting of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning over in his mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, he said to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed. At Yorktown he would have before him the associations of a hundred years that bound the South and the North in the sacred memory of a common danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present the material interests and the industrial development which appealed to the thrift and independence of every household, and which should unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest and self-defence. At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the war only to show that, after all its disaster and all its suffering, thecountry was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made brighter and better for all.
Garfield's ambition for the success of his administration was high. With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no danger of attempting rash experiments, or of resorting to the empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of people. He believed that our continental relations, extensive and undeveloped as they are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into profitable friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or lasting enmity. He believed, with equal confidence, that an essential forerunner to a new era of national progress must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union, and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of government would be common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and ambition may do under Republican institutions, he loved his country with a passion of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the philosophiccomposure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confidence of John Adams.
The political events which disturbed the President's serenity, for many weeks before that fateful day in July, form an important chapter in his career, and, in his own judgment, involved questions of principle and of right which are vitally essential to the constitutional administration of the federal government. It would be out of place here and now to speak the language of controversy; but the events referred to, however they may continue to be a source of contention with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga, or his illustrious service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of those opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their course harshly characterized. But of the dead President this is to be said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced and he can be no more heard except through the fidelity and the love of surviving friends. From the beginning to the end of the controversy he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbor revenge; rarely did he even show resentment, and malicewas not in his nature. He was congenially employed only in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds.
There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the fatal shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken, if such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to himself.
The pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of humiliation that might result from surrendering his position, had not a feather's weight with him. No man was ever less subject to such influences from within or from without. But, after most anxious deliberation, and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the executive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all their vigor, the constitutional rights and dignities of his great office. He believed this in all the convictions of conscience, when in sound and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and prostration in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind bestowed on the transitory struggles of life.
More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said. Justice to the dead, thehighest obligation that devolves upon the living, demands the declaration that, in all the bearings of the subject, actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in his conscience, immovable in his conclusions.
The religious element in Garfield's character was deep and earnest. In his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that great Baptist communion, which, in different ecclesiastical establishments, is so numerous and so influential throughout all parts of the United States. But the broadening tendency of his mind and his active spirit of inquiry were early apparent, and carried him beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraint of association. In selecting a college in which to continue his education, he rejected Bethany, though presided over by Alexander Campbell, the great preacher of his church. His reasons were characteristic; first, that Bethany leaned too heavily toward slavery; and, second, that being himself a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little acquaintance with people of other beliefs, and he thought it would make him more liberal, quoting his own words, both in his religious and general views, to go into a new circle and be under new influences.
The liberal tendency which he anticipated, as the result of wider culture, was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere sectarian belief,and with eager interest pushed his investigations in the direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with quickening step in the paths of exploration and speculation so fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other living scientists of the radical and advanced type. His own church binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old and New Testaments as the word of God, with unbiased liberty of private interpretation, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of investigation. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind and one faith with those who immediately followed the Master, and who were first called Christians at Antioch.
But however high Garfield reasoned of "fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," he was never separated from the Church of the Disciples in his affections and in his associations. For him it held the ark of the covenant. To him it was the gate of heaven. The world of religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A philosophic observer declares that men by the thousand will die in defence of a creed whose doctrines they do not comprehend, and whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally true that men by the thousands will cling to church organizations with instinctive and undying fidelity, when their belief in maturer years is radicallydifferent from that which inspired them as neophytes.
But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt, Garfield came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler instincts of religious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest survive. Not many weeks before his assassination, walking on the banks of the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on those topics of personal religion, concerning which noble natures have an unconquerable reserve, he said that he found the Lord's prayer and the simple petitions learned in infancy, infinitely restful to him, not merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of scriptures had a very strong hold on his memory and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh some years ago, an eminent Scotch preacher, who prefaced his sermon with reading the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the subject of careful study with Garfield during all his religious life. He was greatly impressed by the elocution of the preacher, and declared that it had imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of St. Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the assured hope with whichthe great apostle of the Gentiles was "persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The crowning characteristic of General Garfield's religious opinions, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all things he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he possessed himself—sincerity of conviction and frankness of expression. With him the inquiry was not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it? The lines of his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, and men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever-lengthening list of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest and of an honest-minded and generous hearted Free-Thinker.
On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and happy man—not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly, happy. On his way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in a grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his administrationwas strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.
Surely if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning, James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonnessand wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death—and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony that were not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him, a proud expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day, and every day rewarding, a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! and his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled withinstant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his moral weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death; with unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree.
As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward, to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read amystic meaning, which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that, in the silence of the receding world, he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.
How beautiful it was to die as he has died,Taking a calm around him by the forceOf his great soul, commanding peace from strife,And changing all the discord into rest,—A heavenly music heard as life departs!How wonderful it was that the accursed hateWhich smote him brought forth only loyal love;Like to some holy bell that being struckResounds with wondrous sweetness, sounding onThrough all the spaces to eternity.How noble was his dauntless fortitudeWhich, as he lay expiring, day by day,Made him almost control his destinyAnd look upon his torture with a smile.As his life wasted, in great patience, wonderinglyHis watchers watched him. They were not aloneOf his own people, but his watchers were the world,From far-off shores and seas with pitifulSad yearnings towards him as his star went down.Nine times ten million souls in his own tonguePrayed to the Almighty for his single life;But he had risen too near to heaven in his great flightTo stoop again to earth, and so God took him,Like a star folded in more perfect light.And he is dead, and multitudes have comeTo his dead presence, and, with solemn care,Moving in silence to the measured strainHe loved, in mournful sweet monotonyRepeated as they bore him step by stepThrough harvest-fields of ripening trodden grain,They laid him reverently, gently downWhere all the sheaves of earth are garnered at the last.Upon his pulseless form are richly piledWreaths, garlands, of the late yet lavish bloomOf the perfected summer, with the exquisite thrillOf life so fresh upon their shining leavesBanners are furled around him, and the flagWe love droops mourning o'er the mourning land.And from afar beyond our land and lakes,From the great world that watched him wonderinglyCome kind farewells and tender sympathies.Pity has told her tale in every tongueAnd kings have claimed him comrade, hand in hand.Fame has recorded him,Love has rewarded him,Mother, wife, children and people wept over him.England accounted himKindred by blood.All that are great and goodHave as his mourners stoodWhile he lay, day by day, passing away.A Queen sends comforting words of cheer,And flowers to fade on his bloody bier.God save the Queen when her last hour is near!The North was his by birth,The South is his by death!He conquered by suffering grandly borneOur long-cherished strifes; they are gone, and nowStanding together we look on his pale dead face,To whom we had given, the elected, a power more greatThan any king's. Together we revereThe majesty with which he laid it downAt God's command. Together we shall loveHis memory, and each other for his sake,And for the heart so high that it "could hate no man."God rest him! He has rested him!Nothing can "hurt" him more,"Nothing can touch him further."More than a king he liesWith the strong blaze of the world's homageFull on his closed eyes.American, born in the forest,The great lake for him sighs,And England, crowned and sceptered,Loves him as he dies.He fought in the deathly valleyFrom morn till the set of sun,Till eighty days had run.Then he folded his armsAnd his day was done.Oh, the bloom is off of the prairie,The butterfly's change is begun,The pine cone flowers eternal,The eagle has soared to the sun!
How beautiful it was to die as he has died,Taking a calm around him by the forceOf his great soul, commanding peace from strife,And changing all the discord into rest,—A heavenly music heard as life departs!
How wonderful it was that the accursed hateWhich smote him brought forth only loyal love;Like to some holy bell that being struckResounds with wondrous sweetness, sounding onThrough all the spaces to eternity.
How noble was his dauntless fortitudeWhich, as he lay expiring, day by day,Made him almost control his destinyAnd look upon his torture with a smile.
As his life wasted, in great patience, wonderinglyHis watchers watched him. They were not aloneOf his own people, but his watchers were the world,From far-off shores and seas with pitifulSad yearnings towards him as his star went down.
Nine times ten million souls in his own tonguePrayed to the Almighty for his single life;But he had risen too near to heaven in his great flightTo stoop again to earth, and so God took him,Like a star folded in more perfect light.
And he is dead, and multitudes have comeTo his dead presence, and, with solemn care,Moving in silence to the measured strainHe loved, in mournful sweet monotonyRepeated as they bore him step by stepThrough harvest-fields of ripening trodden grain,They laid him reverently, gently downWhere all the sheaves of earth are garnered at the last.
Upon his pulseless form are richly piledWreaths, garlands, of the late yet lavish bloomOf the perfected summer, with the exquisite thrillOf life so fresh upon their shining leavesBanners are furled around him, and the flagWe love droops mourning o'er the mourning land.
And from afar beyond our land and lakes,From the great world that watched him wonderinglyCome kind farewells and tender sympathies.Pity has told her tale in every tongueAnd kings have claimed him comrade, hand in hand.
Fame has recorded him,Love has rewarded him,Mother, wife, children and people wept over him.England accounted himKindred by blood.All that are great and goodHave as his mourners stoodWhile he lay, day by day, passing away.
A Queen sends comforting words of cheer,And flowers to fade on his bloody bier.God save the Queen when her last hour is near!
The North was his by birth,The South is his by death!He conquered by suffering grandly borneOur long-cherished strifes; they are gone, and nowStanding together we look on his pale dead face,To whom we had given, the elected, a power more greatThan any king's. Together we revereThe majesty with which he laid it downAt God's command. Together we shall loveHis memory, and each other for his sake,And for the heart so high that it "could hate no man."
God rest him! He has rested him!Nothing can "hurt" him more,"Nothing can touch him further."
More than a king he liesWith the strong blaze of the world's homageFull on his closed eyes.
American, born in the forest,The great lake for him sighs,And England, crowned and sceptered,Loves him as he dies.
He fought in the deathly valleyFrom morn till the set of sun,Till eighty days had run.Then he folded his armsAnd his day was done.
Oh, the bloom is off of the prairie,The butterfly's change is begun,The pine cone flowers eternal,The eagle has soared to the sun!
Judge Burnham's Daughters.By "Pansy."
(Mrs G. R. Alden), Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.50. The multitude of readers of Mrs. Alden's stories will rememberRuth Erskine's Crosses, and will be glad to meet its principal character once more in her new character of wife and mother, ripened by experience and strengthened by trial. Her marriage will be remembered, and the radiant prospects of the future which attended it. Her husband was kindness itself, but he cared little for religious matters, and could not sympathize with what seemed to him the very ridiculous and puritanical ideas of his wife regarding many things. Still he always gave way to her. The great trouble of her new life, however, was the disposition evinced by her two step-daughters to resist her authority and cause her pain by their recklessness and disobedience. Her husband, Judge Burnham, was wealthy, and occupied a high social position. He was exceedingly proud of his family and sensitive as to his reputation. He was strongly opposed to Ruth's being actively connected with religious or temperance movements, and this fact sometimes brought them dangerously near serious misunderstanding. The pressure was constant, and made many unhappy hours for her, especially when questions of right and propriety arose between her and her step-daughters and an appeal was made to the father. Suddenly a blow fell upon the house. The younger daughter fled from home to marry a gambler and forger, and was disowned by her father and forbidden the house. A few months later the other daughter fell a victim to quick consumption, but in her later days turned to the mother whom she had disliked and disobeyed, and finally died in her arms. The story with its later incidents is a sad one, but its darkness is lighted by the surprise which awaits the reader at the close. It is written in Mrs. Alden's usual fascinating style and like all her books, is transfixed with a purpose.
Old Concord: Her Highways and Byways.Ill. By Margaret Sidney. Boston, D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. Of all the books of the year there is not one which carries within it such an aroma of peculiar delight as this series of sketches and descriptions of the highways and byways of that most picturesque of towns, Old Concord. Concord is like no other place in New England. There may be other places as beautiful in their way, there are others, perhaps, of more importance in the Commonwealth and we know there are hundreds of places where there is more active life to the square foot, but with all these admissions Concord still remains a place of special charm, the result and consequence of more causes than we care to analyze. Its picturesqueness and a certain quaintness of the village has always been noticed by visitors, no matter from what part of the globe they may have come. Added to this is the flavor of Revolutionary history, and the atmosphere created by the daily lives and presence for years of three or four of the giants in American literature. Here lived Hawthorne and Emerson, and Thoreau, and the Alcotts, father and daughter, and the work that they did here has made it a literary Mecca for all time.
These sketches have all the accuracy of photographs, together with that charm of color and life which a photograph never possesses. The author is a resident of Concord, and a dweller in one of its historic mansions, and is thoroughly acquainted with every nook and corner of the town as well as with every legend which belongs to them. The task which she assumes of guiding readers to the places made famous by pen and sword is a labor of love. She tells us how the pilgrimage should be undertaken, and what should be seen. We visit with her the ancient landmarks which belong to past generations, and the more modern ones which have even more interest to the multitude.
The Story of Ohio.By Alexander Black. Being the second volume of the new series, the "Story of the States," edited by Elbridge S. Brooks. One volume, 8vo, fully illustrated. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.50
The fact that Ohio has just passed her hundredth birthday, and that she will throughout the year be engaged in various interesting forms of civic celebration, renders singularly opportune the appearance of this compact and picturesque narrative in which the reader will find a complete picture of Buckeye progress, a picture etched rather than painted, for the book is not of formidable length, and the author has been compelled to adopt a crisp and nimble style to tell his story in due space. The term "story" is an elastic, and perhaps not always an accurately descriptive one. In this instance the author has given it a simple and effective definition by making it stand for a direct, natural and often dramatic account of Ohio's romantic origin and extraordinary development. While a preference for the picturesque phases of the story is shown even in the treatment of the most practical elements of State character, there is an obvious selection of those pictorial traits which have in themselves a special significance, and which, taken in the group, present the essential characteristics of the commonwealth. Indeed the narrative affords an excellent opportunity for discovering the immense individuality of Ohio in the great family of States. The great diversity of character among the States, diversities engendered by geographical as well as by ancestral conditions, is, perhaps not very generally recognized. The promising series of which this volume forms the second issue cannot fail, if each author continues to work with care and sincerity, to broaden our knowledge of all the elements that go to form our character as a nation, and to deepen that sense of fraternal sympathy, the cultivation of which has become a point of national pride.
Some Successful Women.By Sarah K. Bolton. With Portraits. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton is the author of several interesting books which have given her a wide reputation and this new volume from her pen will be warmly welcomed. It consists of twelve brief biographies of American women who have in various walks and professions earned success so marked as to make their names familiar to every household in the country, and who have done much to inspire others of their sex to follow in their footsteps. Among them are Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), Mrs. G. R. Allen (Pansy), Clara Barton, the philanthropist, Alice Freeman, the former president of Wellesley College, Rachel Bodley, dean of the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, Frances E. Willard, whose labors in behalf of temperance have given her a place among the foremost of American women. Mrs. Candace Wheeler and her daughter Dora who have done so much to develop the love for decorative art in this country and to create opportunities for its practical application, with others who have gained equally distinguished places in other departments of art, literature and industry. The portraits add greatly to the interest of the sketches.
The Lost Earl.By J. T. Trowbridge. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $2.00. This volume will be warmly welcomed by the admirers of Mr. Trowbridge—and they are legion. Although Mr. Trowbridge is better known as a successful novelist and writer of juvenile stories he is one of the truest of our American poets and it is to be regretted that he has not oftener turned his attention to verse. His themes, though not ambitious, are always high and his poems are marked by feeling, naturalness and exquisite finish.The Lost Earlhas never before been printed in book form. It is the story of the revolt of a strong soul against conventional society life and the casting aside of rank for social freedom.
The Secrets at Roseladies.By Mary Hartwell Catherwood. Boston, D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.00. This charming story of the life on the Wabash, which originally appeared as a serial inWide Awake, will be read by boys and girls with equal pleasure, for the action of the story is pretty well divided between the two. The boys will be immensely entertained with the adventures of the four young treasure-seekers, particularly with that which ends in their capture by the crazy half-breed Shawnee, who proposes to cut off their thumbs to bury in the excavation they have made in the burial mound. The girls' secret, which is of a very different character, is just as amusing in its way. Mrs. Catherwood has a wonderful fund of humor, and a talent for description which many a better known author might envy. The character of old Mr. Roseladies is capitally drawn, and the account of his journey to the depot after Aunt Jane's trunk is really mirth provoking. Cousin Sarah and "Sister" and little Nonie are all charming and the reader will close the book with regret that there is not more of it.
Brownies and Bogles.By Louise Imogen Guiney. Ill. Boston, D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.00. This little volume might be fitly styled a fairy handbook, as in it the author describes every kind of the "little people" that is found in traditions or literature in all the countries of the world. There are the brownies and waterkelpies of Scotland, the troll and necken of Sweden, the German kobalds, the English fairies, pixies and elves, the Norwegian and Danish dwarfs and bjorgfalls, the Irish leprechauns, and a score of others, some of whom are mischievous, some malicious, some house-helpers, and some who are always waiting to do a good turn to those they like. The author mingles her descriptions with anecdotes illustrative of the different qualities and dispositions of the various fairy folk described.
Story of the American Sailor.By E. S. Brooks. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $2.50. Although several volumes have been written descriptive of the rise and development of the American navy, this is the first and only work of which we have knowledge that takes wide ground, and deals with the American sailor. In its preparation Mr. Brooks has not been actuated by a desire to merely make a readable book for boys, he has given it the attention which the subject demands as a part of the history of the country.
It would be a difficult matter to get at the first American sailor, or to even guess when he existed but that our continent was once well populated, and that its prehistoric inhabitants sailed the lakes and seas as well as trod the land, is a matter of certainty. Later when America became known to Europeans, the new comers found Indians well provided with excellent canoes, built of bark or fashioned from logs, but they were "near shore" sailors. The author quotes one instance where a deep sea voyage was undertaken by them in the early days of the English settlers. Certain Carolina Indians he says, wearied of the white man's sinful ways in trade, thought themselves able to deal direct with the consumers across the "Big Sea Water." So they built several large canoes and loading these with furs and tobacco paddled straight out to sea bound for England. But their ignorance of navigation speedily got the best of their valor. They were never heard of more.
The early white navigators of our waters can hardly be considered American sailors. The new found continent was to them of value only for what could be brought away from them in treasure or in merchantable produce, and it was only when an actual and permanent colonization began that a race of native-born sailors was developed on the Atlantic coasts.
Ned Harwood's Visit To Jerusalem.Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. This is a story, instructively told of a young boy who made a visit to Jerusalem, and other places in the Holy Land, and saw many of the places made interesting in the Biblical narrative. The author's personal knowledge of the localities visited enables her to give vivid and accurate descriptions of them. The book is very handsomely bound in colored cover from original designs.
Longfellow Remembrance Book.By Samuel Longfellow. Introduction by E. S. Brooks. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. It needs no special memorial to perpetuate the memory of Longfellow and yet this little volume has an interest and a mission which are sufficient reasons for its existence. Its narrative testifies to the love and admiration which the whole English-speaking people felt for that sweetest of poets and most admirable of men, and it touches upon those qualities which, apart from his song, endeared him to every one that knew him. "Old and young," says Mr. Brooks in his brief introduction, "rich and poor, found in him inspiration, counsel, sympathy and help, and his words touched more closely the great, beating human heart than did those of even greater and diviner poets." With the exception of the introduction, Whittier's poem called out by the death of Longfellow,—"The Poet and the Children"—"An International Episode" and Miss Guiney's "Longfellow in Westminster Abbey"—the contents of the book are from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Longfellow. In loving detail he writes of the childhood and boyhood of his brother, his later years, his love for children and of his life at his charming home at Cambridge. A closing chapter from another hand describes the unveiling of the poet's bust in Westminster Abbey, March 1, 1884. The volume is beautifully illustrated.
A Strange Company.By Charles Frederick Holder. Illustrated. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.25. No American naturalist of late years has written more comprehensively or entertainingly than Dr. Holder. The books and magazine articles from his pen would make a small library and an exceedingly valuable one. For seven years he was assistant in the American Museum of Natural History in New York and later was connected with the New York Aquarium, in whose interests he made extensive journeys for rare specimens. In the present volume, which is prepared for young readers, he describes some of the more remarkable specimens of animal life and their peculiarities. Many of the facts he cites will be new to older readers such, for instance, as that of fishes climbing trees and traveling considerable distances overland from water to water, of birds that fly under water the same as in the air, of four footed animals with bills and of birds with teeth. In a chapter devoted to the speech of animals we are told how some of the noises made by insects are produced undoubtedly for purposes of communication and how birds, fishes and animals convey intelligence one to another. In another chapter the sports and games of animals are dealt with. The author says, "I doubt if an animal can be found which does not in some way or at some time show a desire for what we term amusement. The Malayan sun bear is remarkable for its fun loving natur. The common black bear is almost equally playful and in some of its rough and tumble games in a tree top are some of the most interesting performances I have ever witnessed. Even crabs have a sense of humor and go through certain performance, presumably games. In Australia there are birds that build playhouses, aside from their nests, in the form of an arbor sometimes two or three feet long, which they decorate with bright objects."
A Young Prince of Commerce.By Selden R. Hopkins. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.25. We do not know of a better book to put into the hands of boys for the purpose of teaching them the fundamental principles of business than this little volume, which Mr. Hopkins has so ingeniously prepared. Most boys grow into young men without the slightest knowledge of business matters excepting mere buying and selling. The very things that should have been taught them in school at the same time with grammar and geography they know nothing about, and while their heads may be stocked with the rules of syntax and the names and boundaries of all the countries in the world, they may be helpless as babies in the transaction of any business that requires the use of forms or legal methods. It is one of the senseless peculiarities of our school system that it excludes certain subjects of study that are absolutely necessary and gives place to others that are practically useless. It is on that account that we strongly commend this little work as a supplementary reader in schools. In its pages Mr. Hopkins tells an interesting story and sandwiches in between its incidents just the information to which we have reference. The boy who reads it has obtained, when he has finished it, a clear understanding of the principles of trade. He knows the character of mortgages, notes, drafts, stocks and bonds, the theory of banking, discount, exchange and collateral, he learns all about the mysteries of Wall Street and how the brokerage business is conducted; in fine, he gets an excellent understanding of the way business is carried on in general. All this knowledge comes in incidentally, and in connection with the story. The book is very handsomely printed and bound.
Mary the Mother.Compiled by Rose Porter. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. The purpose of this beautiful volume is to give an outline story of Mary the Mother Maid, as told in the Holy Book, and by historical and legendary art, and in poetry. The theme, says the compiler in her preface, "though it lies within prescribed limits, is wide enough to embrace a broad field of thought, for it deals with all the most beautiful and precious productions of human genius and human skill as manifested by art which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have bequeathed to us, and in them we can trace, present in shape before us, or suggested through inevitable associations, one prevailing idea. It is that of an impersonation in the feminine character of beneficence, purity and power, clothed in the visible form of Mary, the Mother of our Lord."
The story is told in the purest devotional spirit. The curious legends which have been handed down or created by the religious writers of the Middle Ages are put into consecutive order, and illustrated by reproductions of pictures by the old masters, and of those by two or three modern painters. Deger's famous picture of "The Annunciation" serves as the frontispiece. Then follows in order Ittenbach's "St. Mary the Virgin," Titian's "Presentation," the "Annunciation," by Murillo, "The Salutation," by Albertinelli, "St. John and the Virgin," by Dobson; "The Assumption," by Titian, "Mater Dolorosa," by Guido Reni, "Mater Dolorosa," by Carlo Dolce, and "The Madonna Addolorata," by Sassaferrato. These are exquisitely reproduced, and are printed, as well as the text, on heavy, hot-pressed paper. The volume is bound in cloth, with a cover of special design.
The Art of Living.From the Writings of Samuel Smiles. With Introduction by the venerable Dr. Peabody of Harvard University and Biographical Sketch by the editor Carrie Adelaide Cooke. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.00.
Samuel Smiles is the Benjamin Franklin of England. His sayings have a similar terseness, aptness and force, they are directed to practical ends, like Franklin's, they have the advantage of being nearer our time and therefore more directly related to subjects upon which practical wisdom is of practical use.
Success in life is his subject all through The Art of Living, and he confesses on the very first page that "happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of life, which in the eager search for some great and exciting joy we are apt to overlook. It finds delight in the performance of common duties faithfully and honorably fulfilled."
Let the reader go back to that quotation again and consider how contrary it is to the spirit that underlies the businesses that are nowadays tempting men to sudden fortune, torturing with disappointments nearly all who yield, and burdening the successful beyond their endurance, shortening lives and making them weary and most of them empty.
Is it worth while to join the mad rush for the lottery, or to take the old road to slow success?
This book of the chosen thoughts of a rare philosopher leads to contentment as well as wisdom, for, when we choose the less brilliant course because we are sure it is the best one, we have the most complete and lasting repose from anxiety.
Tilting at Windmills.A Story of the Blue Grass Country. By Emma M. Connelly. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. 12mo, $1.50.
Not since the days of "A Fool's Errand" has so strong and so characteristic a "border novel" been brought to the attention of the public as is now presented by Miss Connelly in this book which she so aptly terms "Tilting at Windmills". Indeed, it is questionable whether Judge Tourgee's famous book touched so deftly and yet so practically the real phases of the reconstruction period and the interminable antagonisms of race and section.
The self sufficient Boston man, a capital fellow at heart, but tinged with the traditions and environments of his Puritan ancestry and conditions, coming into his strange heritage in Kentucky at the close of the civil war, seeks to change by instant manipulation all the equally strong and deep-rooted traditions and environments of Blue Grass society.
His ruthless conscience will allow of no compromise, and the people whom he seeks to proselyte alike misunderstand his motives and spurn his proffered assistance.
Presumed errors are materialized and partial evils are magnified. Allerton tilts at windmills and with the customary Quixotic results. He is, seemingly, unhorsed in every encounter.
Miss Connelly's work in this, her first novel, will make readers anxious to hear from her again and it will certainly create, both in her own and other States, a strong desire to see her next forthcoming work announced by the same publishers in one of their new series—her "Story of the State of Kentucky."