4
THE IIESPERiAN
generous, warm-hearted friend. It is a happy thought, to
give it no better name, to introduce Lincoln in the story,
and the incident of the almanac (an incident that really hap
pened), but it is more than ability that shows him as he is
there shown. Those who enjoy sentiment will enjoy "The
Graysons;" those who enjoy sentimentality had better not
icad the story.
OPEN LETTERS.
One finds, in ltaston, an extraordinary number of
people who have a certain, indefinable air of always
writing out their middle names in full. I am not sure that
I do not like it, for there arc few things more harmless than
a harmless affectation, and in the West one meets scarcely
any of these amiable characters whoscmission in life seems to
be nothing less than the visible manifestation of an erudition
vaster and more obtrusive than that of their associates upon
this pedantic little planet of ours. So here, upon the native
heath of American learning, such as it is, one finds no slight
amusement in viewing the intellectual faces as he passes by.
Certainly there is here a greater apparent breadth of infor
mation and catholicity of opinion than one commonly meets
with farther toward the setting sun. In the Sunday Morning
Herald one duds notices of all imaginable societies some
religious, some irreligious and and some ethical anil some
anarchial, some rationalistic and some for the cultivation of
Jacob Boh me and Paracelsus, some acknowledging only
Iluddha and some offering incense at the shrine of Ingorsoll.
It is the women of lioston, I am told, who now rally with
the greatest devotion and in largest numbers around the
standard of The Mind. Here, as elsewhere, the men are
busy laying snares for that benevolent sprite, the dollar, and
to th;ir wives and daughters is left the task of keeping
swept and garnished the temple of Athena. At a dimming
hall lecture, when Professor C. C. Everett, of Harvard,
second only to Martineau as an ethical writer, was to speak
on "Unitarianism and Philosophy," fully three hundred and
fifty of (he four hundred listeners interrupted conversations
about passementeries and bonnets to listen to the profound
exordium which came swclling.over the tremolo of small
talk, like the dominant motive in the symphony: and at the
churches, too, from three to four-fifths of the congregation
are of the gentler sex. I have not yet fully decided whether
the majority-of women over men which, according to statis
ticians, exists in New England is a result of the New Eng
land culture and consequent good taste in population as in
other matters, or this same culture and good taste is entirely
due to the feminine majority. Either explanation is so
reasonable that one must be carcfr.1 about forming a judg
ment. At the cafes, too, one is constantly chancing upon
little indicatory trifles which point to a great, pulsating
atmosphere of thought not far away. For example, three
young men, with very wide trousers nicely creased and
irreproachable as to the knees who sat at the table beyond
mc the other evening, spent the whole time between courses
in discussing whether it should be pronounced Jahoch or
Gahoch. They quoted copiously from Reran and Zupitza
and showed a ready proficiency in advancing pernicious
theories about life and morals, together with a fluent
disregard for all existing theological systems, which
was positively electrifying. An old gentleman, with a great
deal of hair and beard and a stcrtorious breath, is nearly
always in the hall of the public library when 1 go in, and he
has a way of falling into a half-doze over his imposing folios
which had led mc to believe that he was reading bound vol
umes of Punch. Hut no; upon glancing over his shoulder I
found he was plodding through the philosophical works of
Giordano Hruno, written in medieval Italian. My landlady
paints quite in the style of Vcdder (who had a passion for
the mysteriously dreadful, or rather, for the dreadfully
mysterious); the gentleman next door sings selections from
Parsifal; a young woman, who has just sought other quarters
on account of those Parsifal selections, I dare say, engages
herself in sculpture, after the broad, modern style; the
chambermaid clips ic views of Robert Elsmerc and Dean
Maitland out of my Evening Post, and even a horse-car con
ductor entered into a conversation with mc concerning
human traits, personal immortality and the growth of subjec
tivity. I found that his views were practically in accord
with those of Hclvctius and La Mettric, but that his ancestry
was probably Presbyterian. Indeed there is no little truth
at the bottom of the thousand and one Arabian nights tales
that we hear concerning the Roston individuality. There is
an atmosphere about the the town wh'cli is clearly distinct
ive. Whether one visits Washington street or Copley square
he will find that, both in business and in leisure, the city is
not without lefincmcnt. In one thing, however, llostonians
show that they aie still what the Saturday Review called
them, "American Provincials." This one failing is their
over consciousness of their own cosmopolitanism. For one
to be a true cosmopolitan, I suppose; he should-at least take
himself for granted. This the Hostonians, it would seem are
unwilling to do; although many have arrived at the verge of
the last dividing line between village and town. The
Hostonian is aggressive, almost, in his acknowledgement of
superiority to New York and the rest of mankind. He can
not forget that Emcison lived in the midst of his well
beloved city; he cannot paidon less favored spots for pre
tending to the shadow of aitistic or literary groves. And
this unrcstful, though admiring self apotheosis of the Hoston
ian is all that I have against him.
Conway G. MacMillan.
CURRENT COMMENT.
The complicated state of the Samoan question shows some
of the possibilities of modem diplomacy. The American
people have no interests in Samoa except a coaling station
that never has been established. The people do not visit us
and we have no yc.vning desire to call on them. Some
speculative Americans, trying to 10b the natives of their land
had a collision with some speculative Germans, who had the
same object in view. The two nations have taken up the
quarrel and arc within thinking distance of a great war. It
may be that the Germans have treated the natives selfislily
and cruelly, but the United States has too many problems at
home to solve, too much cruelty among its Americans to pun
ish for us to have time to do the knight-errant act and range
the South Seas for beauty in distress.
The fight between prohibition and high-license has com
menced. No one can tell with any degree of certainty what
the result will be, but the prohibitionists have an advantage
in the fact that one system or the other will become a part of
the constitution. The prohib takes a logical view of the
question at the outset. He holds that in government, as in
morals, every question is a question of absolute right or abso
lute wrong. The high-license advocate is all for policy.
Some men desira to take wealth that they have produced
oracquiicd and make whiskey from it. Either they have
a light to do this or they have not, If they have, then to