THE COURIER
Children in reading a book altogether
overlook the part intended for grown
up people. The realization of this
truth is confined to the adults who
read again the books they know by
heart in youth. It was not until I
read Alice in Wonderland with mature
vision that I knew that it was full of
jokes and ironical revelations of the
pretensions of society. The fairy story
enchained the little girl's fancy, and
the humor, satire, and odd conceit, as
well as the exquisitely-drawn figure of
Alice, fascinates the woman. The pose
of the author of Little Women alto
gether escapes the attention of a child.
Miss Alcott had some new ideas about
the education of children at a time
when kindergartens were new and not
universally approved institutions.
Throughout this story intended for
children she introduces her personal
views in regard to their training, but
the child of ten pays no atentlon to
the lecture part of the story. It is
just as well. Our literary digestion
ignores what we do not need. At ten
years of age we transfuse into our
selves the veriest nonsense, but the
period is light-hearted, inconsequent,
irresponsible. It is only the preco
cious, unnatural, short-lived children
that take life hard and understand
sermons intended for grown-up peo
ple. Real children snub the serious in
whatever form authors or teachers at
tempt to administer it.
Miss Alcott belongs to a family of
teachers and expositors. It is impos
sible for her to keep her little hints
for plain living and high thinking out
of her books, even though those books
are for children. But so long as the
sermons reach only the ears they are
intended for, it does not decrease the
value of the story for the thousands
of children who love Miss Alcott and
her stories .and clamor unceasingly for
more.
Miss Alcott's boys and girls live out
doors all the time they can spare from
lessons, meals and sleep. They are
neither better nor worse than the or
dinary greedy, selfish little animals
who conquer their faults when taught
by good example and the loving, wise
admonitions of those who are in au
thority over them. The imperfect hu
man boy is a better sort of a hero than
the perfect Lord Fauntleroy kind. The
boy who reads about Lord Fauntleroy
invariably sniffs. He knows in spile
of what he reads, that no boy like
that ever lived and went to school and
got home without a more or less dam
aged sash, nose and eyes. Miss Al
cott's boy whom the other boys nick
name "Stuffy," is much more like the
boys we know and love. When "Stuffy"
relinquishes his best piece of candy to
a little girl it Is a lesson in generosity
to the greedy little boy who is reading
about him. "Stuffy" was not a crea
ture to fair and good for human na
ture's daily food, and when he makes
a sacrifice the example is near enough
the boy who reads about it to influence
him.
This long story is cut up into a num
ber of short stories, another reason
why children like it so well. Their at
tention Is diverted first to one charac
ter and then to another. The pages
open almost anywhere on to a new
story complete in itself. Teachers and
parents who have tried to keep the at
tention of children fixed upon one per
son or thing for an unnatural period
will recognize the desirability of such
a feature in a children's book.
Miss Alcott is a natural story teller.
Without this talent one might as well
never take up the pen, no matter how
much knowledge one possesses or in
what fairy forest one has been be
witched and Imprisoned. The children
will not listen unless we know how to
talk to them. The sea of little pink
ears turned in Miss Alcott's direction
whenever she begins to tell a story
proves her title since she first began
to write stories for children, which was
in 1S6I. Little Men was published as
a sequel to Little Women in 1S71. It is
a tribute to her powers over the audi
ence she has addressed and is still ad
derssing that no other writer of juve
nile stories has ever disputed her popu
larity. "Juveniles," as the booksellers
call them, are not written in the style
of thirty-five years ago. Grown-ups
prefer to read their children The Jungle-book
stories or Seton-Thompson's
nnini.il fables, Kingsley's Water-Habits,
or Harris Uncle Kemus folk-lot e
yarns. When the children are allowed
to select their own stories Miss Alcott's
books are the most thumbmarked and
dog's-eared of any and their forlorn
condition tells its own story of popu
larity. j. j j
s" 5" .-
The Usurper
Mr. William J. Locke is an English
writer whose novels are not yet of wide
circulation in this country. He has
written Idols, Derelicts, The White
Dove, and several others. The Usur
per, Mr. Locke's latest book, published
in October of this year, is a study of
an adventurer who found a sick man
in an Australian wilderness. The man
was out of his head and the "Usurper"
takes care of him until he thinks he
is dead. Then before he leaves him he
examines his pockets for identifying
papers. He finds a deed to a farm in
Australia made out to Jasper Vellacot.
He concludes that this is the dead
man's name. He takes the papers and
the name, claims the farm and settles
down on it. The soil of the farm is
black sand and a traveller tells him
that the reason nothing will grow on
his land is because it is rich in tin.
The farm is turned into a mine and
produces for Jasper Vellacot an income
of several million dollars a year. But
the rich man's conscience torments
him. He lives in the plainest lodg
ings and gives his income away to feed
and clothe the poor, with but little
alleviation to the Inner monitor. To
add to his misery he falls in love with
the woman, who, if he were Jasper
vellacot in reality, would be his cousin.
He can not ask her to take a name to
which he has no right himself. Love
makes some men honest; love trans
forms some honest men who before
were satisfied with poverty, into
crazed speculators or into pecula
tors. This man with a conscience
already tortured by his false posi
tion immediately wishes to relin
quish his name and his money.
But as a kind of expiation and
because he is a real lover of his
kind, he has built hospitals, kinder
gartens and asylums. These he pre
fers to administer himself In so far as
selecting the heads of departments
and keeping watch of their service to
the people he wishes to benefit is con
cerned. Should he relinquish the in
come which he uses solely to conduct
these institutions, hundreds of unfor
tunates, who have a right to suppose
that his benefactions will continue, will
be thrust back into the wretchedness
and hopelessness from which he
rescued them. It is, therefore, the
most exaggerated form of selfishness
for him to secure salvation and love at
their cost. Just as he is revolving in
his mind this new renunciation, the
man from whose pockets he took the
deed to a farm that was a tin mine,
appears at his office door. He is a dis
solute, drunken wretch who cares for
no miseries but his own, and asks help
of Jasper Vellacot, whom he has en
tirely forgotten. It seems he had "bush
madness," a disease peculiar to the
Australian bush and which destroys
the memory- The man with a secret
takes him in and feeds him and gives
him several thousand dollars a year.
His appearance makes the "Usurper"
more than ever determined- not to
abandon his poor folks to his short
mercies. The problem is an interest
ing one and so far as I know it is new.
The latter virtue in this day of the
multiplication of books is rare and to
be prized accordingly.
Every lover of poetry may be grate
ful to the author for supplying him
with this definition or rather charac
terization of poetry: "There is a
thirst in the souls of men for the same
magic of the music that can harmo
nize all the complexities of their life
into that which is elemental, unchang
ing, eternal." Until the young poet,
who is the Adonais of the book, ap
peared, "the great utterance had been
wanting and men had striven to find
comfort in lesser voices. So when this
young man had come with his care
less, tumultuous burst of song, the men
who have been watching the arid sky
welcomed him with grateful hearts
and prophesied concerning him." The
young poet who has no "foolishness
about him" is exquisitely drawn. He
falls In love with a fascinating Italian
girl and their episode which kllN the
poet is an idyl of such cobweb texture
that the L'irl's Mafia relatives easily
crush it. The contrast between the
love of the Iidy Allcja and that of
the girl Vittorla fcr the poet Is strik
ing. The Italian girl's passion was
"elemental and unchanging"; her
ladyship's an airy fancy unrelated
to anything but the words of poetry.
"The Usurper" is printed by John
I.-ine of London. England. It fulfills
the first purpose of a novel; that of
holding the attention from the begin
ning to the end and of making the
leader forget tat the moment has
tome to put out the light or to go to
dinner or to work. The poet of the
book is a distinct gain to the number
of the friends, in books and out. that
one loves and thanks God for.
X
"Tht Ruling Paaion"
"A writer's request of his master:
Lord, let me never tag a. moral to a
story, nor tell a story without a mean
ing. .Make me respect my material so
much that I dare not slight my work.
Help me to deal very honestly with
words and with people because they
are both alive. Show me that as in a
river, so in a writing, clearness is the
best quality, and a little that is pure
is worth more than much that is
mixed. Teach me to see the local color
without being blind to the inner light.
Give me an Ideal that will stand the
strain of weaving into human stuff on
the loom of the real. Keep me from
caring more for books than for folks,
for art than for life. Steady me to
do my full stint of work as well as I
can; and when that is done, stop me,
pay what wages Thou wilt, and help
me to say from a quiet heart a grate
ful Allien." It is highest praise of Dr.
Van Dyke'3 book to say that the stories
art abundant evidence that his prayer
has been answered.
The prayer takes the place, in The
lulling Passion, of the conventional in
vocation to the muses piously offered
by the Elizabethan writers in the fore
front of their books of poetry. This
prayer is the true creed of the success
ful novelist. The modem author who
does not keep the creed must publish
his books at his own cost. No pub
lisher is so fatuous as to publish the
stories, or essays, or poems of a writer
who has nothing to say, even though
he has a delectable way of saying It.
It is not enough to possess a brilliant
style though it has carried writers
into board covers and gilt tops. The
author of the stories in the book called
The Ruling Passion has something to
say and he says it very well indeed.
Dr. Van Dyke has an intimate style;
it expresses good-fellowship with those
who read, and with those who do not
read but take their recreation hunt
ing, fishing, boating, or merely smok
ing. To have ihe confidential society
of the story teller Is a delicate (lattery,
that, consciously or not. Dr. VanDyke
has administered In this book, pub
lished by Serlbner's and Illustrated by
W. Appleton Clark. Thackeray began
It. Du Maurler developed and numer
ous authors have adopted the confi
dential style of narrative. -Mr. Howells
says that asides to the reader are in
shot-king bad taste, but so long as It
pleases and Hatters us to be assured
that the author never forgets us and
that our sympathy and company are
grateful to him. It is not likely that an
ukase from Mr. Howells will have
much effect. Mr. Van Dyke Is a pro
fessor of English literature and his
confidences to the render are an Im
palpable element of his style rather
than anything like the bald asliles that
Thackeray Indulges In. A professor of
English literature Is bound more strict
ly by decorum than other model and
can not permit himself the fatigue
habit and cordial manner assumed lu
soutiantly by an artist, Du Maurler,
for instance. Hence Dr. Van Dyke has
the manner "Intlme" though It Is never
familiar.
"In every life worth writing about
there Is a ruling passion the very
pulse of the machine unless you tout b
that, you are groping around outside
of reality. Just because love Is tini
veisal. It Is often to one of the other
passions that we must look for the
distinctive hue, the Individual quality
of a life story." Believing thus. Dr. Van
Dyke has shown his heroes under tr.e
control of some other passion besides
love, though they are In love, tix.
Music, the love of little children, loy
alty to friendship, a love of Justice,
family pride and a sense of the obli
gations of honor and duty influence
his men and women. The problem of
the short story Is to make the reader
as well acquainted with the hero and
as much interested In him in twenty
pages as in three hundred. Dr. Van
Dyke has accomplished it In The Kill
ing Passion. The girl who keeps the
light-house and makes jokes for the
whole family when her father, mother
and sisters are obliged to stay up all
night to keep the light revolving after
the Ignorant fishermen have broken
the clockwork that turns It. is a flesh
and blood, tanned, determined, young
woman who interests us and who is
not at all a stranger at the end of the
thirty-nine pages the author devotes
to her.
All the stories are of wholesome,
good people. We are immediately prej
udiced against a book when we hear
that it is good for the young. But
these stories belong In that category.
Brave fishermen and guides, strong,
brawny men who yet control the temp
tation to make a mere exhibition of
muscle and fighting ability, are the
heroes. Their woodcraft, their gentle
ness, their strength, the simplicity of
their speech make them the heroes of
youth, whether you will or no. Then
most of the stories are written in pleln
air under the shifting shadows of the
woods, within sound of the surf. There
is not a tailor-made girl or manicured
(Continued on Page Ten.)
HHis&im '- mm.
A Corner in the Dining Room of the Dr. Bailey Sanatorium
Thoroughly equipped and beautifully furnished every electric current useful in treat
ment of sick ideal Turkish, Russian, and Medicated Baths only noncontagious
chronic diseases received. This institution is no a hotel, not a hospital, but a home.
J
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