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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1902)
THE COURIER OBSERVATIONS BY SARAH B. HARRIS The Scotch-Irish The Scotch-Irish or the Scot in North lSritnln, North Ireland and Nortli America, by Charles A. Ilanna, lias just been issued by the publishers, G. 1. Putnam's Sons. The work is in two volumes with copious notes, sev eral maps and a remarkably accurate and exhaustive index. Mr. Ilanna was formerly the vice president of the First National bank of this city, and he is now a bank ex aminer in New York city. The leisure that the average man spends at his club when his recording angel has nothing whatever to do but make zero marks in the Book, Mr. Ilanna has spent examining records and docu ments from which history is written. The two volumes he has Anally writ ten are Introductory to a series of his torical studies to be published hereaf ter relating to the early Scotch-Irish settlements in America. The author states in the preface that because of the Ignorance, or as he more considerately terms it, "the lack of acquaintance of many native-born Americans with the details of Scottish history,'' he has found it necessary to Incorporate a primer of Scotch his tory with this history of the Scotch Irish. It is unsatisfactory to begin in the middle of any subject. Mr. Hanna has, therefore, begun, not with the dawn of Scottish history, but far enough back so that his readers can comprehend the permanent elements of Scotch character and the reasons why there were so few intermarriages be tween the Scotch who settled in Ulster and the Irish natives. The term Scotch Irish does not mean Creoles of Iribh and Scotch blood, but the Scotch men and women who settled In Ireland and their descendants. According to Mr. Hanna these de scenants possess the earth now. In literature, science, war, invention, ex ploration, statesmanship and theology the Scotch and their descendants crowd the fields to the embarrassment of other races. They claim Shaks pere, who was born near the forest of Arden, close to the border line between Kngland and Wales. "The people of the west of England today," accord ing to Mr. Ilanna, "are probably as much Celtic as Teutonic and there are at least no better grounds for claiming their greatest genius as a Saxon than for assuming that he may have been a Briton. He is as likely to have been the one as the other; though if the truth could be known he had prob ably an infusion of the blood and spirit of both. Of the second greatest poet of Britain, there is vastly more reason for believing him of purely Celtic ex traction than for the assertion that Shakspere's genius was wholly Teu tonic. It is possible, however, that Burns, also was of mixed descent. Bare Ben Johnson, likewise, although him self born in England, was the grand son of an Annandale Scotchman." The Scot is canny and his existence Is and has been a blessing to the world, but he has never lost anything because he failed to claim it. A further re view of this book will appear in this department of the Courier after the editor has read the scholarly volumes contributed by Mr. Hanna to American history. The President'! Son Everybody sympathized with the president and Mrs. Roosevelt when their oldest son was sick, because the moment a man is elected president of the United States, to all Americans he becomes an object of affection and reverence. He represents the nation, and every member of his family; his mother, his wife, his sons, his daugh ters, share In the affection bestowed upon him. It is' not snobbery, it is not selfishness, it has no connection with personal advantage, this love for the president and his family. It is patriot ism. In the president we revere America incarnate. Every honor laid upon the president is an honor to each one of us. We are sorry for the other boys who are ill and who cry out in delirium for a drink of water. If it chance to be our neighbor's boy or our friend's we are very sorry. But every body hopes that the president's boy will get well. Everybody looks first in the morning paper to see how he is. Not that the dear lad is better or cleverer or any dearer to his father and mother than thousands of other boys sick of a fever in this country, but he Is the president's son and as we love the sturdy, honest, brave man, whom many of us have never seen, we hope for the recovery of his oldest son. The levelers who deprecate the universal sympathy which has been ex pressed for the president and his fam ily fall to consider that the sympathy and hope are a part of that patriotism that beats in the pulses of the Ameri can people and of that humanity that Instantly responds to suffering when ever the American visualizes the suf ferer. The thousands of other sick boys we do not see, we know of them only In general, and general truths never make a convert. Even God had to become human and take the name and aspect of a man before his creat ures could sympathize with him and love him. Si "5i Protection Miss Stone has not yet been returned to her family. America is a rich and powerful country, but it seems to be certain that Americans must love their country for its own sake and rid their minds of an impression that the government will protect American cit izens traveling in foreign countries. When we are captured by brigands of one of the weakest countries, America is impotent to force our release. The Bulgarian government which European powers ignore defies the United States with safety. No English, French, or German woman has been captured by plrates. Not even an Italian or Span ish female has been molested. Reprisal on the part of any one of these gov ernments would be Immediate. Why did the discriminating pirates select an American victim. Is it because they knew that this country was given to parleying and would negotiate, dicker, and palaver, and finally pay the money after exposure had done its work on the poor missionary? We send any kind of a man as min ister to foreign countries; a man who knows no language but his own, and with no knowledge of international re lations or business does as well as another; anything to oblige a senator. Many ministers are inadequate to the duties they are supposed to perform, and their salaries being less than those paid representatives of the smallest and least considered European nations, it is not surprising that the peoples of the earth think Americans a mean-spirited, humble nation. Americans have just as much respect for costume, mansions, horses, and state coaches as an Italian or English man or German, but we underestimate the effect of these decorations of ex istence upon foreigners, and our em bassadors make a mean appearance abroad. Consequently, when bandits cast about for a woman whom it is safe to abduct, they do not take a Russian or French or Turk or Prus sian, but they take an American. And the sequence lias justified their judg ment. H- A Satirist No one has ever accused Mark Twain of plagiarism. There are many forms of plagiarism, and there are a hundred times as many persons watching for symptoms and ready to shadow the first prominent and promising case. But Mark Twain Is unique. His stories and disquisitions have a peculiar flavor that is never acquired by imitation of someone else. He is not a statesman and he is not a sage. Neither, is he a scholar. His observations have fre quently the concentrated wisdom of the sage, the philosopher, and the states man. Contrariwise when he talks ser iously of public questions he is puerile, illogical, impractical. Like the king's fool in his cap and bells and with his bauble in his hands he can hit ancient, feeble institutions a whack that makes them reel. But dress him in armor, give him a spear and set him on a war horse, and he is futile and twice the fool lie is in cap and bells. Cervantes gave the final blow to knight errantry. Don Quixote showed the Castllians that the world had found out that the knight's armor was made of tin pans, that they tilted at windmills, and after that their armor was of only decorative use in baronial halls or as relics in museums. Mark Twain is a satirist of social customs and pretensions, of institutions outworn and left high and dry on the beach, but still considered sea-worthy by the public who must, have some body point to the open seams in the hull and the decayed decks before the rottenness of the hulk Is apparent. Mark Twain began with the old pil grims who in "Innocence Abroad" wept copiously at all the sights of the Holy Land. Pretension and cant in religion, society, and business have staggered under the stout blows he has struck them. He has done a service to his century and to his country of In estimable importance. His essay on the futilities and dishonest pretensions of Christian Science healers states the case against the delusion succinctly and unforgettably. A long-winded ar gument, however flawless, makes no strong impression on the mind. Mark Twain lays bare the truth so that one sees It himself without the intervention of the demonstrator, and what the eyes have seen and the mind has registered is hard to dislodge. In a current magazine Mr. Clemens tell3 an altogether modern detective story, that is, the satire is modern. "A Double-Barrelled Detective Story" deals with the acute detective myth. The author ignores all the rules and literary conventions that he has heard of and can thus consciously avoid, but his story is very interesting and luminous. Mr. Clemens is an old man and when he leaves America for the only better country no one can take his place. Since the records began there have been only four great satirists, and see how far apart they are: Juvenal was born about a hundred years before the first century. Sixteen hundred and fifty years later Cervantes and Rabe lais were born, and a hundred years later Dean Swift opened his eyes on an existence which he hated perhaps as much as any of our brethren. Horace, Voltaire, Butler, Pope, and Lowell are not exclusively satirists, or, more exactly, their satirical work Is not their most important contribution to literature and to the influence of their own times. In American literature there Is noth ing else like Mark Twain's work. Around him there is a wide, bare space, separating him from all other writers. The most superficial student of our literature knows Mark Twain and his work and recognizes the fact that al though he has founded no school he has had more to do with compounding the quality of what is known as Ameri can humour than any one else. There is no other humour or satire that has this flavor or the tang of it. The flavor is not in the style, for Mr. Clem ens has none; it is in what he says and its directness; Its need of being said, its applicability and timeliness. In the story the sheriff of a western mining town has just released a man whom a mob had begun to burn alive. "You're a nice lot now ain't you?" he said. "Just about eligible to travel with this bilk here Shadbelly Higgins this loud-mouthed sneak that shoots people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there's anything I do particularly despise, its a lynching Miss Lippincott Studio, Room 65 lirowneii uiock I.sons in Drawing, Painting, lyroKrapny, woou uarving, mi nroved China Kiln. China deeo- 1 rated or fired. Qtiniln nrn Mnndav.Tuesdav. Thursday, and Friday afternoons 2 to 5 o'clock Saturdaj mornings 9 to 12. DR. BENJ. F. BAILEY, Residence, Sanatorium. Tel. CI". At offlce,2 to 4, and Sundays, 12 to 1 p. m. DR. MAY L. FLANAGAN, Residence, C-'l So. 11th. TeL 869. At office, 10 to 12 a. m.; 4 to 6 p. m Sundays, 4 to 4 :30 p. m. Office, Zehrung Block, 141 So. 12th. Tel. 618. LOUIS N. WENTE, D. 1). S., OFFICE, ROOMS 20, 27, 1, BROWNELL BLOCK, 137 South Eleventh street, Telephone, Office, 530. J. K. HAGGARD, M. D., LINCOLN, NEB. Office, 1100 O street Rooms 212, 213, 214, Richards Mock; Telephone 535. 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