Stephen Phillips' and the Heritage of Homer.

"The soul selects her Own society, and in the poetry of Stephen Phillips she may discover royalty which he would not leave kneeling upon her mat. For he is the poet who has thrown open most widely the portals of the Twentieth Century, and his realistic conception of scientific and of spiritual possibilities are the prophecy of progress." We are not doubting any more if Stephen Phillips is the coming poet. He has arrived. First appeared his book of short poems, containing not only delicate lyrics, but marvelous creations of impressive power, in stately and solemn measure. Poems which seemed to penetrate into the unseen to express at times a vision of the life to be in this new century, then suggesting the forces that "shall make for all commercial and industrial progress," or giving a vivid presentation of the reality of all the theories and partial inventions that are now in the air, as in the lines:

"For a man shall set his hand to a handle, and wither

Invisible armies and fleets,

And a lonely man with a breath shall exterminate armies,

With a whisper annihilate fleets.
And soul shall speak unto soul;

I weary of tongues;

I weary of battle and strife.

Lo! I am the bonder and riveter together of spirits;

I dispense with nations and shores."

Then there burst from the chrysalis of his tender imagination the wonderful legend "Marpessa," a longer poem extolling the happiness of domestic love. In it he touched a note unsurpassed in ail the literature of poetry. Its motif is found in the legend that Zeus gave Marpessa her choice between the God Apollo

and Idas, a mortal, whereon she chose Idas. She would live as woman, not as Goddess. But it was when Mr. Phillips became a dramatist that we knew for certain that he was to touch the peaks of poetry. There was "Herod," "Francesca da Rimini," (revelations not only of poetic beauty, but of the highest, most effective dramatic art), and here we have also "Ulysses." The subject matter of all of these, you see, is as old, as wellknown as the plots Shakespeare purloined, as simple and classic as the ancient "Antigone." For Stephen Phillips is a classicist in feeling, in symbol, as he is modern in idea.

"Ulysses" has three acts and a prologue. To use the author's own words: "I have gone farther back (than others) in the story, and taken in two of Ulysses' earlier trials, the sojourn with Calypso and the visit to Hades, which seemed to me to afford matter for telling dramatic presentment and dramatic contrast. And I have tried to weave these adventures together with the return to Ithaca and the final discomfiture of the suitors, into the fabric of a properly knit play"; the world's verdict is that he has done this well.

If there is nothing in "Ulysses" so fine, so tragic, so emotional as the final scene of Mr. Phillips' "Francesca da Rimini," there are splendidly dramatic, splendidly human movements in it, as instance the following scene, which is supposed to take place in Hades, between the living Ulysses and the shade of his mother, Anticleia. He is enquiring about his wife:

Ulysses-Alas, alas! and mother, she? she lives

But stays she true to me?

Anticleia-Child, I have come

But lately to this place, and when I died Still was she true to thee, and knew not time.

The dignity of these scenes in Hades, 'mid "a great swirl of souls," is unquestioned, and the poetry of the entire poem royally beautiful. However, I have an idea that Mr. Phillips' genius is taking a trend more and more toward the purely dramatic. The construction of this work is as great as the beauty of the lines, which is a thing we are seldom able to say of the latter-day poets who essay the drama. No passage in the poem is sweeter than these words of Penelope (dropping veil):

"Cease, minstrel, cease, and sing some other song;

Thy music floated up into my room, And the sweet words of it have hurt my heart.

Others return, the other husbands, but Never for me that sail on the sea line, Never a sound of oars beneath the moon, Nor suduen step beside me at midnight; Never Ulysses! Either he is drowned Or his bones lie on the mainland in the rain."

"Ulysses," by Stephen Phillips.

just love to be poets, but business interests prevent, don't you know. Consequently, Wall street is full of men whose features are creased and puckered into commercial lines, but whose eyes cannot choose but glow forth a spirit that was created for holier guests than those imposed by Juno Moneta. Out of the stock exchange came Mr. Whitman, that paradoxical character created by Elizabeth Pullen, and set forth in a book entitled after its hero. Mr. Whitmanno one would ever presume so far as to omit the "Mr."-was born, SO to speak, with a silk hat on his head. That beaver represented the hero's doom and destiny. He was junior partner in a wholesale tanner's establishment, where he had devoted himself for nearly a score of years. Mr. Whitman, at the opening of the story, was the happy recipient of one of those convenient fictional legacies left to him by a commercial relative, Uncle Jerry Pease. Upon the receipt of this money, Mr. Whitman proceeded to realize a long-cherished ideal, which was no less than to visit Italy-strange ideal for a sedate junior partner with no soul above business.

"It is said that if the nose of Cleopatra had been a few centimeters shorter the fate of the world would have been changed. If Jeremiah Whitman's eyes had been brown or blue, it is probable that he would have remained to invest his legacy in his affairs-and this story of his divergations would have been left in the inkstand."

So Mr. Jeremiah Whitman packed up and visited an Italian friend who lived in Sicily. To soothe his New England conscience he told himself that his visit was a purely commercial one, notably to purchase Sicily sumach for tanning purposes. So he jotted in his note book "Sicily sumach, $72 per ton," and in the midst of the wildest adventures that followed, that note and that note book bob serenely up. Of course, Mr. Whitman's Italian friend had a beautiful Italian sister, and of course Mr. Whitman fell in love with her-so much as a concession to the conventions of fictionbut what follows is not entirely conven

tional. In traveling alone through a mountainous district Mr. Whitman is overcome by banditti, and taken to their hilly fastness. Here he is held for ransom, but during his captivity his courage and business sense appeal to the bandits so much that they elect him chief. His poetic eyes get the better of his practical nose, and he accepts the honor, and, still wearing his silk hat, leads a raid upon a passing coach, which is conveying his sweetheart and his friend's wife to the funeral of a relative. In order that the book may make good summer reading the hero marries the girl and all is well. The style and coloring are charming; the egg of burlesque might have been hatched by Mark Twain; the story would make a first-class comic opera with but slight alteration.

"Mr. Whitman," by Elizabeth Pullen (Mrs. Stanley T. Pullen). Published by the Lothrop Company, Boston. Price, $1.50.

An Omar of Harlem.

The Harlem Club of Former Alcoholic Degenerates has again come to order and the result is that Mr. Clarence Louis Cullen has supplied us with another collection of his "Ex-Tank Tales." "The writer earnestly trusts, however, that such critics as shall find it worth while to write a line or so about the present volume, shall hold him guiltless of the slightest idea of assailing the blockhouse of letters through the medium of any such pop-gun," the somewhat over-modest introduction explains. Mr. Cullen's work is nevertheless art. It is art in the sense that he has done thoroughly what he set out to do-it is art in the sense that Mr. Ade's or Mr. Townsend's work is art. Anybody who has quaffed rosy flagons long and late will appreciate "More Tank Tales," which are as bibulous as any of Omar Khayyam's philosophy, and not half so sedate. The members of the Harlem Club of Former Alcoholic Degenerates met once in so often to relate the adventures that befell them in their unregenerate days. Here is the outline of the tale of Ex-Tank No. 18:

No. 18 had the misfortune of being in Chicago without the necessary funas to get out of town, but one day a friend of his was going West, and to celebrate the event No. 18 and his friends went into a "damp bazaar" to spend the friend's last $3.45. By the time the train was ready to start, the two got aboard, vowing never to part. The friend "quite overlooked the necessity-the result of the sordid greed of railway corporations -of my having a ticket for the journey." As a consequence the train "hesitated" at Geneva, Ill., and No. 18 was put off in a When sleeping condition. he awoke he took a stroll through the town till he met a native, who looked like Abe Lincoln.

""Thinkin' 'bout tyin' up here?' he enquired.

'I 'Well, I don't know,' I told him. had sort of an idea of getting up a directory of Geneva on an improved plan that I am going to have a patent pending for. Then I kind o' thought of going into the real estate business here. It's a case with me of getting into business quick, and that's no grotesque gargoyle of speech." "

Well, the prototype of Abraham Lincoln proves to be a manufacturer of "rare antiques," which No. 18 takes to Chicago and puts up at auction at a store on Dearborn street. All the aristocracy is there, and the sales are so brisk that the pair make a fortune.

"More Ex-Tank Tales" are wholly unliterary, wholly American, and wholly interesting.

J. S. Ogilvie Co., New York. Price, $1.00.

"Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall," is a self-willed, determined young creature, very beautiful and very passionate, but, after all, quite the type of the spoiled young American woman of to-day, and not the unusual sort of creature or heroine her author seems to regard her. But as to the selling properties of the book she vivifies-that has been already determined, not by herself, but by that far rarer creature, Mary Tudor, in "When Knighthood Was in Flower," which in turn has been immortalized on the stage

by Julia Marlowe. In fact, Mr. Charles Majors, in this second book of his, has not surpassed, if indeed he has equaled, his first, which was a triumph of comedy. "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall" is a book which will be eagerly read. It is a charming love story. Supposed to be a historical novel and deal with historical personages, the historical facts act only as a background to the trend of the stirring courtships of the young people, who, if they be already known in history, there left so slight a mark that it is no weight on the creative imagination of Mr. Major". In the last chapters, however, we have Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary of Scots, Earl of Leicester, and all the rest of them, together under the roof of magnificent Haddon Hall. And during this time most of the machinery of the plot gets into swing. There is no lack of plot, however, and no lack of interest. "Dorothy Vernon" is delightful reading on every page, in spite of its slight, but continual faults. The appearance of Mary, Queen of Scots, in this book, is quite different from any appearance she has ever made before, and one to which her leal admirers, the modern Scots themselves, would take exception. She is no martyr here, but n unscrupulous courtesan, frank in her methods as a peasant girl, and entirely lacking even the sweetness of a refined woman. However, they were rough days in which she lived, and who can say but that there may be a basis of fact in this representation as well as in this picture of the mighty Queen Elizabeth?

"Curiosity is not foreign, even to the royal female breast, and while Mary Stuart was entering Haddon Hall, I saw the luminous head of the Virgin Queen peeked out at a casement on the second floor, watching her rival with all the curiosity of a Dutch woman sitting by her window mirror." However, in spite of this, Mr. Majors seems to be an almirer of the stronger, more dominant, cleverer personality of Elizabeth, endowing her with affectionate qualities, frequent good nature and justice, for in this tale at least she is the good angel who cuts the knot in the tangled love affair of Dorothy Haddon and Sir John' Manners.

The illustrations are done, of course, by Howard Chandler Christy, and if a little theatrical, are also very charming.

After all, in everything which Mr. Majors writes, there is a sparkling naturalness of dialogue, a sudden spontaneous, irresistible turn of phrase, a dainty humor in womanliness, which gives it oftentimes the flavor of the best legitimate comedy, and lifts it always above the commonplace. Most readers, I think, will agree with me, that the tiny opening prologue called "A Touch of Black Magic" is a mistake, as it reads like a bit of arrant affectation, and has spark of redeeming originality. "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall," by Charles Majors.

The Macmillan Company, New York.

no

The many ardent admirers of Napoleon and lovers of his life of action may at last have their longings satisfied, for we have here "The True Napoleon," a biography in which matter, presentation, and style are all of the highest order and leave nothing to be desired. It is written by Mr. Charles Josselyn, and claims to be "A Cyclopedia of Events in His Life." It is divided into six partsNapoleon, Boy and Man, 1767-1821; The Soldier, 1790-1815; Emperor and Statesman, 1799-1815; Exile and Philosopher, 1815-1821; The Man of the World, and Chronology of Napoleon's Life.

There are a dozen really beautiful illustrations, engravings, largely of the many celebrated paintings which tell his story, and the broad pages are marginated, making them easy of reference. The cover is an excellent design in blue and gold. In his dedication to Mr. Joseph Redding, the author says he has done all he feels "competent of doing with the subject, namely: compiled the work from chapters of notable writers. The frontispiece is a colored engraving of the well-known painting of Napoleon on horseback, by Meissonier, etched by Ruet. On the margins the sources of Mr. Josselyn's information or quotation are invariably given, and this frankness adds of course to the very real value of the compilation. The last illustration is a reproduction of that wonderful seated statue by Véla, called "Napoleon's Last Day."

Mr. Josselyn says in his preface: "It may save many who are interested in the life of Napoleon the trouble of wading through many volumes to find that which they would like to read. The book is as its title represents-a dictionary of events."

"The True Napoleon," by Charles Josselyn.

Published by R. H. Russell, New York.

The

Bacon-Shakespeare

controversy, if it can be called such, is interesting as a curiosity of literature if nothing more. And I doubt if ever the matter has been presented in any more exhaustive, interesting manner than it is in the two attractively gotten up volumes before me. The work is called "Bacon and Shakespeare, Parallelisms," by Edwin Reed, A. M., author of numerous other works on the same subject. Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed, Boston, Publisher, may well be proud of the tasteful appearance of these books. Price, $2.50.

The Edgar S. Werner Co., of New York, have out a useful little book, "Graded Physical Exercises," by Bertha Louise Colburn. Its practical value already assures it a large sale schools and teachers of gymnastics.

among

A book of succinct interest, well illustrated, is "Carpenter's Geographical Reader," on Europe, by Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, published by the American Book Company, New York. It is an admirable and successful effort to clothe with flesh and blood the skeleton of geographical fact and to make the countries of Europe a living whole in the minds of pupils, or of any young person who may read the book. It has not a dry page, and places instruction before youth in entertaining guise. Price, 70 cents.

From the Abbey Press, New York, we have three prettily bound novels, "Fortune's Wheel," by Martha Gray, price $1.00; "My Lord Farquar," by Thomas Emmet Moore, price $1.25; and "Glenwood," by Katherine Kensington. In children's books (and a bright silver and blue binding) they have just issued "A Movable Quartette," by Eleanor Guyse, price $1.00; "The Tale of a Cat," by Mar

garet Kern"; and "Cub's Career," by Harriet Wheeler. We have also received from them "Is Life Worth Living," by Wilbur Newell, and "Infans Amoris," by T. Everett Harry. Price, $1.50.

From the pains and woes of the New South we turn to "Darkey Ways in Dixie," by Margaret A. Richard. It is the kind of negro verse that might have been written in Portland, Maine, and is evidently inspired by "the God of Things as they Ain't." It is handsomely gotten up by The Abbey Press, New York.

Among the books sent us by the Abbey Press are: "Constance Hamilton," by Lucy May Lindsley Wyatt; "Glenwood," by Cathmer Kensington; "Guided and Guarded," by Joseph H. Malone; "The Girl from Mexico," by Miles G. Hyde; "Liquid from the Sun's Rays," by Sue Greenleaf; "Aaron Crane," by Henry Tate; "What Think Ye of Christ," oy ex-Judge J. L. Eldridge, and "The Old Kitchen Stove," by David Harold Judd. "The scene of 'Constance Hamilton' is laid in Virginia," says the press notice. "It pictures the home life on the plantation and introduces to us a beautiful girl whose hand is sought by two lovers. One of them is the son of an inveterate enemy of the father, who lives on an adjacent plantation," etc., etc. From this you can judge for yourself as to the originality of the work.

"Aaron Crane" is a small village story containing some more or less accurate character drawing.

"The Girl From Mexico" is a book of short stories, the one which gives the book its title being a detective story about a girl who was suspected of a crime committed by her double.

"Glenwood" is the title of a story laid out on a farm somewhere, and stuffed with a dialect which does not savor of any particular section.

Sue Greenleaf has dedicated "Liquid from the Sun's Rays," a psycho-necroneo-romance to "the weak who put stumbling blocks in my path and wished my life a perpetual slough of despond." Rather than be classed among those who put stumbling blocks in Miss Greenleaf's path, I will say no further.