The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, March 04, 1899, Page 2, Image 2
I J T THE COURIER. &, him not to Imve anything to do with the women folks," and that hereafter he will first find out what they (mean ing women folks) wantand then decide that way. Just as it Is with men's organiza tions, thu principal difference of opin ion concerned the ofllces. In addition to the usual president, secretary, treas urer and auditor, the D. A. H. elects twenty vice-presidents general, so that there Is uhmit. five times the or dinary number of honors to lie divided conscientiously and Intelligently. Own Peoplo." Edmuud Gobso said, yours ago when Kipling was in hie first vogue and bio place in literature not at all as sured, that if tbo British empire in India should become a thing of the past, those stories would be more valuable to the historian of the futuro than all the tuns of government reports over mailed to England. When Zola wrote "L'As sommoir" bo declared that it was "the first story of the people that had the smell of the people." Certainly Mr. Kip- among the members of the order. It Is not unnatural thut there Bhould be an extraordinary effort to divide them with some fairness among the states represented by the delegates. The newspaper correspondents have seen lit to make fun of the meetings of the organization, the discussions and the lobbylngs. They are Ignorant of the spirit which animates the organiza tion and are of course entirely out of sympathy with the ambitions, legiti mate and honorable though they may be, of the members. Any meeting of men, however turbulent It may be, Is treated with a semblance of intelli gence and respect, but these meetings of women have been reported by the Washington correspondents with an imbecile facetiae that would be un pardonable in a good circus clown. The I"). A. II. has ati admirable ralson d'etre, a dignified membership and an enviable and honorable, if short, history. There is no reason at all why tlic annual sessions should not be treated by the press with respect or falling, in which it should not be excluded altogether. . What is fame? The beautiful little poem published three weeks ago in The Couuieh vailed "The Weaver," by the late Mr. Oscar A Million was copiqd in a Nebraska paper called The Surprise, which is too frequently a sur prise In the way of typography and make up. In this case the editor gave no credit either to the author or the paper from which it was taken, for the poem was signed Mr. Oscar A. Muldoon and it appeared to have been written for The Surprise, whose in sides recently appeared upside down. " Although nothing has been defin itely proven by the committee Inves tigating Auditor Cornell, conclusions from Palm's letters are unavoidable and the populist and republican mind seems to be made up so 'strongly as to his guilt that whether the investiga tion reveals anything further or not, the result will be the same. This account of Mr. Sage's posthu mous generosity Is interesting: By the will in which Russell Sage dis poses of his estates, fully nine-tenths of his enormous fortune are devoted to purposes of charity, education and art. It will be the grandest bequest to the public ever made by an indi vidual since the time of Artemisia. During his lifetime, of which the "great dallies" publish such beautiful stories, Sage has been a miser, a skin Hint, a usurer; he has perjured himself for years and years to evade payment of his just share in the communal ex penses; he has been pretty much everything that a patriotic and useful citizen of the republic should not be. But It was only that he might increase the magnificent fortune that he pur poses to devote to posterity. He would have preferred to maintain his ugly Secretary of War Mclklujohn to Illus trate Its cover this week. From Its editorial comment of this eminent Nebraskan I extract the following: Assistant Secretary of War George I). Melklcjohn impresses tub as a man of force, a man of thought, and there can be no question as to his marvelous capacity fur work. He has done a great deal for the war department tiring our lit tic "set to" with Spain. Mr. Melklcjohn has had pretty nearly all of the details of this late war to look after, and he has looked after them ling is the first English author who buB Mr. Melklejohll iS ail energetic man, l,i.nrlnn.wl lhnmn,r ntnrulnnint nf tho possessing a high order of executive .t.jnnr,i,njnMn,n,in,i1ut ability, a clear, comprehensive Insight qu-rtsrdock and gjno down to find what of human nature, a quick and Just de- life was like before the mast. 'Ihe vision, which is relieved from brusque- Bridge Builders" is one of tho meet ncss uy 11 Kindly courtesy, all or which characteristic stories in tho present vol- hundreds of box cars, loaded, locked and chalked." enable him to execute the multitudin ous and harassing duties of his oUlcc without friction and to the great benefit of the war department. One leaves his presence with increased faith in humanity. The members of the International Brotherhood League are particularly indebted to him for the valuable assistance he rendered in the war relief work. Is that not a record to be proud of? Yes. 000M MMM0t)l There is jupt ouo otbor man alive who could have written that paragraph, and that is Zola himself. But he would not have stopped there; he would have gono at length into the Bufferings of the hearts in the stock cars, and insisted that the potatoes were rotten, and that the hides dripped with blood; ho would have de scribed tho reapers and binders individ ually and separately; it is not unlikely that he would have catalogued the dif ferent bridge castings, and he would re morselessly have extracted every evil smell that is to bo got out of a freight yard. Yet these two men, different as they are, are the only living writers who have at their command tho virility of the epic manner, unless one include the author of "With Fire and Sword." Each is, in his own way, a maBter of detail, and their management of it is different as the men themselves. The one at his Herculean tasks throws up mountains of facts that it is impossible to remember; the other concentrates all his knowledge into a few sharp, stinging sentences that cut clean to the heart of the matter and that it ip impossible to forgot. It is the old story of tho hammer and rapier. It is in this vast and minute knowl edge and in an effective and amazingly original use of it that Mr. Kipling has grown. But in depth, in grace, in uoble seriousness ho has advanced not at all. For the last ten yeaVs his development has been of the hand rather than spirit ual. Had "Captains Courageous" and "Tho Day's Work" been his first pro ductions they would have made, doubt less, a noise in the world, but they would not have done for their author what "Plain Tales from tne Hills" and "Soldiers Three" did. 'In his new book one finds no euch masterpieces as "The Man Who Would be King" or "On the City Wall," no such poetic paragraphs as once kindled tbo dullest imagination, no Buch depth of tenderness as awed the most irreverent of us in "Without Bene fit of Clergy." I find in "The Day's Work" no such passages as this, from "Dray Wara Yow Der." "Come back with me to the north and be among men once more. Come back, when this matter is accomplished ana I call for thee! The bloom of the peach orchards is upon all the valley, and here iaonlyduBt and a great stink. There is a pleasant wind among the mulberry trees, and the streams are bright with snow-water, and the caravans go up and the caravans go down, and a hundred fires sparkle in the gut of the pasB, and tent-peg answers hammer-nose, and the pack-boree squeals to pack-horse across the drift smoke of the evening. It is good iu the north now. Come back with me. Let ub return to our own people! Come!" That, by your leave, is worth all the descriptions of all the freight yards in the world. Time was when Mr. Kipling brought into our liveB a beauty wild and Btrange, when he promised to create a literature ns uniquo bb the "Arabian NigbtB," when he was very hear indeed to the face of "Thu True Romnnce." A part of the greatness of a man of genius iB to know what subjectR are worthy of him, what of all the things he can do well aro best worth his doing. In tbiB instinct Mr. Kinlins seems to be reputation to the end, but some of the sweating and dying In India, in nsla and and truck-wagonB full of market stuff; woefully deficient. He in dangerously 'great dallies' that have learned his the Soudan for a century or more, yet it flat carB loaded with reapers and binders, clever and ho has a taBte for farce, and noble Intentions prefer that his real was Kipling who first introduced the all red and green and gilt under the slzz- these two propensities lead him into Intentions should be discovered while English eoldier to the English people, ling electric lights; flat cars piled high many a tour do force unworthy of bis he Is still with us to enjoy the surprise. The nucleus of Anglo-Indian society, with strong-scented hides, pleasant hem- high talent. Admitting that the "Mrs. waa formed when Clive'B troopers lock plank, or bundles of shingles; fiat .Hawkslie" stories were cheap in their The capital, a wccKiy ronuxui nuaii- umrcueu imo me iniouor, yet no one cars creating 10 tne weigni ort miriy-tnn icnowingneB? that "The Story of the ! 4 :the passing show: W I LLA GATHER Mr. Rudyard Kipling is a force to be reckoned with. You can count upon the fingers of ono hand the Englishmen from whom a new volume could excite as much interest throughout the entire English speaking world, or could mean as much to English letter?. He is read with pleasure by admirers of Miss Cor elli, and ho is read with unfailing aston ishment and-admiration by tho clientele of Henry Jam 3s, limited. He has been published in the "Ladioa Home Journal," side by side with Mr. Bok's advice to young men, and he has been taken Beri- world, and his sympathy for workmen ously in tbo pugeB of the Edinburgh 'Review." In short, ho ib a fact in English Literature, known and felt by tho many, disputed, perhaps, but always adraUted by the few. Aside from his prodigiouB dexterity of execution, hiB methods, always unusual and often un precedented, which compel the admira- umo. Findlayeon was a civil engineer who was building a bridgo over the GangeB. He had been building it for three years. He had changed tho face of tho country for mileB around; bur rowed out pits and thrown up embank ments, and seen a village of workmen grow up and about him. "He had en dured heat and cold, disappointment, discomfort, danger and disease." Mean time the bridge grew, "plate by plate, girder by girder, span by span," and "Fiudlayson" built his life into tho bridge. Even "Peroo," tho native over, seer, sayB, "My honor is the honor of the bridge." That is Mr. Kipling's idea of work- I fancy, moreover, that it is the spirit in which ho works. He 3ndB energy the most wonderful and terrible and beautiful thing in the universe; the energy of great machines, of animals in their hunt for prey, of moj in their hand-to hand fight for a foothold in the world. He haB found in tbiB energy sub ject matter for art, whereas it has pre viously been considered the exclusive province of science. An inevitable ac companiment of this worship of force is hiB keen interest in the entire physical in every field, and his insatiable avidity for the details of every trade. Give him the routine of a man's business, and be will make the man for you. Where be has acquired all his minute technical knowledge of bridge building, cod fish ing, railroading, jungle creatures, army and civil life, his accurate and smypa- tion of all loveas of good craftsmanship, thetic Knowledge of topography, that is he has an impaspioned. never wavering a part of hiB genius and nature's socret. interest in things vital and present Enumeration, which has Bomehow come which appeals to all men of affairs. So to be reckoned as one of the innovations be has accomplished the seemingly im- of. realism, is as old as the Catalogue of possible, and is Greek to the Greeks and the Ships in the Iliad, and Mr. Kipling's barbarian to tho barbarians, honored by use of it is not unlike Homer's. He can two factions that love not to mingle take a list of facts as dull as an extract their incense. The title of Mr. Kipling's last volume, "The Day's Work," might be said to cover his entire literary output. No man haB ever written more persistently or more vividly of the affairs which en gage the daily life of men. If Mr. Kip ling knows that there are men of leisure in the world, be haB nnvr said so. The dilettante, who has always so important a place in novels, and who is still not without honor in the fiction of Mr. Rich ard Harding DaviB and Mrs. Constance Caiy Harrison, Mr. Kipling holdB bb be neath hie contempt. The world has been a great many centuries in evolv ing its present gigantic industries, but Mr. Kipling is the first man who has ever written of them seriously or sym pathetically. Steam was discovered in 1769, yet mechanics and poetry first met n "McAndrew's Hymn" and De Mussot half a century before, had declared them forever incompatible and antagonistic. The English army has beon fighting and from a report of the treasury bureau of statistics, and with a few deft touches, behold! it is a-throb with life, clear and vivid, and complete as a sketch by Meis Eonier. Take the following extract from his temarkible tailroad story, "007," de scriptive of a freight yard in a great city. "007 pushed out gingerly bis heart in his head light, so nervous that the Bound of bis own bell almost made him jump the track. Lanterns waved, ad vanced up and down before and behind bin; and on every side, six tracks deep, sliding backward and forward, with clashiDgs of couplers and squeals of hand brakes, wore cars more cars than 007 had ever dreamed of. There were oil-cars, bay-cars and stock cars full of lowing beaBtB, and ore-cars and potato, cars with stove-pipe ends sticking out in the middle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice water on the tracks; ventilated fruit and milk cars; flat cars h V )- ton matters national, political and social uses a protect of Assistant know anything about it untjl naaranna nt 44Qn,Vnn Tk.n. uuninuwu wt vjwiuiuid iuiuu ntjl, the sp- castings, angle-irpns and rivet-boxes for Gadsbys'' wob an atrocious precocity in S and "Mine gome new bridge; and hundreds and a youth of 20, tbey were betfer worth v