The San Francisco call. [volume], December 06, 1903, Image 7

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
«*V«i HAT heartfelt prayers of re
ijrj^joicins are daily offered . up
' on the high - altar of song
¦wh'en we are told that the : days of
ragtime, coon songs are numbered. For
so ¦ many ' wearisome • seasons now have
doggerels about "Ma Pinky Baby" and
"Ma . Squash-nosed Sal" been '•' roared
from the vaudeville stage. and bellowed
Some Genuine
Darky Poetry
Stories, the tale will bear reading any
day in the year. It Is a simple little
story that makes the reader feel better
for having come across it. When an
author Is able to make the reader, of
many books keep in his mind for many
days the nebulous image of a wide
eyed little darky with ideals then that
author has not written In vain. This
has Ruth McEnery Stuart done.
George Washington Jones is little,
orphaned and irredeemably black. His
head is full of the grand tales'told him
by his grandfather of how that worthy
was one time sent to a beautiful "fairy,
lady" as a Christmas gift long before
the war. To the bright little head of
George Washington there comes, there
fore, the brilliant idea of making a
Christmas present of himself to some
equally lovely mistress and thereby fol
low in the path of* his honored grand r
parent. But when the 'little nigger
starts out to make of himself a "Christ
mas gif," ho finds that. In these de
generate days of ours little colored
kids offering to give themselves away
are considered beggars.
How the little fellow suffered one re
buff after another until he was glad to
nestle to the bosom of a kind old child
less mammy Is told with words which
leave but ! a narrow frontier between
tears and laughter. Then of George
Washington's final triumph and of his
service in the home of the old lady who
was once the charge of that very idyl
lic grandfather the details are re-'
counted. It Is a triumph for the reader
as well as • for George Washington
Jones, for the reader feels as if .the lit
tle kinky. pate Is next of kin before he
finishes with him.
(Henry Altemus Company • Philadel
phia; illustrated; price $1.)
(Dodd, Mead & Co., New York; dec-
Not the least . of the poetry . In '¦, the
negro ' songs lies In the delicate nature
thoughts. • The plantation darky, liv
ing "next to the ground" day in and
day out, is ever ready to catch the glint
of the leaves and the shine of the grass.
Here again . it needs no ponderous
Wordsworthian stanza to clothe the
thought "Writes Dunbar:
"Wilier boughs a-bendin',
• , Hidln' of de'sky, ;>
Wavin'; kin' oV frien'ly
. Ez de win* go by,
Ehrav trees a-shlnin*.
Dahk an' green ah thick;
Seems to say, 'I .see yo*
Wadin* in de crick.' "
An 1 my only t'ought Is dls,
Dat I's honin' fu' de bliss >
Fu' to quit dls groun* o' worriment an*
(3pS3»trife."it<iPJSg£&
out over the . Jangling keys of our
neighbor's piano that Job's bodily [dis
comforts haven't been a marker to th«
mental anguish that has been the lot
of all, right-minded individuals. .'Al
most drowned out -by this- persistent
howling of musical bosh, yet sounding
with ; a pure, sweet note ; to ., those with
ears ; r attuned, have been the genuine
darky melodies of the darky poet,
Paul Lawrence Dunbar. ; Now we have
another collection of his poems, pub
lished in an attractive holiday form,
under the title of "When Malindy
Sings."
Those of us who have had the rare
good fortune to have lived down in the
South, where the darky is still a
darky and not a "culiud gemmun,"
speak of the real music that there is in
the hearts of the typical south of Dixie
negroes. Their song Is - spontaneous,
bubbling; their rhymes have often the
ring of true poesy. To catch this ster
ling worth and give It to American
literature at its real value is the work
of- Paul -Lawrence Dunbar. Right well
has he accomplished his task; but let
us all hope that there remain yet a
great many more songs for the young
negro poet to sing.
In the present volume there, are
bits of verse ranging In senti
ment from rollicking banjo songs to
pathetic reflectlbna upon the loss of
dear ones. The darky's feelings lie
very, near the surface and Dunbar has
deftly caught the strange blend of sun
shine and shadow which Is the charac
teristic of his race. So few , and so
simple are. the words necessary to ex
press the deepest thoughts. .Witness
the following, stanza from a little poem
entitled "The Memory of Martha."
"Down by. de road de shadders grows,
;-.' An* oh, but hit's moughty lonely;
Seem lak de ve'y , moonlight knows.
An' oh, but hit's moughty lonely!
Does you know I's cryin* fu' you, oh,
my wife?
Does you know dey ain't ho Joy no mo*
in life?
TWO valuable textbooks for stud
•nts of German and Spanish have
lust been published by the Ameri
can Book Company. They are "Mon
santo and Languelller's Practical
Course In Spanish." edited by Freeman
M. Josselyn. and "Grimm's Kinder
und Hausmarchen," edited by B. J. Vos.
For many years Monsanto and Lan
guelller's has been one of the most suc
cessful Spanish grammars before the
public It aims to make the basic prin
ciples of Spanish grammar familiar to
the student by constant practice and
repetition in Spanish, and to this end
the Spanish examples are made as nu
merous as possible. The advance in
linguistics, and the new rules of accen
tuation promulgated by the Spanish
Academy, have made a revision of the
book necessary. The original form oj
the work has been retained so far as
possible, but such grammatical state
ments as needed change have been re
cast. The Spanish text Is presented In
accordance with the latest rules for
orthography and accent.
The German tales need no introduc
tion. There are no others which from
the day th'ey were published to the
present time have so steadily retained
their hold on childhood. Their Interest
and their simplicity render them par
ticularly suitable for elementary read-
Ing.
reading— Joel Chandler Harris,
of course; Thomas Nelson Page, and
Ruth McEnery Stuart. When any; of
these three give us. a story of "culiud
folks" it should be ' treasured, for time
and circumstance are rapidly narrow
ing the sources of the good old planta
tion stories and the time, will soon, be
whan that type of our lighter literature
shall be no more. By. this token, there
fore, let Mrs. ' Stuart's latest story,
"George Washington Jones," be given a
handy place on the library table.
Though a story of "a Christmas gift
that went a-begging." Mrs. Stuart's
little tale need not be -read before the
Christmas gas grate- (there are no more
yule logs). Like Dickens* Christmas
THERE are only three people who
can write darky stories worth the
A Holiday Tale
Worth Reading
This tale, according to the sub-title,
is "a romance of Indiana in the thir
ties." Rita Bays, . the heroine, who Is
"as sweet as the wild rose and as gentle
as the soft spring sun" (now where
have we heard that phrase before?) is
disclosed, suffering from the brow
beatings of a dyspeptic mother. She
lives In a cabin and is beautiful e'en
Given ten or a dozen lay figures
taken from any dry goods emporium;
fit to these the typical and time worn
characteristics* of the dashing hero, the
lovesick heroine who has an obdurate
parent— male or female; the crafty vil
lain with the rocks and the self-sacri
ficing friend who loves only too vainly,
and Mr. Major is ready to begin. Set
ting Is of no great consequence — a
baronial manor or a log cabin can be
conjured into the piece with equal
dexterity. The historical atmosphere
need only be some other time than the
present. Now, with everything read}',
the story starts out and with a slow
and graceful movement unwinds Itself
to the length required of the modern
novel and then with a faint rattling of
the cogs and wheels comes to a digni
fied end- Built to order is "A Forest
Hearth"; Mr. Major alone knows who
ordered It.
A Good Author
Going
/KNOW a little old maiden lady
who welcomes • a new story by
Charles Major as she would a val
entine from an eighteen-year-old boy.
She has seen fifty summers and away
back in the twentieth she had her only
little love affair. In her second
maidenhood she lives in a hallowed
memory of this love affair of thirty
years gone by. Her faded cheeks will
glow a trifle when she grows reminis
cent and she will simper a coy little
simper when the tender passion is men
tioned. Next to discovering a ¦ new
breakfast food or hearing of some
happy Instance of two bleeding hearts,
this little old maiden lady would rather
read Charles Major's books than any
thing else in the whole world. "They
are Just so lovely."
So it will be a red-letter day for the
little maiden lady when "A Forest
Hearth" is put into her hands by some
ill-advised but well meaning friend.
For If ever there waB a love tale pre
pared especially for single and senti
mental ladies of many summers, this
is that one. To invalids taking the
rest cure who must be shielded from
excitement it must surely prove a gen
tle sedative. The growing girl of the
household will be happy to have it read
to her by the impressionable house
maid.
(The Macmillan Company, New York;
Illustrated; price $1 50.)
Well,' that precocious phrase gives
the ;whole thing away; of course, the.
little playmate gi»ws stronger in his
affections with the years. But there
is a man twice the age of Rita who
fain would clasp her to his bosom. So
affected is he by her very presence that
"his heart was filled with Joy, his face
beamed with pleasure and his scalp
was suffused by a rosy hue." Alas,
the race is not for him .-and .the 'only,
thing he can do in the story is to give
the hero an engagement ring when the'
time for that stage property is full ripe.'
But it is in order 'for a' little excite-,
ment by the time chapter six comes
around and so the town bully spies the
hero saluting the heroine with a soulful
kiss ur>on the banks of the Wabash.
Beinp: "not full but comfortable" at
the time the town bully attempts a
like courtesy, when biff— he is spurned
to the earth. Of course, he draws a
knife and the hero would have been
ignominiously skewered had not the
beautiful Rita done what Clyde Fitch
made Barbara Frietchie do^-shot the
dog. Then "the girl's face turned pale,
the gun fell from her hands, her eyes
closed and she would have fallen," etc.,
etc. So the changes are rung for 354
mortal pages of single leaded type.
It is a sad' failing of some authors
not to know when to stop. Mr. Major
forsook the law some three years back
to ride Into fiction full sail with the
flood-tide of the romantic novel. It
was a hit. that "Knighthood." But
now the tide has begun to recede and
Mr. Major, with his eyes still on blos
soming chivalry, continues to write
upon the pedestal "whence all but him
have fled." Success has been known
prettier color than your rosy cheeks
and glossy black hair, and no truer
friend than your loving little heart."
thing better. Listlessness Is a part of
the character of the poor.
It cannot be doubted that every cir
cumstance London portrays In his
book is true. His work' should set
strong men to thinking. Rut few will
arrive at the conclusions which London
sets. forth so dogmatically.
(Children of the Tenements; The Mac
millan Company, New York; illus
trated; price $1 50. The People of the
Abyss; by the same publishers; illus
trated by photographs; price $2.)
as a child. Despite the choleric dispo
sition of her mother, Rita, for that is
her name, waxes strong In years and
understanding. She plays with a com
panion from up the river, who, In his
youthful ardor, born of about twelve
years' understanding, declares to "her:
"I want no better mirror, my little
sweetheart/ than your brown eyes; no
THE LIFE OF A WOODEN DOLL.
Lewis Saxby; Fox. Duffield A Co., New
York; illustrated; price $1 25.
RHYMES OP REAL CHILDREN;
Betty Sage; Fox. Duflleld & Co.. New
York: illustrated by Jessie Wllcox
Smith: price $1 50.
EAST OF ASIA. North China Her
ald. Shanghai; Illustrated; price II 50.
KUTE KIDS' KALENDAR. F. M.
Goodrich; Dodge's, Stationers, Ban
Francisco; Illustrated; price 73 cents.
MONSANTO AND LANGUEL
LIER'S PRACTICAL COURSE IN
SPANISH; American Book Company,
New York: prica $125.
THE FIRST LOVES OF PERILLA.
John Corbin; Fox, Duflleld & Co., New
York: Illustrated.
THE LOST KING, Henry Shackel
ford; Brentano's, New York; Illus
trated; price $1 23.
GEORGE WASHINGTON JONES,
Ruth McEncry Stuart; Altemus Com
pany, Philadelphia; illustrated.
HALF A DOZEN HOUSEKEEP
ERS. Kate Douglas Wlggin; Altemus
Company. Philadelphia; illustrated;
price $1 CO.
THE REIGN OF QUEEN ISTL.
Gelett Burgess and Will Irwin: Mc-
Clure, Phillips & Co., New York; prico
J125.
THE PLANETARY SYSTEM*. F. B.
Taylor; published by the author. Fort
Wayne. Indiana; illustrated.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY IN
PROSE AND PICTURE. John A. How
land; Handy & Hlggins, Chicago; Illus
trated and decorated; price $1 50.
GRIMM'S KINDER- UND HAUS
MARCHEN; American Book Com
pany, New York; prico 45 cents.
CHILDREN OF THE TENEMENTS,
Jacob A. Rlis; The Macmillan Com
pany. New York; illustrated; prica
$1 50.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE;
Edith Elmer Wood; The Macmillaa
Company, New York; illustrated;
price $150.
AUNT JIMMY'S WILL, Mabel Os
good Wright; The Macmillan Com
pany. New York: illustrated; price $1 50.
THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS.
Jack London; The Macmillan Com
pany. New York: illustrated; price $3.
Latest Books
Just Received
Valuable Aids
to Linguists
TWO of our San Francisco literati
have harked back to the good old
days of the earliest story tellers
to find the form for a tale upon which
they have collaborated. "The Reign of
Queen Isyl," by Gelett Burgess and
Will Irwin. has the old stilted pro
logue and high sounding chapter head
ings of an eighteenth century romance,
but sparkles with the most up-to-date
'slangr and is replete with modernisms
which are more startling in contrast to
their archaic setting.
Again, like some of the old Italian
romances the book contains tales with
in a tale. Upon the skeleton plot of a
carnival queen of San Jose, who was
spirited away upon the eve of her coro
nation to have a pretender sit upon the
throne of mirth, the two authors have
stretched a web of stories from the
mouths of the principal characters
which divide the honors of interest on
the part of the reader with the thread
of the main narrative.
There Is enough mystery to the royal
abduction to satisfy the most Invet
erate reader of Anna Katherin- Green
and the talcs recounted by the news
paper special correspondent, the pro
fessional spieler and the rest are
breezy and new. The book is a good
one to pick up for an hour while dinner
is being prepared; it will give you
something to laugh about and make
the meal the more pleasant.
fMcClure. Phillips & Co., XewYork;
price 51 E0.)
Rattling Story
of a Carnival
The Christmas number of th»
"World's Work interprets timely phases
of our national and insular develop
ment, and rounds up a year of distinct
magazine achievement. Of vital sig
nificance Is Sereno S. Pratfs article.
"Who Owns the United States?" in
which concrete facts and figures show
the centralization of our financial
power and how all the wealth of the
country is In the control of compara
tively few people. The second of the
'series of articles on "The PostofBce and
the People." by M. G. Curmlff, shows
how and why our postofflce is inade
quate, and how H is the true and per
manent postal scandal. With "Ths
True Character of New York Publio
Schools," Miss A. M. Shaw begins a
series of first-hand studies of American
schools. Her" first article, which is pro
fusely illustrated by photographs taken
especially for the World's Work,
shows by facts and figures conditions
that every citizen should know. /•/— ?
oratlons „ by Margaret Armstrong;
Price SI 60.)
Herein lies the great difference be
tween London, the new writer on the
elums. and Riis, the man of years' ex
perience. Earnestly as Mr. London
may have sought after the truth and
diligently as he may have striven to
get to the bottom of things, he betrays
too ready a tendency to Jump at con
clusions and draw deductions from the
thing* which fit his theory. Within
the short space of a few months" time,
London endeavored to familiarize him
self with the life to which Riis tM de
voted years of study. Naturally, he
oouid not know his Whitechapel like
Riis knows his Bleecker street and
Chatham Square, but with his insuffi
cient knowledge, London has gone to
the lengths of making sweeping gener
alisations upon social questions which
Riis has never voiced.
London approached Whitechapel with
preconceived ideas of the rights of
man and the duties of governments,
bora of his earlier socialistic studies.
When he discovered so many thou
sands of creatures who did not enjoy
these rights he attributed all of their
wrongs to a decayed Bociety, which he
declares Is only fit for the scrap heap.
His marine fireman, who spends his
earnings In beer, is not held to account
per re for the life that is his, but is
merely one of the unfortunate atoms
ground to dust by this self-same de
crepit machine of society.
Rlis has shown that -the hopelessly
poor are stubborn In their wretchedness
and neglect or even resent opportuni
ties for their betterment. To his eyes
the degradation of the great cities'
poor is due in great measure to an
Inborn disinclination to aspire to any-
Since Jack London has suddenly ven
tured into the field of slum literature
with "The People of the Abyss," he
roust naturally be subject to a com
parison with an acknowledged student
of the poor such as Riis. Yet so few
points have the two In common that
comparison is almost defied.
London has attacked his subject
with an ax. He is a strong man, a
etrong writer; perhaps he could not
approach any subject with a whit less
energy than he used In climbing Chil
coot Pass. But his ardor In attacking
the elums of the East End of the great
city, his nameEake, is so strong as to
color his entire book with a very per
ceptible bias. He evidently knew that
everything was all wrong in London
and he went there to prove It to himself
and to the world.
When this keen-sighted Dane was
first thrown in contact with the sordid
life of the New York tenements it was
in the capacity of a police reporter for
a. metropolitan newspaper. He did
not jjo down into the elums with a
fore-or«2ained determination to catch a
hurried glimpse of the muck and the
reek p.nd then to return to the pure air.
there to write tomes upon the shocking
lives of the poor. But it was his daily
duty, the price of his bread and butter,
which held RMs down to the Mulberry
Bend and Mott street year In and year
out until the life about him became a
part of him and its darkest corners
were disclosed to him. Then he began
to write and to work for these people
whose every life shadow he knew.
Riis did not give vent to diatribes
upon the enormities of the existence
which these people supported; he did
not mch into print with scathing con
demnations of government in general
and the Iniquities which were suffered
as a result of its pernicious machina
tions*. On the contrary, be wrote little
etories of real life in the tenements—
stories which reflected conditions as
they were without any comments by
the writer. He gave to the reading
world truthful transcript* from the
real lives of real people.
Such a collection of short tales is his
latest book, "The Children of the Tene
ments." Written originally for the
New York Sun. Riis" paper, and for
the Century Magazine, these little
stories are of a merit well deserving
the distinction of book covers. Some
are pathetic, some In a humorous vein,
but all are told with a simplicity
which Impresses the reader first and
above all of their truth.
Two Writers
of the Slums
? — j
PEMHAPS the fad for slum litera
ture, which has been in vojjur
for tlie last four or five years.
auguis well for the charitable spirit of
the times; perhaps it is merely a pass
Ing fancy and the good people who in
dulge themselves in the writing of such
literature will leave It with a sigh and
pas=s on to new fields when the popular
taete has been satiated. True it if.
nevertheless?, that at no time in the
history of book writing has the other
half found such ardent champions as
It possesses right at the present time.
Within the last month there have ap
peared two more bocks upon the slums
—Jacob A. Rlis' "Children of the Tene
ments" and Jack London's "The Peo
ple of the Abyss." The former In a cot
lection of short stories, the lattrr a
vigorous portrayal of ugly facts. Both
are good books.
"What influence it has been which
has moved so many of the present-day
writers to champion the cause of the
hopeless poor it is hard to determine.
Is it that the old Rousseau idea of the
brotherhood of man has become rein
carnate after a hundred years of dor
mant existence, or is it that the spirit
of socialism has crept into the channels
of literature? Is there greater charity
In the twentieth century peoples than
heretofore? Witness the works of
Richard Whiteing. Sir Walter Besant
and Israel Zanpwill In England and of
our own slum thampions,, Josiah Flynt,
Jacob Riis, Edwin Townsend and the
latest fighter in the ranks. Jack London.
Kach of these- writers will give a dif
ferent answer to the questions.
Of the Americans who have devoted
their pens to the uplifting of the lot
of the poor, Jacob Riis is pre-eminently
the leader. He is the man who has
not only written things, but has actual
ly done them. Through his twenty-five
years' daily contact with the sore spots
of New York he has gained a knowl
edge of the things whereof he writes
euch es is possessed by no other man
who essays the literature of the slums.
Rlis sees to the bottom and under
stands better than any one else th«*
causes, inherent in the poor themselves,
which are responsible for tholr pitiable
condition.
The Booklovers" Magazine for De
cember rounds out its first year with
the Christmas number, and appears
with a new and exceedingly beautiful
cover. The general feature of the
former cover-scheme — that of a leather
bound book— is retained, but the design
is entirely different and the color Is a
warm.. rich crimson, with gold letter-
Ins. A. miniature of Van Dyck's cele
brated painting of "Baby Stuart." re
produced in colors, appears as a medal
lion in the center of the cover surround
ed with a wreath of holly.
Good Magazines
for Christmas
mm — cCLURE'S Magazine for Decem-
JYg ber . In harmony with the gen
•* *^ tlenesa of the season, moderates
a little Its strenuous, battering-ram
tone of the last few months. It is, in
fact, decidedly Christmasy, with Its
beautiful illustrations— many in tint —
and amiable fiction; and' is all aglow
with the spirit of truce-time. For the
strenuous reader, however, there are
articles by Ida SI. Tarbell, Ray Stan
nard Baker and others.
THE SUNDAY CALL.
A CORNER IN THE LIBRARY
7
ADVE&TISEMENTS.
O* A ROMANCE OP THE OLD WEST TC
$ TH X p^j
! S By HARRY LEON WILSON J*
'„« , AUTHOR OF "THE SPENDERS" m
ft* THE BROOKLYN ST. LOUIS REPUBLIC:
&j ¦ DAILY EAGLE: MTh , „,«„¦,*. h^ t -Th, Lion. <S
'Mi *"Tha Lions of tho Lord* is in to- of tha Lord' will , certainly finish it. $P 4
£j£ menscly impresshra story. Without There's a tragedy at tha dosa, tha in- • V «L*
V) , affectation, withoat strain, without ciri- exorable tragedy oJ Joel Rao's life, but O
i^FJ catate.it affords • picture of the fli-ht there's also one of the prettiest ei love- ',***
£& Into the wilderness, and of the men who story happy endiags, la which a dishing *A
iQ . converted that flight into a purposeful cowboy plays Young LochinTar la a 'Q(
£f! and . ultimately triumphant conquest, way to make 70a want to jump up tad "T
hh . which has not hitherto been equalled." whoop httrrahs for him. The plot U ;^t
jO| % adnurably constructed, and there is real < *
j3( THE BOSTON . »»t»l>tT the people."
$ TRANSCRIPT: y*J
G$ " Heretofore no novel has dealt so v^ PHILA. PUBLIC LEDGER : !^
ft±3 tally with the history, the scenes, and tha „_- . , .. ; -. , '*'•
E? character, of MormonUm. and no pred- Certam.y much has been written r*.
H^ . ecessor has so clearly .track the key»ot. f "^ * e \ lonio^ *»'> ¦? ""^ . &
Sfl . . ¦ of it. comedy is well .. iu fearsdm. *"?* Ou ' » ?*«*^f A£
¦O.- tragedy. JoeJ Rae, the he».bona that ">T comlanes hmorxal record wih WE
<•*¦ . v • -~ * • 11 -¦-.-• well-wntten fiction. ' '«K|
tt may not soon be forgotten." • . postpaid, $1.30 W
Art LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON j^