Chapter XII: Part XI

I sat in a great theater at the National Capital. It was thronged with youth, and beauty, old age, and wisdom. I saw a man, the image of his God, stand upon the stage, and I heard him speak. His gestures were the perfection of grace; his voice was music, and his language was more beautiful than I had ever heard from mortal lips. He painted picture after picture of the pleasures, and joys, and sympathies, of home. He enthroned love and preached the gospel of humanity like an angel. Then I saw him dip his brush in ink, and blot out the beautiful picture he had painted. I saw him stab love dead at his feet. I saw him blot out the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal darkness, and eternal death. I saw him like the serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence and the subtle devices of his sophistry, inject his fatal venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its sunshine was darkened, and the soul was left a desert waste, with only the new-made graves of faith and hope. I saw him, like a lawless, erratic meteor without an orbit, sweep across the intellectual sky, brilliant only in his self-consuming fire, generated by friction with the indestructible and eternal truths of God.

That man was the archangel of modern infidelity; and I said: How true is holy writ which declares, “the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”

Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell!

“A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,
As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea.”

Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no risen Christ!

When every earthly hope hath fled,
When angry seas their billows fling,
How sweet to lean on what He said,
How firmly to His cross we cling!

It is in the desert of evil, where virtue trembles to tread, where hope falters, and where faith is crucified, that the infidel dreams. To him, all there is of heaven is bounded by this little span of life; all there is of pleasure and love is circumscribed by a few fleeting years; all there is of beauty is mortal; all there is of intelligence and wisdom is in the human brain; all there is of mystery and infinity is fathomable by human reason, and all there is of virtue is measured by the relations of man to man. To him, all must end in the “tongueless silence of the dreamless dust,” and all that lies beyond the grave is a voiceless shore and a starless sky. To him, there are no prints of deathless feet on its echoless sands, no thrill of immortal music in its joyless air.

He has lost his God, and like some fallen seraph flying in rayless night, he gropes his way on flagging pinions, searching for light where darkness reigns, for life where death is king.

What intelligence less than God could fashion the human body? What motive power is it, if it is not God, that drives that throbbing engine, the human heart, with ceaseless, tireless stroke, sending the crimson streams of life bounding and circling through every vein and artery? Whence, and what, if not of God, is this mystery we call the mind? What is this mystery we call the soul? What is it that thinks and feels and knows and acts? Oh, who can comprehend, who can deny, the Divinity that stirs within us!

I have wondered a thousand times if an infidel ever looked through a telescope. There is our mighty sun, robed in the brightness of his eternal fires, and with his planets forever wheeling around him. Yonder twinkle Mercury and Venus, and there is Mars, the ruddy globe whose poles are white with snow and whose other zones seem dotted with seas and continents. Who knows but that his roseate color is only the blush of his flowers? Who knows but that Mars may now be a paradise inhabited by a blessed race, unsullied by sin, untouched by death? There is the giant orb of Jupiter, the champion of the skies, belted and sashed with vapor and clouds; and Saturn, haloed with bands of light and jeweled with eight ruddy moons; and there is Uranus, another stupendous world, speeding on in the prodigious circle of his tireless journey around the sun. And yet another orbit cuts the outer rim of our system, and on his lonely pathway the gloomy Neptune walks the cold, dim solitudes of space. In the immeasurable depths beyond appear millions of suns, so distant that their light could not reach us in a thousand years. There, spangling the curtain of the black profundity, shine the constellations that sparkle like the crown jewels of God. There are double and triple and quadruple suns of different colors, commingling their gorgeous hues and flaming like archangels on the frontier of stellar space. If we look beyond the most distant star the black walls are flecked with innumerable patches of filmy light like the dewy gossamers of the spider’s loom that dot our fields at morn. What beautiful forms we trace among those phantoms of light! Circles, ellipses, crowns, shields and spiral wreaths of palest silver. And what are they? Did I say phantoms of light? The telescope resolves them into millions of suns, standing out from the oceans of white-hot matter that contain the germs of countless systems yet to be. And so far removed from us are these suns that the light which comes to us from them to-day has been speeding on its way for more than two million years.

What is that white belt we call the Milky Way, which spans the heavens and sparkles like a Sahara of diamonds? It is a river of stars, it is a Gulf Stream of suns; and if each of these suns holds in his grasp a mighty system of planets, as ours does, how many multiplied millions of worlds like our own are now circling in that innumerable concourse?

Oh, where are the bounds of this divine conception? Where ends this dream of God? And is there no life or intelligence in all this throng of spheres? Are there no sails on those far-away summer seas, no wings to cleave that crystal air, no forms divine to walk those radiant fields? Are there no eyes to see those floods of light, no hearts to share with ours that love which holds all these mighty orbs in place?

It cannot be! It cannot be! There is a God! “The heavens declare His glory and the firmament showeth His handiwork.”

WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING

When I wake up in the mornin’, in the laughin’, smilin’ mornin’,
With my soul keyed like a fiddle an’ my heart keyed like a lute,
An’ memory-maids come trippin’, an’ a-slidin’ an’ a-slippin’,
An’ floodin’ all my heart house with the faint notes of their flute—
Then my lips jus’ longs to utter little songs that kind o’ flutter
’Round the earthly cage that coops them, an’ would fly up in the light,
An’ to my soul a-yearnin’, little firefly thoughts come burnin’
An’ bringin’ spirit-lanterns that would lead it out of night—
When I wake up in the mornin’.

When I wake up in the mornin’, in that solemn, silent mornin’,
After long, long years of slumber, an’ long, long years of sleep,
When my spirit’s bird has rested in the heavenly air it breasted
An’ its golden pinions tested for their flight across the Deep—
Lord, I know my soul will flutter up to heaven, an’ will utter
In a clearer note the songs it only tried to sing below;
An’ these fitful, fiery flashes from the pale hope of my ashes
Will be altars of star incense in the glory of Thy glow—
When I wake up in the mornin’.

_John Trotwood Moore._

TWO NOVELS OF THE YEAR

I read two novels by two women not long ago. I believe I should say what my critical deductions were:

Too many novels are a dangerous thing and two a year are pabulum enough for a man. For men must fight the life around them. Women may dream, thank God, and right beautifully do they dream.

These novels were “The Awakening of Helena Richie,” by our country-woman, Mrs. Margaret Deland, and “Fenwick’s Career,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward, an Englishwoman. There are two kinds of writers: one is retrospective and gets his food from without—absorbs from what is seen, heard, copied; what others say and do; creates, but the creation is imitative; there is lacking the great, broad highway of initiatory genius. It may be clever but it is never genius—versatile, but never great.

The other is introspective—grows from within. The best definition of it, is, I love to think, _God-given_; and its genius is limited only to what God has put there in the beginning. It copies from no man—it is Master. Its flow is limitless, like the great tides of the greater ocean, and, like them, it grows as it goes. It does nothing twice the same way—every book is different, every poem, every mood.

For books and poems are merely the moods of Genius.

There is no place in literature for the practical, the poised, the balanced, the consistent, the saving, the so-called sound men and women of the world. To these God gave the all-sufficient talent of taking care of themselves. To Genius he gave the greater gift of caring for all humanity.

“Helena Richie” is introspective. “Fenwick’s Career” is retrospective, and between them is a gulf boundless.

Woman, by nature, writes the spiritual novel. Men write the novels which _do_.

Neither of the novels above, in the man-sense, _do_. Because they were not written by men.

Compare “The Awakening of Helena Richie” with “The Scarlet Letter.” Hawthorne’s woman and her preacher _did things_—people did things all through his masterpiece. And they reaped all the infamy and anguish of it—the illegitimate child, the pillory—death. And yet Hester Prynne and her preacher-lover had more excuse for their real wrong-doing than the business love-pair who set up their convenient and quasi establishment in the village of Dr. Lavendar. For the Puritan people had the excuse of youth—of passion—and the greater man-excuse of nature and by them called _nature-given_. But they forget that since the beginning God has been improving on nature. Helena and her lover merely played with passion; the others were passion. In Mrs. Deland’s people the fires were out—it was a weak, sordid, dissatisfied, half revengeful spoiled child determination to be naughty for naughty’s sake. They were a materialistic pair of polite adulterers, doing no harm to society, for they left no scarlet track, and none to themselves, for they were incapable of being hurt. No man writer would care to have picked up their miserable and naughty little affair; and instead of ending as it did, they might as well have been permitted to go on into the society of some city near them among those of their kind and claimed they had been married.

And not a gossiper of their set, had she found it out, would have gone two blocks to tell it to another.

Mrs. Deland is not Hawthorne, it is true, but she is great—her novel is great. It is introspective, virile, uplifting, beautiful. Some of its characterization is superb and one of its characters, that of the old man who _knew things_, who spotted character when he smelt it as a setter dog the unseen quail, is the best drawn of any book of the year. The idiosyncratic mood of the author—the only mood by which genius may be known—for it alone makes clear the line between man and men—that cosmic idiosyncratic insolence which stamps individual authorship—if it be real authorship—in this, no woman writer of the year has approached her.

In the glow of the warmth of this house of her soul genius, “The House of Mirth” is a brilliant ice-castle in the Klondike, and “A Fighting Chance,” that mongrel thing brought to life by the union of “Lady Rose’s Daughter” and “The House of Mirth”—a thing so clearly marked in its genealogy that one can easily trace each separate lineament of its doughy countenance to either parent who is responsible for its existence—this thing of cigarette-smoking, russet-legged quail-hunting, burning women, and drunken, lewd-doped society adulterers with not a real man or woman in its pages, is the Dakota sod-hut of novel houses.

But if “Helena Richie” suffers in comparison with its great prototype, Mrs. Ward’s book is wiped off the map. In her book nobody does anything and the years of marvelous anguish they go through doing it should give the sweet-sixteen readers who glory in it enough sniffle-nose sufferings to last them till next vacation.

This author glories in heroines a little off-color in their moral make-up with an over-weening desire to do something naughty but never game enough to score down to it. We would love every silly one of them more had they sinned and been sorry. For the sack-clothed sins of real men and women add most to their growth and bigness.

OUR SINS MAKE US.

Mrs. Ward’s books are all alike, with a little variation in plot and people. She cannot get away from the illegitimate cross in her moral pedigree. Her people are oftener paste-boards, her characters the half-harmonized personalities of incongruous vaporings and she has made her literary fame and money on the sad but decadent frailty of that large, honest, well-meaning, but common lot of us who “do dearly love a lord.”

And these are my deductions: Between Mrs. Deland’s and Mrs. Ward’s novels have we not greater geniuses at home? And between the unspeakable Castellane and Marlborough—haven’t we—honest now, ladies! better husbands here?

JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A SURPRISE

Trotwood loves to take as well as to give and the following letter is too rich to go into any waste basket. I do not know the writer, but it has been sent by an esteemed friend, a colonel of an Ohio regiment who was on the firing line at Shiloh, the letter having been written to him by a comrade now living in California. Of him our correspondent writes:

“He spent four years in the Civil War, and when he came home to Ohio at the termination of the war he was not yet old enough to vote.” But here is his letter:

“My dear Colonel: I am enjoying every inch of the text work in _Trotwood’s_—and especially that part that deals with the blue and gray paladins that wrestled for a time on the flanges of hell—in order to become better _acquainted_.

“Sometime, when you meet our friend Trotwood, tell him you once knew a trembling country boy, with calliper legs, who enlisted in the earliest earlies, and really thought for a time that he was a quarter section of Mars, until he hit Shiloh—and he has never fully recovered confidence in himself since. Even to this day, that boy needs no map of the ‘high places’ between Shiloh Church and the river bluffs. If there was a _sunken road_, it was so far below the level of the chain of pinnacles that youngster made use of in ‘promoting’ distance between _section_ lines, that he only knows of it by hearsay and tradition, and that vortex called the ‘Hornet’s Nest’ was omnipresent in that lad’s ears until the following June. So far as that youth remembers, the “Purdy Road” only had _one end_ leading in a bee-line to the steamboat landing, and he well remembers that large stocks of cannon balls were bursting in job lots as he crossed that open furnace known as the ‘Jones Field.’ For a number of days after the carnage at Shiloh this stripling of the tented field had no appetite for the ordinary rations, and it is doubtful if the best vaudeville extant could have made him sit up and take notice. He was much like Artemus Ward’s baby bear that straddled a buzz saw—_willing to quit_. Printer’s ink has been ladled out by the pailful to show that Shiloh was not a surprise; but the young truthful James of this sketch says that it was a ‘23’ for him—a powder and ball—before-breakfast surprise, accompanied by demoniacal yells that frayed the atmosphere and loosened the tent-pins of Sherman’s entire lines. If the loss of tents, luggage, arms, munitions, keepsakes, love letters, confidence, pride and self-respect was not enough to constitute evidences of a full-grown surprise, there was certainly nothing additional to throw in _unless it might be the epiglottis and the back teeth_. The youthful scion of this preachment says he has no doubt but the worthy men who wore the gray have had many a hearty laugh at the Herculean efforts of the North to show that Shiloh was not a surprise. Apropos of this, we are reminded of Len Wardlow, who was hurled from a sixth-story apartment during the San Francisco earthquake and lit in fifteen feet of water in an open cistern; Len says he was not one whit surprised, but for a very few minutes he was d—d badly startled.

“About the best definition of a ‘surprise’ is that it’s the unexpected; now, if, to drop into the language of Old Wash, our hosts, Grant and Sherman wuz expectin’ Deacons Johnsing and Booragard to come over real airly on dat Sunday mornin’ bringin’ dar Hornet’s Nests and bloody anglers erlong wid em, why in de name ob common eruptions didn’t dey fix for em? Put de house in order, have de different parts layin’ on de music rack and put all de perrotecknix whar de performers could stick er match to ’em? Stid ob dat, we all was a-actin’ as if no visitors was gwine to call on us dat Sunday mornin’ sure enough! Kase Grant was trimmin’ his korns way down at Savannah and Sharmin had put on no biled shirt to welcome de visitors. Ebber since dat Shiloh reception de rank and file, de real workers, hab all s’posed dat dey was sartinly not fixed for de influx ob callers—and ’specially not so tarnal airly. But de leaders, dem as was not dar to hear de knockin’ on de front door, and usher in Brer Johnsing, hab all erlong said dat de kyards had been out and de punch hole a simmerin’ for jist sech a quiltin’ and we are willin’ to ’serverate de leaders ought to know.”

TWO WOMEN AND A HORSE

Dear Trotwood: Knowing your fondness for satirizing women who drive horses, I am sending you this little true bill.

I was riding along the other week near a small city when a hard shower came up suddenly. Just before me I noticed two ladies driving a very spirited horse to a buggy. They were evidently just from the town. Instead of putting up the buggy top or drawing out the rain cloth when the shower came up, they each gave a little feminine shriek and both grabbed at once an umbrella, paying no attention whatever to the lines, and bent way over holding it over the rear end of the horse, the rain pouring down on them all the time. I followed them, looking on in amazement—there they were bending over the dashboard catching a hard rain on their graceful backs and well-fitting, new gowns and holding an umbrella half way over the southern half of a horse who was going along well enough and perfectly indifferent to the weather. For a mile they drove thus, and I followed, wondering. Finally, as I rode up to them, my curiosity was so great that I asked:

“Ladies, pardon me, but will you tell me why you are holding that umbrella over your horse and not protecting yourselves?”

“Why—yes,” one of them faltered, “we are scared nearly to death. You see, it is a hired horse, and we don’t know much about him, and when we hired him the liveryman told us to be very careful not to let him get the rain under his tail or he would kick us out and run away!”

C. R.

LITTLE MISS FIDDLE

Dar now, Banjo!—t’ek yo’ sign in,—
Let Miss Fiddle sing her song.
O my h’art—I’m jes’ a pinin’—
Come, Miss Fiddle, come along—
Wid yo’ gleam of sun in show’rs,
Nights so sweet an’ days so ca’mful—
Wid yo’ birds an’ bees an’ flowers,
Fetchin’ music by de armful!

_John Trotwood Moore._

SAMUEL SPENCER AS A FACTOR IN NATIONAL AFFAIRS

By Ismay Dooly

In the office of the general counsel of the Southern Railroad in Washington is a frame containing a newspaper article relative to a recent railroad trial, wherein the case was one of national import.

An incident described in the article relates to that lion of financial power, Pierpont Morgan, who, after he had given sworn testimony of vital importance, was asked if he gave the facts of his own knowledge.

“No,” was the reply, “not on my own knowledge, but the information was given to me by Samuel Spencer, and I would swear to anything he stated as a fact.”

This single tribute to the accuracy of the late Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railway, who was one of the greatest men the South has given to the nation’s productive machinery, illustrates but one of the many qualities of a man who for the past ten years has been among the foremost in the public eye of the republic.

He was a man whose career in public and private life was the expression of an accuracy proceeding not alone from a sense of truth and justice, but from a thorough and proficient knowledge of any subject of which he was in any way the exponent.

He was the highly educated man, whose mental and almost instantaneous grasp of people and things was demonstrated in an adaptability that served him in every relation and situation.

He possessed as well a wonderful power of perspective—the power to discriminate between the worthy and the little things, and to economize and conserve his forces, to that extent when he was equal to direct action whenever the occasion demanded. Poise and balance completed his equipment for a life of great action.

LOYALTY TO SOUTHERN INTERESTS

He was one of the most successful railroad men and promoters of industrial institutions in the South, and one who, from the first days of his public career, has justly and fully presented the claims of the South in her higher achievement along every line.

In his splendid leadership of movements entrusted to his guidance he quickly demonstrated the ability expressive, not alone of his loyalty to the interests of the South, but his broader aspiration that these interests become national, and become so a part of the forces upon which the nation as a whole would find a common interest, that he became one of the men looked to by his fellow countrymen to solve the great problems of our complex twentieth century activities.

The expression of this broader aspiration by which he made the interests of his section the interests of the nation illustrated one of the essential principles of the highly evolved man—the constructive principle—the one that draws man to the building up of big movements that the smaller ones may be inspired to grow and become a part.

HIS NATIONAL SPIRIT

That Mr. Spencer was an exponent of this spirit was given national recognition in the responsibilities that have been thrust upon him, no greater example of which could be given than in his part in the recent rate bill agitation in the United States Congress. He was selected by the railroad systems of the country as their representative before the national body and was entrusted with the responsibilities of personally presenting their side of the question.

His ready appreciation of the influences necessary to bring to bear upon the present status of problems in which certain forces of the nation are retarded in their processes of solving has been seen in his personal alliance with movements or organizations standing for peace and arbitration and conciliatory measures.

He was an influential member of the National Civic Federation and his opinions were no more highly regarded by the president, August Belmont, than by the vice president, Samuel Gompers, the two men representing at present the two great conflicting national interests of capital and labor.

A recent incident, widely discussed at the time when Mr. Spencer’s ready appreciation and acceptance of justice, indicated his ability to assume great responsibilities, was when the National Civic Federation was agreed upon as the medium of arbitration in the machinists’ strike on the Southern Railway system in Knoxville.

Mr. Spencer, as president of the Southern Railway, and other officials of the road, including the vice president and general manager, met James O’Connell, the president of the International Association of Machinists, and the local officials of that organization concerned along the line. The federation was represented by the chairman of the conciliation committee, Hon. Seth Low; V. Everet Macy, a capitalist; Ralph M. Easley, chairman of the executive council, and Samuel B. Donnelly, one of the labor members representing the Typographical Union. This resulted in the settlement of the controversy through an agreement reached by both sides in conference.

POWER IN ORGANIZATION

In reference to the incident a member of the federation in discussing it with a Georgian said:

“I must tell you of the fine impression made by your fellow Georgian, Mr. Samuel Spencer, in the strong, impassioned address he made to the labor representatives at the conciliation meeting. What he said was noble and stirring, and the expressions of Mr. Samuel B. Donnelly, one of our labor members representing his side of the controversy, and finally, the decision of the presiding officer, Hon. Seth Low, the Civic Federation representative, made the occasion one fully demonstrating the greatness of the co-operative spirit for which the National Civic Federation stands in uniting in its membership men representing the forces of the nation.”

These few incidents illustrate the appreciation with which Mr. Spencer was held by men representing great national questions; the responsibility thrown upon him by the railroads of the country as their representative in the House of Congress; his readiness to assume the individual responsibility thereof; his factorship in national organized effort are many incidents that entitle him to a position of Napoleonic ascendency in the history of railroad construction and development; to an everlasting monument in the hearts of the people of his native Southland, and to a position of national recognition among men standing for the highest civilization making now the history of the twentieth century.

Mr. Spencer was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1846. He went from the military school of Marietta, Georgia, into the Civil War, and served gallantly under General Forrest’s command. After the war he graduated from the University of Georgia, and subsequently from the University of Virginia.

Soon afterward he became interested in the construction work of Southern railroads, and died president of one of the greatest railroad systems in the world.

THE OBSTACLE

’Twas but a little thing that lay
Athwart my path that long-gone day,
And yet I weakly let it lie,—
Just turned aside and passed it by,
Nor thought what the result might be.

Then others came who saw my track,
But no one moved the hindrance back,
So they, too, stepped out on the sod;
And many a weary foot has trod
The devious way first traced by me.

We reach at last the self-same goal,
But oh! the heaviness of soul
That overwhelms me when I look
On those who chose the path I took.
Lord, from the burden make me free!

Nay, son; in weakness thou didst turn;
And ever those who duty spurn,
Who clear not obstacles away,
Who cause men from the right to stray,
The influence of their acts must see.

_Ida Louise Reveley._

LILLIAN KENDRICK BYRN

WHISPERING SMITH. By Frank H. Spearman. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.50.

Although his previous books have shown Mr. Spearman as an observant student of human nature, an excellent story teller and a literary artist of ability, the reader who picks up “Whispering Smith” will lay it down with the verdict that this character is a genuine contribution to literature. Without departing from the rules of literary construction Mr. Spearman has described scenes so far from hackneyed that they seem absolutely new in every element of their creation. Whispering Smith is a secret service agent for a Rocky Mountain railroad and his business is to defend the enterprise against all sorts of enemies and rough and lawless characters which abound in that region. He owes his sobriquet to a certain softness of voice, to which he adds a simple, straightforward and unaffected integrity. This is the principal character in the story, beside the heroine, a breezy, yet thoroughly feminine girl brought up on a ranch. The rest of the dramatis personae are the cowboys, railroad men, bandits and other types characteristic of the frontier, all depicted to the life by one who knows his subject.

RICH MEN’S CHILDREN. By Geraldine Bonner. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co. Price, $1.50.

Miss Bonner’s previous California romances, “To-morrow’s Tangle” and “The Pioneer,” have made for her a wide circle of readers. “Rich Men’s Children” is even stronger and more thrilling in interest than its predecessors. The conflicts of two generations and the bold passions of the far West are delineated with courageous directness and dramatic vigor. The whole story is absorbing and fascinating, yet the author does not allow the reader to lose sight of the purpose, which is adhered to with remarkable sincerity and fidelity.

THE HEART AND THE CROWN. By H. Rhea Woodman. New York and Washington: Neale Publishing Co. Price, $1.25.

This little volume contains fifty-one sonnets, arranged under the sub-titles of “The King’s Heart” and “The Queen’s Crown.” The two themes love and grief, are treated with a sustained purity and artistic restraint that will give this poetry high rank. The heart verses, of which there are twenty-five, are passionate and tender, instinct with deep feeling, vividly expressed. There are twenty-six of the crown sonnets. These tell of a great sorrow, now expressed in rapid, incisive words and now reiterated in graceful, musical measure. The volume is a beautiful example of the bookmaker’s craft, in soft morocco binding, highly ornamented with gold, deckle-edged, tinted paper, printed in two colors.

THE VOICE OF THE THIRD GENERATION. By Henry Peck Fry. Chattanooga: MacGowan-Cooke Printing Co. Price, 25 cents.

The author of this sketch, a prominent member of the Chattanooga bar, has worked out a logical solution of the race problem, which he presents in a clear and concise way to his readers. There have been many discussions of this important question, but few which are so clearly and logically expressed, so dispassionately proven and so well connected as Mr. Fry’s views.

THE DISTRACTIONS OF MARTHA. By Marion Harland. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.50.

The publication of Mrs. Terhune’s last novel added a pleasant feature to the celebration of the author’s golden wedding. An authority on household matters of all kinds, this talented Virginian selected for her latest theme the experiences of a newly married young couple, who move into a little house in the suburbs and plunge at once into housekeeping. It is the simplest kind of housekeeping, and yet to Martha—full of theories and ideas as she is—it quickly becomes very complicated. Her struggles with seemingly simple recipes, and the extraordinary food that is produced by an apparently exact following of the rules, are told in a brightly humorous way that is irresistible. Later, when increased prosperity brings Martha face to face with the servant problem, her difficulties are equally grave. The way in which she triumphs, however, will be an inspiration to everyone struggling with the same difficulties.

DADDY’S DAUGHTERS. By Marion Ames Taggart. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Price, $1.25.

“Daddy” is an amiable, patient, literary man, who, like many of his kind, finds it difficult to make both ends meet. His four daughters are distinct individualities, each with a separate charm, which is brought into play in the course of the account of the family happenings. Another family of girls, with three brothers, lives on the other side of the garden hedge, and their joint excursions and adventures form the incidents of this very readable juvenile.

POLLY OF THE PINES. By Adele E. Thompson. Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard. Price, $1.25.

Miss Thompson is notable among authors for the young for her understanding of youthful character and the sustained interest of her plots. Polly is a revolutionary heroine, a little rebel among the loyal Scots of the Carolinas. She leaves her own home and finds refuge with an uncle and does her best for the colonies. The ubiquitous Tarleton plays the villain royalist and is completely outwitted when he encounters the ready and brave little Polly.

ANIMAL SERIALS. By Edwarde Blaisdell. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co. Price, $1.

One of the most interesting of the nonsense jingles offered for the holiday trade is “Animal Serials.” The rhymes are clever and amusing and the illustrations are exceedingly apt. The humor in each so thoroughly corresponds to the other that they can be appreciated by all youngsters.

THE SPIRIT OF THE ORIENT. By George William Knox. New York: T. Y. Crowell. Price, $1.50.

Professor Knox has spent many years in the East and in his beautifully illustrated work on the manners and customs of that part of the world he has given us a valuable and interesting picture of the awakening of the spirit of progress there. This has been especially noticeable since the Russo-Japanese War; and the rapid increase of our own holdings in the Far East intensifies the profound import of this problem. The author defines sharply the difference between the Eastern and the Western character in the following paragraph: “Man ... seems overpowered by nature in the East, but he attempts to conquer it in the West.”

PLANTATION SKETCHES. By Margaret Devereux. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

This collection of delicate sketches of antebellum Southern life gives the experiences of a Southern gentlewoman who loves the old South and who has the power to make others know and love it. The reminiscences possess the blended humor and pathos which characterize the best descriptions of plantation life, and bring clearly before us the scenes of those times. The manner of their telling is finished and most readable, apart from the interest attaching to the incidents narrated.

COZY CORNER CONFIDENCES. By Walter Pulitzer. New York: Dodge Publishing Co. Price, 75 cents.

Mr. Pulitzer’s sparkling cynicisms are so well-known that readers pick up his work with the certainty of enjoyment. In these little “confidences” we have a varied assortment of neatly-turned maxims, perverted mottoes, and sage, though sarcastic, advice. The publishers have given the text a most inviting cover and the marginal decorations are especially attractive.

BOOK TREASURES OF MAECENAS. By John Paul Bocock. New York: The Knickerbocker Press.

In the richest of morocco bindings this memorial volume attracts the eye at once. The forty poems are representative specimens of the work of the gifted author, who died recently. A Virginian and a graduate of Washington and Lee University, Mr. Bocock first practiced law, but having from his earliest youth had a passion for the pen, he definitely entered journalism in 1883. His newspaper work covered a wide range but his best-known work shows his love for the classics, which the present little volume also clearly reveals. The little quatrain on “Oblivion” will show the delicate charm of his poesy:

Sweet lotos-orbed, velvet-footed maid,
That slippest o’er the wrinkled ocean’s brim,
Garlanded with blue flowers of distance dim—
Is death the passport to thine Isles of Shade?

AUGUSTINE THE MAN. By Amélie Rives. (Princess Troubetzkoy). New York: John Lane Company. Price, $1.25.

It is a far cry from “The Quick or the Dead?” to “Sélene” and “Augustine the Man,” but Amélie Rives has made the transition without apparent effort. In the form of a stirring drama she traces the emotions and spiritual throes of the Numidian bishop, the poet, the lover, the father and afterwards the saint. The work is indeed notable, carrying the reader with irresistible interest through Augustine’s changes of philosophy and arousing the keenest sympathy for the human side of the man. The publishers in addition to a binding charming in its simplicity, have added an exquisitely etched portrait of the author.

THE COUNT AT HARVARD. By Rupert Sargent Holland. Boston: L. C. Page & Co. Price, $1.50.

There is a perennial fascination in college stories. Even to the uninitiated the atmosphere of athletic sport, of chaff and slang and frank absence of interest in lectures is most alluring. Mr. Holland has given us, in the adventures of “The Count,” a thoroughly interesting picture of life among that class of students whose object is merely to pass some years of agreeable leisure at Harvard. The afternoon teas, the musical evenings, the “proms” and the games are all attractively set forth.

UNCLE CHARLIE’S POEMS. By Charles Noel Douglas. New York: J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Co. Price, 50 cents.

Many who are familiar with Mr. Douglas’ poems in _St. Nicholas_, _Judge_ and other periodicals will be surprised to learn that he has been a “shut-in” for ten years. His poems all show the unfailing cheerfulness, the genial wit and irresistible gayety which marks the born optimist. He is equally at home in children’s dialect and coon songs. In addition to his magazine contributions Mr. Douglas manages a “Sunshine” department in a number of periodicals, a league of young readers, everyone of whom is pledged to make this world a better place to live in.

CLIFTON AND WAYNE COUNTY, TENNESSEE

By W. O. Thomas

The resources of Wayne County are multiplex. Many counties may claim special consideration because of fertility of soil, or this one thing or that one thing; but the varied resources of Wayne County invite every line of human endeavor. Here may be found profit for the husbandman, the lumberman, the iron-monger, the artisan who would work in wood, the artificer who deals with metallic substances, the capitalist who invests in nature’s inexhaustible storehouse. For this is yet a virgin country, and nature, fresh, virile and vigorous, awaits the magic wand of Midas.

Wayne County has seven hundred square miles of land, two hundred square miles of which are underlaid with iron deposits, almost all in sufficient quantities and of a quality that would justify actual investment and operation. Indeed, in point of natural wealth it would be hard to find a county that surpasses Wayne. Timber, iron ore, marble, building rock, phosphate, kaolin, cement rock, mineral paint, fertile valleys, sturdy, God-fearing, liberty-loving people—what more do you want—where else can you find such a plethora of good things? As we write, an endless procession of wagons is passing, bearing cross-ties, telegraph and telephone poles, cotton and other farm products, all consigned to merchants here or to be shipped direct by way of the Tennessee river—nature’s great highway—for Clifton is a mighty part of commerce, and is the entrepot for a vast extent of territory.

For half a century the mainstay of this section has been the timber and tie industry. Yet in all this time the timber has only been exhausted from a ten or twelve mile fringe fronting the Tennessee river. Some idea may be gained of the immensity of this industry when it is stated that there are shipped annually from Clifton alone 3,000,000 feet of lumber and 300,000 cross-ties. The principal woods are oak, poplar, ash, hickory, chestnut and pine. There are several hundred thousand acres of fine timber lands in Wayne County that are yet untouched.

Wayne County unquestionably possesses fine advantages for the farmer, the stock man and the lumberman. But it is as a mineral section its advantages are so apparent and overwhelming that the wonder grows that a second Birmingham does not mark the site where Clifton now stands. It may all be explained in one phrase—lack of railroad facilities. Clifton has magnificent river facilities, and they will be measurably increased when the government work on Colbert Shoals is completed. At present Clifton is at the head of deep water navigation. Straight through to St. Louis the traffic is unimpeded the year round, and boats touch at this point every day. Yet, while this service is admirable, it cannot altogether compensate for the lack of railroad facilities. However, the time is near at hand when this deficiency will be remedied. For some time a movement has been in progress which it is believed will eventuate in the building of the Tennessee Industrial Railroad. The road as surveyed will run from Fox Bluff to Florence, Ala., a distance of nearly two hundred miles. Clifton is only forty-two miles east of Florence, and that enterprising little city is making every effort to get into the Wayne County ore fields. It is generally believed that the Frisco System is behind this project. This would give the Frisco an almost direct line from the Birmingham and Wayne County iron districts into St. Louis and Chicago and open a great section of country not now traversed by any road.

A prominent capitalist of Clifton, Tennessee]

The only iron furnaces operated at present in this county are two at Allen’s Creek, a point on a branch of the N., C. & St. L. Ry., about thirty miles from Clifton. They are operated by the Bon Air Coal & Iron Company, and have a daily output of about ninety tons each. In the earlier days of its history, however, many charcoal furnaces were scattered throughout the county. In those days no iron ranked higher than the Brownsport pig. Because of its remarkable tensile strength it was listed several dollars higher than other pig. Take an ordinary pig and strike it a sharp blow with a heavy hammer, and it will snap like glass. A bar of the Brownsport pig would bend in the shape of a crescent before it would break.

The mineral field has long been regarded as among the best in the South. The ore occurs in banks and pockets. At several places the banks have developed a thickness of 110 feet. The material associated with the ore is a red clay. It constitutes by weight one-third of the mass, leaving two-thirds ore. These ores are the brown hematite. The analysis is not variable, as in many sections of the country, rarely running below 45 or above 55 per cent metallic iron. The percentage of this ore runs higher and it is capable of being much more easily and cheaply handled than the deposits in the famous Birmingham district. One lump of brown hematite iron ore measuring sixty tons has been taken from the Wayne County ore field. The average analysis of this lump was 57 per cent metallic iron and less than 1 per cent phosphorus.

Allen’s Creek, a town of 1,500 inhabitants, deserves special mention here because of the fact that the furnaces and iron mines of the Bon Air Coal & Iron Company are located there. This company operates two furnaces at Allen’s Creek, and mine both iron ore and limestone. The concern also manufactures a very high and superior grade of silicon iron, which is used all over the United States as a softener by foundries and machine shops, and for all purposes where a fluid iron is required. Extensive plants have been constructed for washing the ore and preparing it for the furnaces. Probably the largest deposits of brown ore to be found in the South are near Allen’s Creek and are the property of the Bon Air Company. At one point as much as 100,000 tons of the ore is known to have been taken from one acre of land. The management of the plant at Allen’s Creek is in the hands of Mr. G. W. Bragg, a very worthy and capable man, who appears to have the interest of the company at heart at all times. The capacity of the furnaces is 200 tons of pig iron per day.

The coal mines of the Bon Air Company are situated in Cumberland and White counties, where three collieries and two hundred coke ovens are in operation. This is where all the celebrated grades of Bon Air coal and coke are mined and made ready for market. The daily output is about 2,000 tons of coal and coke.

The Bon Air Coal & Iron Company is one of the largest companies in the South and its extensive business interests are managed by the following gentlemen: John P. Williams, president; J. M. Overton, vice president; W. C. Dibrell, treasurer, and C. Cooper, secretary. The main business office is in the Arcade Building, Nashville.

Here are inexhaustible deposits of the Florida white rock, the best phosphate known to commerce. A field of it is being developed in the adjoining county of Decatur, near Parson’s. It runs from 75 to 83 per cent B. P. L. It is far superior to the Mt. Pleasant phosphate, containing as it does but little deleterious substance. This land is controlled by the Beech River Phosphate Company. T. S. Hughes, Clifton, Tenn., is secretary, and Jno. A. Pitts, of Nashville, is president.

The lands of this company, consisting of 9,261 acres, are situated in Decatur county, Tennessee, just west of the Tennessee river, and from two to seven miles distant from that stream, and lie along both sides of Beech river, a tributary of the Tennessee, and the Perryville Branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway—(originally the Tennessee Midland).

The best rock as found analyzes as follows:

Per cent
Moisture 50.
Mixed oxides, iron and aluminum 1.38
Bone phosphate 84.89

The composite analyses of twenty different samples selected at random from various parts of the property, showed:

Per cent
Moisture 40.
Bone phosphate 74.98
Mixed oxides, iron and aluminum 2.49

These analyses were made by Prof. J. C. Wharton, of Nashville, Tenn.

The location of the property is especially favorable to transportation. A large part of it is immediately on the railroad, and all of it is easily accessible by spur track; while if desired, tramway could easily be provided for carrying the output to Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi river points. It is a difficult matter to make a computation on the tonnage, but it has been estimated by experts at from ten to fifteen million tons. From the developments as made, and the rock exposed, a conservative calculation places 500,000 tons in sight.

It has been demonstrated that the rock can be prepared for market and loaded on cars at Parsons, Tenn., for $1.25 to $1.50 per ton, including all expenses.

Underlying Clifton and adjacent to it are inexhaustible beds of the best hydraulic limestone cement-making rock. This section also abounds in acres for the manufacture of paints and the finest of lithograph stone.

One mile from Clifton there is an immense deposit of kaolin or Chinese clay. It is a valuable constituent, largely used in the manufacture of pottery and the enameling of book paper.

Eleven miles southeast of Clifton, near the Waynesboro pike, between Eagle and Hardin Creeks, are 1,225 acres of land on which are a fine deposit of manganese. The analysis shows 39.31 per cent manganese. The veins run from five to fifteen feet on the surface.

On Factor’s Fork is a great deposit of building rock of peculiar and marvelous quality. When first mined it is so plastic that it may be easily fashioned into any desirable shape, but a few days exposure to the air hardens it into the consistency of adamant. In the same section has been found a fine quality of lithographing stone. Concerning phosphates, it may be added that within the corporate limits of Clifton may be seen a nine foot face of the Mt. Pleasant phosphate.

It has been known for many years that this section has shown evidence of the presence of both oil and gas. In his geology of Tennessee the late Professor Killebrew showed that this point shows the first indications of these constituents south of the Cincinnati uplift. Wayne County is in the direct geological line with the oil fields of Pennsylvania and Texas. At Cincinnati the oil region stopped abruptly. The next point where it was taken up was in the Beaumont fields. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that oil exists somewhere on this line nearer Cincinnati than Beaumont. It is confidently predicted by experts that oil will be found here at a depth of less than one thousand feet.

Some very fine mineral and timber property in the vicinity of Clifton is owned by Mr. I. G. Russ. This land is now on the market. It consists of 5,000 acres known as the Old Shannonville or Bob Property; 2,000 acres known as the Walker Furnace property; and 1,200 acres known as the Carrollville or Glen Kirk property. Part of these lands are now under option and every indication points to a rapid development of these and other similar properties in the near future.

The Bob property is situated on the east side of the Tennessee river, six miles below Clifton. The land lies in the big bend of the river and is two miles wide at the narrowest point, while it is sixteen miles around by water. The elevation is high, making it one of the healthiest points in the state. Regular lines of steamboats from St. Louis and Paducah, making connections with all the railroad points from Cairo, Ill., on the Ohio river, to Florence, Ala., on the Tennessee, pass this property at all seasons of the year. The summers are delightful, the winters are mild. The erosion of limestone and iron has given this land a strong soil and fitted it well for grains, fruits, grasses, etc. A more suitable piece of property for colonization purposes cannot be found in the United States. For this purpose it has been subdivided into tracts of about one hundred acres each.

There are 560 acres of bottom land, 1,507 acres of flat land, and 3,376 acres of hill land. There is enough red and white oak and pine to make 500,000 cross-ties. It is estimated that there are about two million feet of hickory, one-half million feet of ash, two hundred thousand feet each of elm and gum, and three to five hundred thousand feet of saw oak, poplar and pine. There is also a large amount of cedar and a vigorous growth of young hickory.

The Walker Furnace property comprises 2,000 acres, and lies between Clifton and Hardin’s Creek. It is finely timbered and contains phosphates and iron ore. In addition to its other timbers it has a fine body of chestnut, estimated to cut between eight and ten thousand telegraph poles.

The Carrollville or Glenkirk property consists of 1,200 acres. It is historic ground, as once upon a time the old town of Carrollville came within one vote of being made the capital of the state. It embraces the site of Glenkirk, one of the best shipping points on the river. The land has a phosphate deposit that fertilizes and enriches it to such a degree that it annually produces a heavy yield of cotton, corn, fruit, grain and grass. It also contains inexhaustible deposits of cement and marble of a superior grade.

Overland, Clifton is twenty-five miles from Maury, the nearest railway point. Direct by water it is eighty-five miles from Johnsonville. A splendid line of packets plies the Tennessee, operated by the St. Louis & Tennessee River Packet Company, with headquarters in St. Louis. The steamers include the _Clyde_, _Kentucky_, _Shiloh_, _Memphis_, _Savannah_ and _Saltillo_. Recently the _Chattanooga_, an independent boat, has been put in commission by the enterprising citizens of that city. Clifton is served by all of these boats, thus giving a magnificent service. The _Shiloh_ is a mail packet, and makes three round trips a week between Danville and Savannah. It is the fastest boat on the river, and because of the regularity of its schedule enjoys a large passenger traffic.

The overland trip from Allen’s Creek takes one through Waynesboro, the county seat of Wayne County. This is a town of about eight hundred people. Its newest acquisition is a splendid court house, recently finished at an expense of $25,000. Waynesboro is also situated in the midst of a great iron region and its best days are yet to come.

Clifton has a population of 1,200 souls; for unlike some places, every man, woman and child in Clifton has a soul of rare quality. In all the essentials that go to make good citizenship Clifton is in the front ranks. The people are earnest and conscientious, have a firm grip on life, and live it with unvarying fidelity to high ideals.

Clifton is the only town on the Tennessee river between Florence and Paducah that has an electric light and ice plant. To go further than this, it has the best equipped and most luxuriously appointed hotel within the same limits. It was built four years ago by Mr. I. G. Russ at a cost of $25,000, and is known far and wide for its comfort and hospitality.

Three other things the town is noted for—its newspaper, its bank building and its college. The _Clifton Mirror_ is a co-operative institution, owned by the business men of the town. It is edited by one of the stockholders—H. M. Jackson. As a consequence the _Clifton Mirror_ scintillates with both original and reflected brightness, and is doing a great work in pushing this section to the front.

The People’s Bank of Clifton is steam heated and lighted by electricity and possesses every modern convenience.

Probably the greatest institution in Clifton is the Frank Hughes College. The college was only completed last summer and the first term is now being taught. Rev. J. Thompson Baker, B.L., Ph.M., is the principal of the college and he has gathered about him a faculty of earnest, ambitious educators. The school has met with phenomenal success. The enrollment for the first term is over two hundred.

The building is a splendid structure. It was erected at a cost of $15,000. It is steam-heated and lighted by electricity, and possesses every modern convenience. The money to build it was raised by private subscription, and it is a grand monument to the generosity and faith and love of a noble people.