srys?
THE COURIER
"a
his temporary retirement from the
centre of the stage and the focus of
the llnie-ligbt. He is precocious still.
He was the youngest lad in bis classes
at school. He cut bis teeth early.
He talked and walked at a very early
period. He belongs to a rich, old New
York Dutch family, which in itself
is enough to make him the darling of
that section of the world. H is
president of this country at an age
when most men are doing their best
to get into congress. But notwith
standing his precocity, the circum
stances of his birth and the regard of
his countrymen, the President has
few of the faults of the gifts and
circumstances which would hare
spoiled a less sturdy, a less virile na
ture. He is a sportsman through and
through; and a sportsman has great
virtues: bravery, grit, patience,
marksmanship and love of fair play.
As soon as be finished college
young Roosevelt went west instead of
staying in New York where on ac
count of Lis family position, connec
tions and his ability he could have
had any sort of a snap he wanted.
But he preferred to try his strength
with other men without the advan
tage of a start. So he went to Wyom
ing and lived a rancher's life among
people who had never heard of the
Roosevelts or Hermits. For the same
reason he resigned from an easy place
in the naval department and organized
tbe Rough Riders in the beginning of
the Spanish war." There was fervid ac
tion in Cuba and almost any man
could perform his duties in the naval
department. The temperament of a
Roosevelt can not endure what most
men seek a snap.
He loves the approval of an audi
ence, the larger the better. But what
of it? II he were a snob of tbe kind
that Harvard graduates occasionally,
he would not care for the favorable
opinion of all sorts and conditions of
men. President Roosevelt Is a poll
tlclan and a sportsman. The latter
shoulders his gun, goes into tbe woods
or the mountains, and spends a very
happy day all by himself; or If he
meet another hunter he shares with
him his pouch or the secrets of good
hunting spots, accepts from him or
loans him a pipe full of tobacco and
with good will to man and pheasant
goes on his way. On the other hand,
the politician, pure and simple, knows
not the joy of isolation and the love
of solitude. Crowds intoxicate him
and encores are worth effort. The
sportsman's habit, tbe message of
mountain, swamp, wood and lake is
excellent discipline for the politician
who might otherwise forget tbe silent
places of the earth, where a man is
alone with bis soul and translates the
Bush. The President loves these
places and he has loved them from
his youth. Like Moses, when the
clamors of a greedy and wandering
people sound in bis ears to distrac
tion he takes tbe medicine of the
mountains and enjoys the neighbor
hood of the fierce, wild animals. He
takes his chances with them and kills
them as a sportsman shou'd, without
trap or ambush. To succeed a man
like McKinley tries the metal or the
stoutest heart, but Roosevelt's heart
is stout and his conscience is enlight
ened. All men, of whatever party,
trust in his honesty. We have a
chastened mind towards presidents
Just now, and we are not apt to make
Roosevelt's duties too hard for him.
Rudyard Kipling;.
A few years ago when Mr. Kipling
was near death In New York the
public almost decided that he was the
greatest and most popular novelist as
well as the coming poet. When he
recovered and picked up his cynical
pen or began to tap bis cynical type
writer, we felt foolish and convicted
of too much gush. If be had died
then, there would have been more
gush and references to Cbatterton
and the loss which the world sus
tained in the death of so young and
so promising a' writer with bis life,
work just begun, et cetera. He has
lived to write Stalky & Co. some very
bad poetry and one magnificent and
all-human poem.
Charles E. Russell, in the October
Cosmopolitan, disapproves of tbe
Boer war and therefore concludes
that Kipling did not believe what he
said In the Recessional." "Some dis
tinction may be admitted between
the animating spirits of a man's prose
and of his poetry; but a man's poetry
must speak bis soul if it is -to be
poetry at all. Kipling has been an
industrious versifier. What shall we
think of bis production? On any im
partial survey it seems worse than bis
prose. Not technically; for he has an
admirable and rare rhythmical sense,
and, until lately, a singular gift of
apt expression; but in its purpose and
mission, there are tbe same manner
and matter that in his tales make us
so dissatisfied and uneasv. The
themes are almost invariably such as
make for no man's peace, for no man's
stirring to nobler thoughts. "The
Vampire" for instance. The subject
artists have dealt with otherwhere;
but never thus. Consider it as a fair
example of bis attitude. How coarse
and pungent and hard it is. We
know that a man has ruined himself
for a woman, but there is no touch of
the pity of his ruin, nor of the lesson
of it, nor of compassion for the hu
man weakness, nor of indignation.
There is no other line
in Eoglish poetry so brutal as this:
"A rag and a bone and a hank of
hair." Mr. Russell says: "When it is
remembered that this war (the Boer
war) for sheer plunder, was forced by
a very strong upon a very weak peo
ple, it seems appropriate to in
quire what It was we were Invited in
the Recessional not to forget.''
Mr. Russell forgets that the Eng
lish were forced Into this war by the
Boers and went into it with great
reluctance after President Kruger
had himself prematurely declared it.
A little Dutch patience on the part
of tbe Boers, a corresponding patience
to that conspicuously exhibited by
the English at home and by the Eng
lish uitlaenders settled in the Trans
vaal would have prevented the war.
England has never entered upon a
war which she was less anxious to
wage and which she was more will
ing to settle peaceably. A publica
tion of the correspondence and ne
gotiations between tbe insensate Kru
ger and the English minister shows
this.
Poets and novelists have a different
method of teaching and of presenting
truth. Kipling has one way and Ian
MacLaren quite another. Ian Mac
Laren in "The Bonnie Briar-Bush"
makes too much of pathos. He in
sists too much upon the sorrows and
the simplicity of tbe inhabitants of a
small Scotch village. They are home
ly, good people, but he will not let us
glance at them, and go our way. As
an author he plays the part of a guide
and points his linger at the particular
virtues and sorrows he desires us to
weep with him for.- It is impolite to
point the finger, however much the
author may desire the travelers to see.
Besides, we resent the author's strik
ing tbe attitude of guide, philosopher
and friend. Who made him our guide,
our philosopher or our friend? He
chose to write a book and we happen
to read it; but it is an impertinence
when he assumes these other func
tions to which we have not elected
him.
Mr. Kipling is never guilty of such
banality. He assumes that his read
ers have taste and discrimination and
are quite competent to find pathos or
a moral or beauty in what be writes.
If Mr. Russell had written "The
Vampire'' poem, (nobOdybut-Kipling
could have written it) be would have
been tbe guide pointing a moral. Not
that it matters, for nobody would
have read it. I find great pathos and
warning in the "Vampire," so great
that a shuddering, a loathing and a
strong resolve seizes upon the sinner
who reads tbe poem. It is not more
"sympathetic" than Dante in his de
scription of the culprits in Hades, but
the words and the wreck of life are
tenacious. "The Vampire" carries
well, as they say of a picture. No,
certainly not; Mr. Kipling is not sym
pathetic Like Dante be walks
through the Inferno of human mis
takes, and calmly and poetically re
lates tbe agony of immorality. He is
never mawkish and he never asks all
readers who are converted to stand
up and announce it. He is as well
bred and as tolerant as tbe old Floren
tine, and for one I am grateful and
sure that no Philistine can ever bully
him into the assumption of the re
vivalist manner.
That be is bard, brilliant and not
sorry enough for the poor drunken
brutes he chooses almost exclusively
as his models is indisputable. He was
a newspaper man long before he was
a bookman, and only tbe cube on a
paper show any pity for the hard
cases whose deaths or troubles it is
their duty to chronicle. Newspaper
men also acquire a respect for their
readers. The counting room of a
newspaper is so much nearer readers
than the office of a book-publishing
concern. Jt may have been.? in .tbe
newspaper business that Mr. Kipling
learned to assume the intelligence,
taste and discrimination of those who
read what he writes. For respect for
the public or reverence for anything
is not temperamental with Kipling.
No man entirely without human
sympathy could have written the
story of the Gloucester fishermen.
The captain of the smack, the mate
and his brother-in-law are drawn in
warm, tender tints. There is no
aloofness and no hardness. In the
chapters describing the dangers that
a fleet of small schooners must en
counter while fishing off the Banks,
the sympathetic treatment is so suc
cessful that no one who has ever read
it can forget the bravery of the poor
fishermen, the storms of that tem
pestuous coast and the big liners that
run the little vessels down in the
mists.
Mr. Kipling's latest story, "Kim,''
lacks interest. His hero is a gamin,
cold-blooded except for an unexplain
ed devotion to an old Budbist lama,
who is wandering over India looking
for a river of life and muttering about
the "wheel." Mr. Kipling used to be
able to tell stories of India so graph
ically that people who had never been
there still read them understanding.
He has lost bis magic. "Kim" is a
series of dissolving views or rather a
vibrating kinetoscope of dusty roads,
scolding, veiled old women, horse
jockies, fakirs and soldiers. I can not
see just why he wrote it. The pur
pose of the recital may be clearer to
the Anglo-Indian who knows the
country.
jt J
A Pension.
It is proposed that congress graut
Mrs. McKinley five thousand dollars
per annum. 1 hope that congress will
pass this bill. Her husband did more
than any man in the world to in-
crease tbe volume of business an 1
facilitate its operation. Carnegk
or Rockefeller's millions are insignia
cant compared to the millions McKin
ley brought into the country and dis
tributed over it. When he died be
left his widow savings of fifty thou
sand dollars and a fifty thousand dol
lar life insurance policy." Why, Mr.
Bryan made more than that by the
two campaigns in which he was beat
en by Mr. McKinley. It is no par
ticular credit to a man to be poor,
though some men afflicted with pov
erty, pretend to believe that it is.
It is a credit to the chief executive,
surrounded by the richest men in the
world to refuse opportunities, appar
ently irreproachable, but offered t.
him because of his office. From lm
salary of fifty thousand dollars a year
the President saved in six years fi.'ty
thousand dollars. Hailed everywhere
as the promoter of prosperity, the
friend of the rich as well as the pro
tector and champion of all, he re
fused to avail himself of the constant
opportunities offered him by these
friends because tbey might not have
been offered bad he not been presi
dent. The dearest object of the
President's life was Mrs. McKinley.
Be was killed because he was presi
dent. The five thousand dollars per
annum to her is a small enough tes
timonial of our appreciation of Mc
Kinley's faithfulness, integrity and
ability. Republics are ungrateful
because a large number of people are
apt to divide-their-obligations and
trust that some one else will discharge
them, and a grant of this sort is not
often made. We are jealous, too, of
each other; and there are those win
will say that Mrs. McKinley is well
enough off, that if they were receh
ing the income of one hundred thous
and dollars they would be content.
That of course has nothing to do with
the pension of five thousand dol!ar
a year to Mrs. McKinley in considera
tion of her husband's distinguished
services to America. But if the bi'l
is defeated it will be by such irrele
vant and unworthy reasoning.
"Woman Explained."
The papers are printing some prov
erbs about women by an African
chief who has had fifty-five wives
Solomon had ceven hundred and he
is credited with knowing more about
women than any other biblical auth
or. Mr. Howells, who is said to know
about women and to have told it al ,
has but one wife; and is not Henrj
James a bachelor? The accuracy and
value of a man's report of woman's
character depend largely upon the
discrimination of the witness, his
sympathy and his understanding,
and not upon the number of his wives.
Obndaga, the Sengalese chief win
collected the result of his study of
woman, may possess the qualities es
sential to the preparation of a re
liable report on such a subject. The
few extracts from his maxims whlcl
have appeared in print sound triteh
familiar. A number concern the nt -cessity
of beatlDg women in order t
make permanent their loyalty at
love. Some of the most outward
civilized men still privately hold tb -belief.
It is not more extinct tin
Voodooism aHd its superstitions a
among the negroes. In general tL
maxims contain warnings to men n
to yield their physical supremacy L
to assert it vigorously. The adu
of the old black rascal has appeak
to the newspaper publishers of tb
country, for many have copied r
Here are some of the maxims: "Wh
are like weeds sometimes; unless y
choke them they choke you: uni(
you cut them off they poison you
"When a woman weeps, pat her on'
y