IV.
A THRENODY ON GARFIELD.
BY MRS. ELLEN KEY BLUNT.
How beautiful it was to die as he has died,
Taking a calm around him by the force
Of his great soul, commanding peace from strife,
And changing all the discord into rest,—
A heavenly music heard as life departs!
How wonderful it was that the accursed hate
Which smote him brought forth only loyal love;
Like to some holy bell that being struck
Resounds with wondrous sweetness, sounding on
Through all the spaces to eternity.
How noble was his dauntless fortitude
Which, as he lay expiring, day by day,
Made him almost control his destiny
And look upon his torture with a smile.
As his life wasted, in great patience, wonderingly
His watchers watched him. They were not alone
Of his own people, but his watchers were the world,
From far-off shores and seas with pitiful
Sad yearnings towards him as his star went down.
Nine times ten million souls in his own tongue
Prayed to the Almighty for his single life;
But he had risen too near to heaven in his great flight
To stoop again to earth, and so God took him,
Like a star folded in more perfect light.
And he is dead, and multitudes have come
To his dead presence, and, with solemn care,
Moving in silence to the measured strain
He loved, in mournful sweet monotony
Repeated as they bore him step by step
Through harvest-fields of ripening trodden grain,
They laid him reverently, gently down
Where all the sheaves of earth are garnered at the last.
Upon his pulseless form are richly piled
Wreaths, garlands, of the late yet lavish bloom
Of the perfected summer, with the exquisite thrill
Of life so fresh upon their shining leaves
Banners are furled around him, and the flag
We love droops mourning o'er the mourning land.
And from afar beyond our land and lakes,
From the great world that watched him wonderingly
Come kind farewells and tender sympathies.
Pity has told her tale in every tongue
And kings have claimed him comrade, hand in hand.
Fame has recorded him,
Love has rewarded him,
Mother, wife, children and people wept over him.
England accounted him
Kindred by blood.
All that are great and good
Have as his mourners stood
While he lay, day by day, passing away.
A Queen sends comforting words of cheer,
And flowers to fade on his bloody bier.
God save the Queen when her last hour is near!
The North was his by birth,
The South is his by death!
He conquered by suffering grandly borne
Our long-cherished strifes; they are gone, and now
Standing together we look on his pale dead face,
To whom we had given, the elected, a power more great
Than any king's. Together we revere
The majesty with which he laid it down
At God's command. Together we shall love
His memory, and each other for his sake,
And for the heart so high that it "could hate no man."
God rest him! He has rested him!
Nothing can "hurt" him more,
"Nothing can touch him further."
More than a king he lies
With the strong blaze of the world's homage
Full on his closed eyes.
American, born in the forest,
The great lake for him sighs,
And England, crowned and sceptered,
Loves him as he dies.
He fought in the deathly valley
From morn till the set of sun,
Till eighty days had run.
Then he folded his arms
And his day was done.
Oh, the bloom is off of the prairie,
The butterfly's change is begun,
The pine cone flowers eternal,
The eagle has soared to the sun!
Judge Burnham's Daughters. By "Pansy."
(Mrs G. R. Alden), Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.50. The multitude of readers of Mrs. Alden's stories will remember Ruth Erskine's Crosses, and will be glad to meet its principal character once more in her new character of wife and mother, ripened by experience and strengthened by trial. Her marriage will be remembered, and the radiant prospects of the future which attended it. Her husband was kindness itself, but he cared little for religious matters, and could not sympathize with what seemed to him the very ridiculous and puritanical ideas of his wife regarding many things. Still he always gave way to her. The great trouble of her new life, however, was the disposition evinced by her two step-daughters to resist her authority and cause her pain by their recklessness and disobedience. Her husband, Judge Burnham, was wealthy, and occupied a high social position. He was exceedingly proud of his family and sensitive as to his reputation. He was strongly opposed to Ruth's being actively connected with religious or temperance movements, and this fact sometimes brought them dangerously near serious misunderstanding. The pressure was constant, and made many unhappy hours for her, especially when questions of right and propriety arose between her and her step-daughters and an appeal was made to the father. Suddenly a blow fell upon the house. The younger daughter fled from home to marry a gambler and forger, and was disowned by her father and forbidden the house. A few months later the other daughter fell a victim to quick consumption, but in her later days turned to the mother whom she had disliked and disobeyed, and finally died in her arms. The story with its later incidents is a sad one, but its darkness is lighted by the surprise which awaits the reader at the close. It is written in Mrs. Alden's usual fascinating style and like all her books, is transfixed with a purpose.
Old Concord: Her Highways and Byways. Ill. By Margaret Sidney. Boston, D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. Of all the books of the year there is not one which carries within it such an aroma of peculiar delight as this series of sketches and descriptions of the highways and byways of that most picturesque of towns, Old Concord. Concord is like no other place in New England. There may be other places as beautiful in their way, there are others, perhaps, of more importance in the Commonwealth and we know there are hundreds of places where there is more active life to the square foot, but with all these admissions Concord still remains a place of special charm, the result and consequence of more causes than we care to analyze. Its picturesqueness and a certain quaintness of the village has always been noticed by visitors, no matter from what part of the globe they may have come. Added to this is the flavor of Revolutionary history, and the atmosphere created by the daily lives and presence for years of three or four of the giants in American literature. Here lived Hawthorne and Emerson, and Thoreau, and the Alcotts, father and daughter, and the work that they did here has made it a literary Mecca for all time.
These sketches have all the accuracy of photographs, together with that charm of color and life which a photograph never possesses. The author is a resident of Concord, and a dweller in one of its historic mansions, and is thoroughly acquainted with every nook and corner of the town as well as with every legend which belongs to them. The task which she assumes of guiding readers to the places made famous by pen and sword is a labor of love. She tells us how the pilgrimage should be undertaken, and what should be seen. We visit with her the ancient landmarks which belong to past generations, and the more modern ones which have even more interest to the multitude.
The Story of Ohio. By Alexander Black. Being the second volume of the new series, the "Story of the States," edited by Elbridge S. Brooks. One volume, 8vo, fully illustrated. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.50
The fact that Ohio has just passed her hundredth birthday, and that she will throughout the year be engaged in various interesting forms of civic celebration, renders singularly opportune the appearance of this compact and picturesque narrative in which the reader will find a complete picture of Buckeye progress, a picture etched rather than painted, for the book is not of formidable length, and the author has been compelled to adopt a crisp and nimble style to tell his story in due space. The term "story" is an elastic, and perhaps not always an accurately descriptive one. In this instance the author has given it a simple and effective definition by making it stand for a direct, natural and often dramatic account of Ohio's romantic origin and extraordinary development. While a preference for the picturesque phases of the story is shown even in the treatment of the most practical elements of State character, there is an obvious selection of those pictorial traits which have in themselves a special significance, and which, taken in the group, present the essential characteristics of the commonwealth. Indeed the narrative affords an excellent opportunity for discovering the immense individuality of Ohio in the great family of States. The great diversity of character among the States, diversities engendered by geographical as well as by ancestral conditions, is, perhaps not very generally recognized. The promising series of which this volume forms the second issue cannot fail, if each author continues to work with care and sincerity, to broaden our knowledge of all the elements that go to form our character as a nation, and to deepen that sense of fraternal sympathy, the cultivation of which has become a point of national pride.
Some Successful Women. By Sarah K. Bolton. With Portraits. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton is the author of several interesting books which have given her a wide reputation and this new volume from her pen will be warmly welcomed. It consists of twelve brief biographies of American women who have in various walks and professions earned success so marked as to make their names familiar to every household in the country, and who have done much to inspire others of their sex to follow in their footsteps. Among them are Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), Mrs. G. R. Allen (Pansy), Clara Barton, the philanthropist, Alice Freeman, the former president of Wellesley College, Rachel Bodley, dean of the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, Frances E. Willard, whose labors in behalf of temperance have given her a place among the foremost of American women. Mrs. Candace Wheeler and her daughter Dora who have done so much to develop the love for decorative art in this country and to create opportunities for its practical application, with others who have gained equally distinguished places in other departments of art, literature and industry. The portraits add greatly to the interest of the sketches.
The Lost Earl. By J. T. Trowbridge. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $2.00. This volume will be warmly welcomed by the admirers of Mr. Trowbridge—and they are legion. Although Mr. Trowbridge is better known as a successful novelist and writer of juvenile stories he is one of the truest of our American poets and it is to be regretted that he has not oftener turned his attention to verse. His themes, though not ambitious, are always high and his poems are marked by feeling, naturalness and exquisite finish. The Lost Earl has never before been printed in book form. It is the story of the revolt of a strong soul against conventional society life and the casting aside of rank for social freedom.
The Secrets at Roseladies. By Mary Hartwell Catherwood. Boston, D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.00. This charming story of the life on the Wabash, which originally appeared as a serial in Wide Awake, will be read by boys and girls with equal pleasure, for the action of the story is pretty well divided between the two. The boys will be immensely entertained with the adventures of the four young treasure-seekers, particularly with that which ends in their capture by the crazy half-breed Shawnee, who proposes to cut off their thumbs to bury in the excavation they have made in the burial mound. The girls' secret, which is of a very different character, is just as amusing in its way. Mrs. Catherwood has a wonderful fund of humor, and a talent for description which many a better known author might envy. The character of old Mr. Roseladies is capitally drawn, and the account of his journey to the depot after Aunt Jane's trunk is really mirth provoking. Cousin Sarah and "Sister" and little Nonie are all charming and the reader will close the book with regret that there is not more of it.
Brownies and Bogles. By Louise Imogen Guiney. Ill. Boston, D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.00. This little volume might be fitly styled a fairy handbook, as in it the author describes every kind of the "little people" that is found in traditions or literature in all the countries of the world. There are the brownies and waterkelpies of Scotland, the troll and necken of Sweden, the German kobalds, the English fairies, pixies and elves, the Norwegian and Danish dwarfs and bjorgfalls, the Irish leprechauns, and a score of others, some of whom are mischievous, some malicious, some house-helpers, and some who are always waiting to do a good turn to those they like. The author mingles her descriptions with anecdotes illustrative of the different qualities and dispositions of the various fairy folk described.
Story of the American Sailor. By E. S. Brooks. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $2.50. Although several volumes have been written descriptive of the rise and development of the American navy, this is the first and only work of which we have knowledge that takes wide ground, and deals with the American sailor. In its preparation Mr. Brooks has not been actuated by a desire to merely make a readable book for boys, he has given it the attention which the subject demands as a part of the history of the country.
It would be a difficult matter to get at the first American sailor, or to even guess when he existed but that our continent was once well populated, and that its prehistoric inhabitants sailed the lakes and seas as well as trod the land, is a matter of certainty. Later when America became known to Europeans, the new comers found Indians well provided with excellent canoes, built of bark or fashioned from logs, but they were "near shore" sailors. The author quotes one instance where a deep sea voyage was undertaken by them in the early days of the English settlers. Certain Carolina Indians he says, wearied of the white man's sinful ways in trade, thought themselves able to deal direct with the consumers across the "Big Sea Water." So they built several large canoes and loading these with furs and tobacco paddled straight out to sea bound for England. But their ignorance of navigation speedily got the best of their valor. They were never heard of more.
The early white navigators of our waters can hardly be considered American sailors. The new found continent was to them of value only for what could be brought away from them in treasure or in merchantable produce, and it was only when an actual and permanent colonization began that a race of native-born sailors was developed on the Atlantic coasts.
Ned Harwood's Visit To Jerusalem. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. This is a story, instructively told of a young boy who made a visit to Jerusalem, and other places in the Holy Land, and saw many of the places made interesting in the Biblical narrative. The author's personal knowledge of the localities visited enables her to give vivid and accurate descriptions of them. The book is very handsomely bound in colored cover from original designs.
Longfellow Remembrance Book. By Samuel Longfellow. Introduction by E. S. Brooks. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. It needs no special memorial to perpetuate the memory of Longfellow and yet this little volume has an interest and a mission which are sufficient reasons for its existence. Its narrative testifies to the love and admiration which the whole English-speaking people felt for that sweetest of poets and most admirable of men, and it touches upon those qualities which, apart from his song, endeared him to every one that knew him. "Old and young," says Mr. Brooks in his brief introduction, "rich and poor, found in him inspiration, counsel, sympathy and help, and his words touched more closely the great, beating human heart than did those of even greater and diviner poets." With the exception of the introduction, Whittier's poem called out by the death of Longfellow,—"The Poet and the Children"—"An International Episode" and Miss Guiney's "Longfellow in Westminster Abbey"—the contents of the book are from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Longfellow. In loving detail he writes of the childhood and boyhood of his brother, his later years, his love for children and of his life at his charming home at Cambridge. A closing chapter from another hand describes the unveiling of the poet's bust in Westminster Abbey, March 1, 1884. The volume is beautifully illustrated.
A Strange Company. By Charles Frederick Holder. Illustrated. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.25. No American naturalist of late years has written more comprehensively or entertainingly than Dr. Holder. The books and magazine articles from his pen would make a small library and an exceedingly valuable one. For seven years he was assistant in the American Museum of Natural History in New York and later was connected with the New York Aquarium, in whose interests he made extensive journeys for rare specimens. In the present volume, which is prepared for young readers, he describes some of the more remarkable specimens of animal life and their peculiarities. Many of the facts he cites will be new to older readers such, for instance, as that of fishes climbing trees and traveling considerable distances overland from water to water, of birds that fly under water the same as in the air, of four footed animals with bills and of birds with teeth. In a chapter devoted to the speech of animals we are told how some of the noises made by insects are produced undoubtedly for purposes of communication and how birds, fishes and animals convey intelligence one to another. In another chapter the sports and games of animals are dealt with. The author says, "I doubt if an animal can be found which does not in some way or at some time show a desire for what we term amusement. The Malayan sun bear is remarkable for its fun loving natur. The common black bear is almost equally playful and in some of its rough and tumble games in a tree top are some of the most interesting performances I have ever witnessed. Even crabs have a sense of humor and go through certain performance, presumably games. In Australia there are birds that build playhouses, aside from their nests, in the form of an arbor sometimes two or three feet long, which they decorate with bright objects."
A Young Prince of Commerce. By Selden R. Hopkins. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.25. We do not know of a better book to put into the hands of boys for the purpose of teaching them the fundamental principles of business than this little volume, which Mr. Hopkins has so ingeniously prepared. Most boys grow into young men without the slightest knowledge of business matters excepting mere buying and selling. The very things that should have been taught them in school at the same time with grammar and geography they know nothing about, and while their heads may be stocked with the rules of syntax and the names and boundaries of all the countries in the world, they may be helpless as babies in the transaction of any business that requires the use of forms or legal methods. It is one of the senseless peculiarities of our school system that it excludes certain subjects of study that are absolutely necessary and gives place to others that are practically useless. It is on that account that we strongly commend this little work as a supplementary reader in schools. In its pages Mr. Hopkins tells an interesting story and sandwiches in between its incidents just the information to which we have reference. The boy who reads it has obtained, when he has finished it, a clear understanding of the principles of trade. He knows the character of mortgages, notes, drafts, stocks and bonds, the theory of banking, discount, exchange and collateral, he learns all about the mysteries of Wall Street and how the brokerage business is conducted; in fine, he gets an excellent understanding of the way business is carried on in general. All this knowledge comes in incidentally, and in connection with the story. The book is very handsomely printed and bound.
Mary the Mother. Compiled by Rose Porter. Ill. Boston. D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. The purpose of this beautiful volume is to give an outline story of Mary the Mother Maid, as told in the Holy Book, and by historical and legendary art, and in poetry. The theme, says the compiler in her preface, "though it lies within prescribed limits, is wide enough to embrace a broad field of thought, for it deals with all the most beautiful and precious productions of human genius and human skill as manifested by art which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have bequeathed to us, and in them we can trace, present in shape before us, or suggested through inevitable associations, one prevailing idea. It is that of an impersonation in the feminine character of beneficence, purity and power, clothed in the visible form of Mary, the Mother of our Lord."
The story is told in the purest devotional spirit. The curious legends which have been handed down or created by the religious writers of the Middle Ages are put into consecutive order, and illustrated by reproductions of pictures by the old masters, and of those by two or three modern painters. Deger's famous picture of "The Annunciation" serves as the frontispiece. Then follows in order Ittenbach's "St. Mary the Virgin," Titian's "Presentation," the "Annunciation," by Murillo, "The Salutation," by Albertinelli, "St. John and the Virgin," by Dobson; "The Assumption," by Titian, "Mater Dolorosa," by Guido Reni, "Mater Dolorosa," by Carlo Dolce, and "The Madonna Addolorata," by Sassaferrato. These are exquisitely reproduced, and are printed, as well as the text, on heavy, hot-pressed paper. The volume is bound in cloth, with a cover of special design.
The Art of Living. From the Writings of Samuel Smiles. With Introduction by the venerable Dr. Peabody of Harvard University and Biographical Sketch by the editor Carrie Adelaide Cooke. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. Price $1.00.
Samuel Smiles is the Benjamin Franklin of England. His sayings have a similar terseness, aptness and force, they are directed to practical ends, like Franklin's, they have the advantage of being nearer our time and therefore more directly related to subjects upon which practical wisdom is of practical use.
Success in life is his subject all through The Art of Living, and he confesses on the very first page that "happiness consists in the enjoyment of little pleasures scattered along the common path of life, which in the eager search for some great and exciting joy we are apt to overlook. It finds delight in the performance of common duties faithfully and honorably fulfilled."
Let the reader go back to that quotation again and consider how contrary it is to the spirit that underlies the businesses that are nowadays tempting men to sudden fortune, torturing with disappointments nearly all who yield, and burdening the successful beyond their endurance, shortening lives and making them weary and most of them empty.
Is it worth while to join the mad rush for the lottery, or to take the old road to slow success?
This book of the chosen thoughts of a rare philosopher leads to contentment as well as wisdom, for, when we choose the less brilliant course because we are sure it is the best one, we have the most complete and lasting repose from anxiety.
Tilting at Windmills. A Story of the Blue Grass Country. By Emma M. Connelly. Boston. D. Lothrop Company. 12mo, $1.50.
Not since the days of "A Fool's Errand" has so strong and so characteristic a "border novel" been brought to the attention of the public as is now presented by Miss Connelly in this book which she so aptly terms "Tilting at Windmills". Indeed, it is questionable whether Judge Tourgee's famous book touched so deftly and yet so practically the real phases of the reconstruction period and the interminable antagonisms of race and section.
The self sufficient Boston man, a capital fellow at heart, but tinged with the traditions and environments of his Puritan ancestry and conditions, coming into his strange heritage in Kentucky at the close of the civil war, seeks to change by instant manipulation all the equally strong and deep-rooted traditions and environments of Blue Grass society.
His ruthless conscience will allow of no compromise, and the people whom he seeks to proselyte alike misunderstand his motives and spurn his proffered assistance.
Presumed errors are materialized and partial evils are magnified. Allerton tilts at windmills and with the customary Quixotic results. He is, seemingly, unhorsed in every encounter.
Miss Connelly's work in this, her first novel, will make readers anxious to hear from her again and it will certainly create, both in her own and other States, a strong desire to see her next forthcoming work announced by the same publishers in one of their new series—her "Story of the State of Kentucky."