8
a ae—a—e—csc0—m—m
THE BOOK SHELF.
(Conducted by ALBERT LEE, "91.]
There is enough of the real boy left
in most of us to make us enjoy any
story that treats of strong men, and
although Porthos will always be the
King and foremost of the all in our
minds, we are glad to hear of the ex-
ploits of less famous giants. For
this reason I think most readers will
prefer the story of the “Three Strong
Men” in Mr. Brun’s “Tales of Langue-
doc,” (San Francisco: William Doxey)
to the many other provencal yarns he
spins in the same book. These three
fellows had great experiences, and all
were so powerful that they played
quoits with millstones as a diversion.
One of them was surely a populist, for
he had long whiskers that reached
down to his feet, but they were of
more use than any populists’s whisk-
ers I have ever heard of. For at one
stage of the story, when ‘the wander-
ers came to an unfordable river, one
of them seized the end of his com-
panion’s beard, and His Whiskers,
then went through the motions of
throwing the hammer and hurled the
other to the opposite bank of the
stream. This same fellow, who played
the part of the hammer in the previ-
ous incident, has a fight with the
Devil. First, he gets him in a hole—
which is where we would all of us
like to get the Devil—and then follows
a battle royal in which the Devil is
finally killed. But I guess he must
have come to life again, for he still
seems to be getting in his good. work.
I wish the Three Strong Men would
come to America and kill him, so that
Harvard and Yale might reach an un-
derstanding and resume athletic rela-
tions.
In one of those moments of weakness
which publishers, as well as other mor-
tals, are doubtless subject to, Messrs.
Stone & Kimball decided to publish
“At the Sign of the Sphinx,” by Caro-
line Wells, and did publish it, and
their part of the work is exquisiteiy
done. A prettier cover has not been
put out, even by them, for many
moons, and the whole make-up is de-
lightful. The subject matter, however,
is pretty light. It is a collection of
charades, in verse, of which this is a
fair sample:
“T am my whole, I have been married
twice.
My first wife was my second long be-
fore
My second wife became my first.
more,
I was my whole to each.
suffice.”’
There is no particular value in this
kind of writing, as poetry, and life is
too short to spend any part of it in
trying to guess Miss Wells’ secrets.
There are other things of more import-
ance that keep us guessing now-a-
days.
And
Let that
Much more to our ‘taste are Mr.
Shipman’s ‘Urban Dialogues,’’ (New
York: Stone & Kimball). These little
conversations are bright and vivacious,
and contain some real humor with not
@ little satire. The illustrations by C.
D. Gibson contribute their share of in-
terest to the little volume.
It is plain that Mr. Stephen Crane
used the same paint box when he pre-
pared ‘“‘The Little Regiment,’ (New
York: D. Appleton & OCo.), as that
which he used when he laid in the
color for “The Red Badge of Courage.”
The newer short stories aré full of the
Same reds and blues and yellows, with
a few ‘‘mystic’’ horses thrown in, but
on the whole the general effect is bet-
ter and more pleasing than that left
by the book which made his reputa-
tion. Of the two I think I prefer ‘‘The
Little Regiment,’’ and there are a cou-
ple of stories in it which one may well
take pleasure in reading again,
It is possible that I may be grossly
misjudging the vast aggregation of
A. B.’s who may properly be styled
the ‘constant readers” of this depart-
ment if I assume that only a very
YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
small number of them would look into
a book which rests upon our shelf en-
titled “The Bible as Literature’ (New
York, T. ¥. Crowell & Co.). I am pre?
pared to admit that I should merely
have glanced carelessly through its
pages myself, if it had not been tha
one of its chapters was written by
Prof. A. S. Cook, whom the Class
91 initiated into the mysteries 9
pedagogy at Yale, while he intro
duced the Class of ’91 to other mys*
teries. As to whether Professor Coox
or the Class of ’91 retains the pe |
impression of the two ceremonies, |]
am ait present unable to state; and the
question (although important) certain
ly bears no relation whatever to the
paper ‘On the Influence of Biblical
upon Modern English Literature.” /
I had rather expect to find this an
essay couched in the style of those
lectures which formed a part of the
mysteries to which tthe Class of oo
was introduced,
confess that I was considerably dis-
appointed at discovering that the Dé-
per is largely a catalogue of examples
from literature in which the influenge
of King James’ version is
recognizable. All’ this shows that
Professor Cook has read a great deal—
which is not at all surprising—and
that he has noted many of the pecu-
liarities of the books:that have come
his way; but the subject he had to
treat is one of considerable interest
and one that we must regret he did
not handle in a manner that would
have called for more original thought
and which consequently would have
been of much greater interest to his
readers. Having read
Cooks ‘contribution ito this book con-
cerning Bible literature ,I was curious
to see what some of the other learned
gentlemen had to say’ upon their
various themes, and I must say that
many of the dissertations are exceed-
ingly interesting. Dr. Whiton’s treat-
ment of “Ruth and Esther’ puts that
Biblical romance into an entirely dif-
ferent light; and I forthwith took down ~
my Bible and read the story aga'n —
interesting, and
“much more dramatic (while wate ©
than any:
and found it most
ly ‘far better written),
modern tale that the seekers after
new effects have furnished us with
this many a day.
“The Beginners of a Nation” (New
York, D. Appleton & Co.) is the title
of the first instalment of an import-
ant historical work which Mr. Edward
Eggleston is writing upon the history
of life in the United States. The pres-
ent volume treats largely of the early
settlements on this continent with the
especial object of tracing from their
source the various movements which
prompt emigration. It is not a book
that the average busy person will
care to pick up for light reading, yet
it is written in a style so pleasing and
so clear that the subject is presented
in a manner most tempting. What
will probably appeal most strongly to
those who are not especially interest-
ed in the doings of those early days is
the discussion of the characiers of
those Puritans who have always been
held up to us in the story books as
very pious personages, but who, it
seems, were about as promiscuous a
lot, as to their virtues, as the average
body of human beings nowadays. This
makes one feel satisfied with the times,
more or less, and conveys the impres-
sion very strongly that Mr. Eggleston
is at last telling us the truth about a
good many things which have hitherto
been heavily veiled by misconceived
reverence.
The most noteworthy of recent con-
tributions to Omar literature is un-
doubtedly Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole’s
Variorum edition of the Rubaiyat
(Boston, Joseph Knight Co.). A more
complete compendium of information
upon this absorbing topic has never
before been presented. Not only have
we biographical sketches of the prin-
cipal translators of these poems, with
countless bibliographical notes, but
Mr. Dole gives us the readings from
the various Fitzgerald editions, and
many pages of comparative versions,
so that we may. see side by side the
French of Nicolas, the German of
Bodenstedt and Von Schack, the soft
metre of Fitzgerald and the beautiful
prose of McCarthy. But it makes a
and must therefore
plainly ©
Professor —
was not uncommonly
‘this idea seems now to exist to a cer-
book lover and collector almost weep
to read that Guaritch, who had 20)
of the 250 of Fitzgerald’s first edition,
which was printed in 1859, sold almost
all of them at one penny each, be-
cause he could not get anybody to pay
more. Nowadays a copy of: this first
edition brings a somewhat higher price.
In 1887 this same Guaritch (this same
house of Guaritch, I might better say)
sold a copy for four guineas, and in
1894. another copy brought six
guineas. I don’t suppose there are
any for sale, even‘at that price, today.
Of the lighter literature of the day
we have the usual variety at hand,
and among the best, so far as story
telling goes. is Conan Dayle’s latest
tale, ‘‘Rodney Stone,” (New York; D.
Appleton & Co.). Here we read of
those days when Beau Brummel and
the Prince of Wales went to prize
fights, when everybody was a “dead
game sport,’’ and when no driver ever
‘met another on the road that a race
did not follow. One of these road
races furnishes one of the most ex-
‘citing incidents of the book—the strug-
gle between the coach and the tan-
dem comes very near being thrilling.
—_—_—_—_+o—__—_—-
The Position of Wale in Chess. »
-In a recent interview published by
the Yale Daily News, Mr. E. A. Cas-
well, the honorary manager of the
Intercollegiate Chess tournament,
spoke of the game of chess and the
cause of Yale’s weakness in the recent
‘tournament as fo'lows:
“Tf there is any ‘game which denotes
true intellectual development and
careful mental training that game is
chess. This fact does not seem to be
generally recognized among college
students. A few years ago the game
| ridiculed and
tain extent at Yale. The importance
of athletics should be in no way under-
rated, but should. athletics be consid-
ered of so much more account than a
game which requires intellect alone?
A man is supposed to go to college
for the sake of mental development.
Chess is a most excellent test of this,
while football, rowing and _ other
sports, are not. If this fact were
more fully appreciated at Yale the
chess teams of the variouS years
would have been more successful. The
fact is the teams have no support
from the College as a whole. If a half
of the . enthusiasm and spirit with
which Yale supports her athletes were
extended toward the chess team the
elub would have more financial sup-
port. This would secure the services
of a competent coach for a longer
time than this year and would also
cause a larger number of men to com-
pete for a place in the team.”
In speaking of the tournament Mr.
Caswell said:
“Better chets was played in the
tournament this year than in the pre-
ceding contests and more general in-
terest was taken. Over a hundred
lickets were sold and many compli-
mentary tick=ts were issued. The
Yale team exhibited more experience
and training this year than the team
of last year.”
—_——~$~ > ___——-
Brawn and Brains.
[Kansas City Times.]
The attendance of 400 at the inter-
collegiate oratorical contest, compared
with the crowd of 8,000 at the foot-
ball game on Thanksgiving Day,
shows that however much we may re-
gret it, sports have a fascination for
the American people that is not shared
by intellectual contests.
There is one feature . of the case,
however, which is entirely overlooked
by most of those who comment upon
it. That is that college football
games show the very highest order of
sport, while college oratorical con-
tests do not furnish the highest order
of oratory. The youth is entering
upon, if not at, his prime physically.
The college debater, on the other
hand, is immature intellectually. In
fact, he is still about twenty-five years
from his intellectual prime. Since
college athletes, therefore, play foot-
ball better than college orators speak,
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it is nct strange that people crowd to
see boys play football and do not
crowd to hear boys speak.
There is of course more fascination
for Anglo-Saxon people in sports than
in intellectual pursuits. For one thing,
the former are more easily followed
by the audience and do more to en-
tertain it. But it would be absurd to
argue from this that the American
people value strength above intellect
or even above oratory. We have only
recently seen the eagerness with
which the people grapple with abstruse
questions, and hang upon the words
of those who employ their eloquence
in the effort to elucidate them.
—_—_—_ oe --
Chemical Club Organized. |
Shortly before the close of the last
term a meeting was held in Kent
Laboratory for the purpose of or-
aianizing a Chemical Club. There
were about twenty-five present,
among others, Professors Johnson,
Chittenden, Mixter, Gooch, Dr. Smith,
Dean of the Medical School, and Dr.
Wheeler of the Sheffiield Laboratory.
The object of the club is to bring to-
gether those in the University inter-_
ested in Chemistry and to broaden the
ideas of ihe members generally on the
subject.
17
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