among the learned ones, you ken. He has Lowell's grand old Manor-built in George's time, e'er our daddies chucked the tea o'erboard, and all about it is antique and precious-to us old folk. It stands near Longfellow's and you may know it. . . . I wish you knew Tom Aldrich-like Launt (poor Launt! he's in a deal of trouble-sick wife and compelled to go abroad)-he is good and full of gracea most charming, witty fellow too. I must give him that Sunday-the Monday shall be yours, and the rest of the week I must devote to rehearsals in New York at Booth's Theatre-of which I am no longer manager, as you are aware! J. B. has full swing there and I play the part of hardhearted landlord onlyand "star" occasionally. "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness." I have much to tell you, likewise, mon ami! much that will surprise and pain you-but I am made of Indian-rubber and the shock is nothing to what the rebound will be-when it comes. Tell your wife that Mrs. B. never heard the story of my little friend the Pole who called on me at St. Louis, until the other day; do you remember how she laughed at the poor little cuss? -Business here is really great-the best engt I ever played and I'm near 40 years old! Gittin' to be 'tractive in my old age-aint I? Mary joins me (of course) in all sorts of loving thoughts and prayers for you both, and if ever you "remember to be holy" think of him who is as ever EDWIN Yours BOOTH'S APPRECIATION OF SALVINI My dear John ... Cedarcliff, Cos Cob June 22, 1874 Thinking of Salvini put Doremus into my head; I saw him in Othello and Samson. Have you seen him? Much of his Othello was grand and very little of it to be censured-I thought; his Samson was as good a performance of such a talky part as could be, while his physique and "make up" (in the last act) was superb; in the previous acts his costume was correct, tho' ridiculous. Altogether, I was delighted with him. . . . Yours ever EDWIN It would be vain to attempt a description of things at 6th and 23dall is muddle and higgeldy-piggeldy. After a few weeks of clear weather a terrible storm sets in and stops work. My painters, costumers, carpenters, &c are up to their eyes in the "colors of their trade"-it would do your classic heart good to see my Greek garments, furniture and sich, but you'll see them all ablaze-I hope-some day, but not afire. Yours ever EDWIN BOOTH. RUSSELL NOT RUSHER September 3d [no year] My dear John RussellIf there be a body on earth I am always pleased to see it's yourself, my name darlin'. I have for some time past wished to have a chat with you and more than ever last night-indeed I was audibly wishing for it at the very moment I sent you away with 'damn' on your lip 'yestreen'. Why the devil, my dear boy, don't you send in your card? You know how often I am obliged to deny myself to strangers calling at all hours of the day and night. And you know too the peculiarity of the 'Hibernicans'-if it is possible to distort a or message they'll do't. Biddy last night told me Mr. Rusher was at the door; having lately had a dozen applications for the post of Usher-I supposed some one had sent a message to me on that very important business, as I often told her to make the callers (whom she did not know) state their names and business, &c. I sent back "No-see me at the office," and after a long and dreadful pause-I began speaking of your article on Clarke Davis -which I received that morning-presently my brother Joe suggested that my last visitor might have been "Russell" -I sent for Biddy, she described the 'feller' pretty accurately (said he was handsome) and that "shure, he said his name was Rusher!" Blast her! D-n her! Roast her! in steep-down gulfs of liquid, &c. I was mad as a hornet all the evening-for you were just the man I wanted most to see. This-I thinkis the 2d time that a mistake of this kind has occurred with you and it annoys me and I do hope, my dear boy, that you will not misjudge the case.. Yours E. BOOTH I-WHY GERMANY MUST BE MADE TO PAY' THE SADDEST PAPER OF THE COMMISSION OF REPARATIONS, PRESIDENT (C) Underwood PRESENT-DAY CAVE DWELLERS IN WHAT THF GERMANS LEFT OF THE MINING TOWN OF LENS A few days ago I was saying to him: "There is something tragic about those papers which you and your colleagues have examined. Not only do they contain figures, estimates, claims; 1 Copyright, 1921, U. S. Feature Service, Inc. they are a symbol of all the misery, all the cruelty, all the wickedness of the war. Is there not one among them which has moved and impressed you more than all the others?" "There is," replied Mr. Dubois; "certainly there is one." And he explained to me: "Houses destroyed, fields wrecked, farms burned down, cattle stolen, furniture taken away-all these are always sad, but not new. It is the history of all wars. It is as old as the world. But there was, however, one thing that had never been seen before; it was the systematic, scientific destruction of all that constitutes the life of a nation, without any military reason, but merely in order that that nation should suffer in its future generations. In this respect, the report which moved me most and which raised my indignation to the highest degree is that of a chief engineer setting forth the cold-blooded destruction of the mines of the north of France by the Germans. You are aware that this destruction was executed with such a subtle genius that even to-day, after eighteen months of peace and work, we are unable to extract more than five per cent of the tonnage which we extracted before the war. The Germans, who wished to deprive us of our coal for many long years to come, have thoroughly succeeded." And the President of the Commission of Reparations, taking up one of the reports lying on his table, handed it to me. I read the following lines, marked in blue pencil, which are indeed the most striking statement of the disaster caused to the French mines, and of the methods employed in accomplishing it: We must always insist on the deliberate and systematic character of the destruction of the mines in the north of which France will have to suffer the consequences for another ten years. The destructions caused by a battle, even the most violent one, are mere nothings as compared with the wreckage caused by the "execution of the most frightfully refined programme which men have ever conceived." One must, in order to be able to conceive the disaster, understand the importance of the tubbing which is the sole protection of the mine against inundation; especially to be feared in the mines of the north and of the Pas-de-Calais. In fact, the shafts cross a layer of aquiferous soils which have to be either frozen or cemented at the time of boring; then a watertight tubbing is constructed, either in wood, cast iron, or concrete, which prevents the waters from penetrating into the mine. But, in the event of the tubbing being destroyed, the aquiferous sheet invades the mine, a natural reservoir, which is then immediately inundated. It was enough for the Germans to blow up the tubbings at 25 to 30 meters below the surface in order to transform the mining exploitations into a kind of subterranean lake, from which to-day some thirty millions of kilometric tons of water have to be pumped. The destruction took place in each mine at the level of the principal mass of water contained in the tubbing, carefully ascertained by technicians. Not satisfied by thus making cer ous. 20 April tain the inundation of the galleries, the Germans cast all manner of materials into the shafts, among which they threw bombs, cases of dynamite, so as to render the salvage works more difficult and much more dangerFurthermore, all the surface installations of the mines were methodically dynamited, room after room, machine after machine, after having first been carefully pillaged. Some of the destructions were effected in October, 1918, after Hindenburg had issued the order to cease all destruction unwarranted by military operations! In all, 220 pits have been rendered utterly unfit for use. This report speaks for itself. It needs no comments. Still, it may be as well to add the two conclusions made by the expert engineers: 1. Eighteen more months will yet be needed for the pumping out of the water from the mines alone. 2. It will not be before 1930 that the mines of Lens will be able to recover their pre-war figures of extraction. And I understood, after having read the above paper, that M. Dubois, who does not often show any emotion, was overcome when he received this report. Let us say, and repeat it unceasingly: To prevent a return of such an abomination in any war whatsoever, and in any country whatever, the best, the only way, is to make those who committed the destructions pay for them. Nations are like individuals; when they are made to pay the breakages, it becomes really astonishing how careful they are not to break too much. II-AMERICA'S LATEST EXPORT: CULTURE BY VIOLA I. PARADISE A CORNER OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOYER AT CROUY, NEAR SOISSONS ery form of community life centers in this barrack; books and magazines, music and games, make the foyer attractive to young and old C ULTURE from America to France? It sounds incredible, yet it is true. Steel and machinery and cotton and tobacco and grain and precious metals-hundreds of material things we have exported since our early days; but now America has the proud privilege of making to the Old World, to which we owe so much, some repayment in the coin of culture. And the form which our contribution takes is the children's library, an original American product. Miss Annie Carroll Moore, Supervisor of Work with Children of the New York Public Library, lately sailed for France, representing the American Library Association. Miss Moore's mission is to stimulate co-operation with the libraries of other countries, and especially to visit the children's libraries which have been established by the American Committee for Devastated France. "I have always cherished the dream," said Miss Moore, "of seeing the children's library idea carried over into French education, though I did not think it would take a war to bring this about. The children's libraries in France grew naturally out of the relief work of the American Com mittee for Devastated France, and began with the circulation of a few books in villages that were stripped of books, as of everything else. In one village five books were passed from hand to hand." Now there are five libraries-at Anizy, at Vic-sur-Aisne, at Blerancourt, at Soissons, at Coucy. Besides a central reading-room, they maintain traveling library departments, sending collections of books to from fifteen to thirty villages within reach of each of the centers. The libraries in the centers are simple structures, "a sort of glorified portable house." Imagine, in war-torn France, where children have gone hungry for more than bread, where they lost four years of school, where fear and horror and bad dreams made up their mental lifeimagine with what eager joy they now seize upon the manna which these libraries present. They lose themselves in the fairy tales of Charles Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy, in the Jeanne d'Arc so quaintly and exquisitely illustrated by Boutet de Monvel, in Montogueil's "Buonaparte" and his "History of France," illustrated by Job. "There is nothing like these pictorial histories for children in any other country," said Miss Moore, "and perhaps in no other country is there such a response to history as in France." American and English books, too-in translation, of course-intrigue the French children. Cooper and Stevenson and Louisa M. Alcott; "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Alice in Wonderland" and the "Just So Stories" the last as fascinating under its French title, "Tistoires Comme Ça," as in English-are read hungrily. As they read these books and listen with shining eyes during the story-telling hour they can forget their terrible years, and begin to store up a treasure of new and happy memories and a new eagerness for books. Their parents, too, are drawn in by the children's interest. One day a middle-aged woman came into a baraque and began looking about the shelves. When the librarian offered assistance, the woman was at first reluctant to tell what she was seeking; but she finally said that a neighbor's child had shown her old mother some pictures in a book, and that these had recalled to the old woman a story she had known n her long-distant childhood. She could not read, but she wished to see the pictures again. The librarian quickly identified the story as "Hop o' My Thumb." Thus, through a neighbor's child, the old peasant woman became a frequenter of the library. Her wrinkled face bending over a picture book, she could live again in imagination her far-distant childhood, and could live in a new present, pushing aside for the time being the memories of four years of horror. "Of course," said Miss Moore, "libraries were not unknown in French villages even before the work of the American Committee for Devastated France. But the work for children is entirely new, and even the work for adults has undergone a transformation. Formerly books were chosen entirely from cata FORGETTING THE SADNESS OF WAR AND INVASION IN THE COLOR AND ROMANCE OF THE PAST logues; and the library, as a place where even grown people could sit down and look over a number of books, exercising their judgment and making their choice freely, was unknown before the coming of American-trained librarians. The spirit of our libraries, which we now take so easily for granted, is to European visitors to this country always a matter for remark. An American can scarcely imagine the innovation it is for French village children to come together, talking over books, meeting with a common interest, in the attractive baraques of the Committee, for in France the family is the pivot about which life revolves, and children do not play together as do our children. But, though children's libraries would be a stimulating contribution to French life at any time, imagine their importance now, when the morale of the villages has been broken by the loss of so large a percentage of A DEADLY PARALLEL Even Kipling might envy the imaginative vigor of the narrative passage with which Robert A. Curry concludes his article in next week's issue of The Outlook. In it he describes England's airplane defense of the Suez Canal, where five hundred airplanes are available within an hour's notice to rush to any threatened point within a reasonable radius. The undefended condition of the Panama Canal as to the air is earnestly set forth. A deadly parallel is drawn by Mr. Curry, who was formerly an instructor in Egypt with the Royal Air Force. the adult male population, when chidren must literally be taught anew to play and to laugh, and in that sense to live again. Some of the villages to which books are being sent from the centers are ash-heaps where families have had to tunnel through the débris to find some semblance of a home, where they live like cliff dwellers. Small wonder that children line up outside the door, waiting for the bibliothèque to open; that on Sundays, after church service, the whole family goes over to the library; that a strong social feeling for the library has developed. Small wonder that the school-teachers, the curés, the public officials, give their enthusiastic support. "France," continued Miss Moore, "has a strong claim to children's libraries, for in no other country have such beautiful books for children been published. The librarians comment again and again on the æsthetic enjoyment of the French children in the beauty of the books, on the enthusiasm which they bring to the illustrations as well as the text. It is as if art were their inheritance, and 'to our American librarians is given the privilege of making their birthright accessible to French children. The aim of the Committee, however, is not to remain indefinitely on French soil, but gradually to turn the work over to the French, to train French librarians." As Miss Moore talked of the work of the children's libraries in France, as she told of other countries to which we have exported this American idea (notably Norway and Sweden), the writer thought of many lonely stretches in our American land, many isolated remote byways, where libraries are unknown. Perhaps, though we may now be justly proud of exporting culture to France, we may in time see our way to import back the very same manifestation of culture for more of our own American rural areas. COSTA RICA OF TO-DAY-MEXICO OF YESTERDAY This picture shows a military formation of staff officers in front of a Costa Rican shoe store, which ORNAMENTAL FOUNTAIN OF OLD MEXICAN VIADUCT BUILT BY CORTEZ K GROWTH OF THE SOIL1 NUT HAMSUN received the Nobel Prize for Literature, not specifically for "Growth of the Soil," but for the culmination in this his masterpiece of a long record of painstaking, conscientious devotion to the art of writ ing. His sketches, plays, and novels, if one may judge from the comments of critics, did not try to be popular; they paid little attention to construction or unity or story interest. They were like the half-finished drawings of heads made by a painter who is gathering material and ideas for the picture by which he hopes to be remembered. Of one of the early stories Mr. Worster, who furnishes for this work a welcome account of Hamsun's life and activity, says: "It is interspersed with irrelevant fancies, visions, and imaginings, a chain of tied notes heard as an undertone through the action on the surface." But there is no uncertainty or lack of definiteness about "Growth of the Soil." It goes on its destined course, strong, clear, and single as a shining stream. It stands the test of dealing with material, things such as the earth, the trees, animals, crops-with solid realism and yet of infusing the picture with the light of imagination. So, too, with the peasants of the distant part of Norway depicted; they grow out of the soil almost as truly as do the trees; they are certainly ignorant and in a sense dull, yet each is a distinct creation; Achilles and Thersites in the Iliad are not more unlike than, for instance, Hamsun's Isak, the primal man of the new grown community (silent, strong, unconquerable by the forces of nature), and the old woman Oline (shifty, dishonest, cringing, revengeful). It is a feat for an author to hold American readers intent and absorbed in the simple doings of these few country people in a lonely, distant Norwegian hillside. This Hamsun assuredly does. He succeeds because he shows us these men, women, and children, he does not merely talk about them; he makes word-paintings of nature instead of raving about its beauty; and in place of theorizing about motive and temperament he tells of deeds and lets the reader infer causes through character. man," the figure of a man in a great In time comes a goat, then.a hut, then Wide World Photos KNUT HAMSUN late that night talking about Cow." And Greater and greater became Isak's ambition. He worked as the Trojans fought; house and outbuildings, tools and machinery, cattle, roads for his own use there was nothing he did not dare attempt. Neighbors appeared, and with them the evils and sins as well as the friendliness of community life. Against the stalwart, persistent Isak are contrasted weaklings and clever people of no set purpose-Geissler the Lensmand (assistant Government superintendent) is a gem of portrayal art. Crime and lust come too-the people of such a community are apt to be coarse as well as primitive-and there are bits of faithful description that are a little startling and a pitiful intimation that infanticide is too common a curse in such northern solitary communities. As all this growth, good and bad, First comes Isak, a "barge of a evolves from soil and life becomes more It is not exact to call this remarkable novel an epic of the land, yet one feels that it has a heroic tone; if it had inclined toward symbolism (which, thanks be, it doesn't), the two protagonists of the combat would be man and the soilIsak and his farmland. So splendidly does the land yield its abundance to the straining vigor of its conqueror that we find almost a dramatic interest in the growth of human society out of and from the soil. art of the thing; and its apparent unconsciousness yet thoroughly planned purpose would make the book a prize-winner in the literary realm if Nobel had never instituted a prize-winning system. But always the reader's imagination turns back to Isak-a strong man in a wilderness. We copy a pen-picture of man and place at their prime: A desert, a dying place? Far from it, all about was swarming with life; two new men, four new hands to work, fields and meadows and homes. Oh, the little green tracts in a forest, a hut and water, children and cattle about. Corn waving on the moorlands where naught but horsetail grew before, bluebells nodding on the fells, and yellow sunlight blazing in the ladyslipper flowers outside a house. And human beings living there, move and talk and think and are there with heaven and earth. Here stands the first of them all, the first man in the wilds. He came that way, knee-deep in marsh-growth and heather, found a sunny slope and settled there. Others came after him, they trod a path across the waste Almenning; others again, and the path became a road; carts drove there now. Isak may be content, may start with a little thrill of pride; he was the founder of a district, the pioneer. Not alone Norwegian literature but world literature will recognize the fresh and clear note of imagination in this drama of man and nature. R. D. TOWNSEND. THE NEW BOOKS FICTION AND DRAMA BRIMMING CUP (THE). By Dorothy Canfield. As between husband and wife should each lead a life of individual freedom of mind and action? Yes, said the two whose marriage begins the novel, but also they should frankly face together whatever situation should arise and honorably discuss it. So when the brilliant and fascinating advocate of modernism and art and romance and poetry comes along he really cannot prevail with such a wife and mother as against the solid, unscintillating husband. And the book ends with the mother's answer to a child's question: "No; I really don't think that father and I are afraid of anything." A book of sound social philosophy and of charming family life. FEAST OF LANTERNS (THE). By Louise J. Miln. The F. A. Stokes Company, New York. The author's knowledge of the life and culture of Chinese aristocrats makes this novel worth reading for its descriptive side alone. There is tragedy in the position of the Chinese girl of noble lineage, highly educated in England, and possessed of both Eastern and Western culture, who loves and is loved by an Englishman of equally high type. She knows that their marriage would bring social contempt on him in Eng |