| OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN NEW BOOKS (Continued from Page 9.) story we shall not presume to pronounce. Certainly it is not far. The form as well as the spiritual content is appealing. The author has so improved his art that it is free from all cloging excresences. Each chapter is finely chiseled; nothing too much or too little obstructs or dims our vision. One of the pleasant surprises is the authors power of setting before us familiarly, especially in the earlier pages, the customs, dress, slang, puns and jokes of the seventies and eighties. We recognize all of them and applaud the writers memory and the geniality with which he unfolds these antique treasures before us. A HISTORY OF THE UNITED Chesterton. STATES. By Cecil New York: George H. Doran Company. adventurous failure there clings a light of romance that does not seem to belong to the modern world. In his closing paragraph, to which a reader is prone to. turn as novel readers do to know, before the story is finished, how it is all going to turn out, Chesterton makes the fold and instructive lowing summary: The same century that saw across the Atlantic the birth of the young republic saw in the very centre of Europe the rise of another new power (Prussia). Remote as the two were, and unlikely as it must have seemed at the time that they could ever cross each others paths, they were in a strange fashion at once . Both parallel and antipodean. were founded on a creed. And the creeds were exactly and mathematically opposed. According to the creed of Thomas Jefferson, all men were endowed by their Creator- with equal rights. According to the creed of Frederick Hohenzollem, there was no Creator, and no one possessed any rights save the right of the strongest. Through more than a century the history of the two nations is the development of the two ideas. It would have seemed unnatural if the great atheist state, in its final bid for the imposition of its creed on all nations, had not found Jeffersons republic among its enemies. That anomaly was not to be. That flag which, decked only with thirteen stars representing the original revolted colonies had first waved over Washingtons raw levies, which, as the cluster grew, had disputed on equal terms with the Cross of St. George its ancient lordship of the sea, which Jack-so- n had kept flying over New Orleans, which Scott and Taylor had carried triumphantly to Monterey, which on a memorable afternoon had been lowered over Sumter and on a yet more memorable morning raised once again over Richmond, which now bore its full complement of forty-eigstars, symbolizing great and free states stretching from ocean to ocean, appeared for the first time on a European battlefield, and received there as its new baptism of fire a salute from all the arsenals of fair-sighte- - . Chesterton, brother of K., just before he laid down his life on the battlefield in France wrote a history that is as asborbing as a novel. To begin with, Chesterton finds the motive of the Columbus expedition, which resulted in Americas discovery, in the fact that civilization of the Columbian period was approaching the summit of one of its constantly recurring periods of youth and reand that Columbus advennewal ture was a living part of the Renaissance and full of its spirit. The English colonies in America, Chesterton continues, owe their first origin partly to the English instinct for wandering on the sea, which naturally seized on the adventurous element in the Renaissance as that most congenial to the national temper. With this thought to inspire his subsequent pages, the author traces the evolution of the republic through its varying stages, down to the Rooseveltian and Wilsonian periods, closing with a striking picture of Americas part in the war with Germany. After noting the part played by English hostility to Spain in the establishment of the English colonies, hell. Chesterton says: One of the features that adds to "In the subsequent history of these tlie allure of Chestertons work colonies which became American is his clear and i ntelligent porstates we often find a curious and traitures of the men who did most to recurrent reflection of their origin. make the American story what it was. This is especially true of his Virginia was the first of those colonies to come into existence, and we representations of Jackson and Jefshall see her both as a colony and as ferson, of Clay and Sumner, of Gara state long retaining a sort of pririson and Lincoln. Many will not agree wtih the writmacy amongst them. She also retained, in the incidents of her history ers appreciation of Jackson, but that and in the characters of many of her does not alter the fact that the chargreat men, a color which seems partacterization is keen and alive. Inly Elizabethan. Her Jefferson, with his omnivorous culture, his love of deed, as a whole, Chesterton seems to music and the arts, his proficiency at have found that it is men and not the same time in sports and bodily facts that make history, and this is exercises, suggests something of the probably why he has succeeded so graceful versatility of men like Essex well in making a volume and. Ilaleigh, and we shall see her m wondrously her last agony produce a soldier that grips attention from cover to whose high chivalry and heroic and 'cover. Cecil Gil-be- lt ht fellow-historia- ns 15 INDIAS SILENT REVOLUTION. By Fred B. Fisher. -- New York: The Macmillan Company. Mr. Fisher was resident in India during Lord Curzons regime, when the partition of Bengal precipitated the extreme nationalist agitation, and he revisted the country during the recent tour of investigation by Hon. E. S. Montague, whose report is still under active discussion in England. treats his subject from the point of view of Indias present Mr. Fisher he which question, phrases as follows: Shall India follow the trend of her racial ties and the influence of the Anglo-Saxo- n culture, which has already taught her to yearn for a Magna Charta of her own? Shall she remain in spirit and influence an Aryan people? Or shall she cross the divide, and throw in her thre hundred millions, with all their man power and resources, to become a true Asian among Asiatics? The writer deals almost exclusively with contemporary, rather than historic, conditions; and he plunges at once into the deeps of the situation by showing the extent and force of the Indian movement for the encouragement of home industries. Around this propaganda, the whole vortex of modern Indian aspiration and purpose is shown to centre. Mr. Fisher says fundamental of it: The swadeshi (patronize home industries) movement in India has in the past been developed into an economic boycott of foreign goods, especially English made. It has been used as a political weapon and to retaliate against the heavy duties on Indian fabrics which were levied in the early struggling days of the English factory, and which many Indians feel practically strangled the Indian weaving industry to death. It was also used after the partition or Beni gal. Behind the swadeshi Mr. Fisher finds the renascence of the natural skill of the Indian arts and crafts, and he gives a remarkable narrative of the extent to which this skill has begun to be used in the making of factories of all sorts in all parts of the country. He also finds that the swadeshi is leading to a diversion of attention on the part of the general public from the abstractions of religion and philosophy to the materialities of industry and trade. It is carrying away the old rituals, undermining the caste system, liberating the women, and in general transforming India from an Oriental to an Occidental spirit and form. This transformation from Orientalism to Occidentalism is what Mr. Fisher means by the Silent Revolution. He does not refer to the revolution for independence which is occupying the attention of so many other works of the hour. His work, therefore, is of somewhat distinctive value. OBSERVATION PLANE (Continued from Page 8.) for ridding herself of the daily companionship of genius. But what think you, gentle ladies, of Maeterlinck? Does he come among you, under the auspices of our staid, respectable societies, to speak of virtue? Is he to lecture on high thought and clean living? Or will he tell you that genius cannot subscribe to the restrictions that fetter meaner folk? Will he tell you that it is the privilege of genius to divorce the old wife whenever a younger woman, promises to be a stimulus to greater intellectual achievement? If one in our own community, claiming the privileges and immunities of genius, should offer to lecture to our best people they- probably would spurn him as unfit to associate with decency and respectability. - Sometimes genius claims only harmless immunities, such as wearing long hair and a flowing tie or conversing noisily with the soup. We smile indulgently at thesis foibles and eccentricities and occasionally, admit the genius of this type to sacred circles of social respectability, but we do not often ask him to lecture to us on fashions and table manners. We impatiently wait until some European bard or pundit achieves a young wife after discarding the old, or forgets all about a marriage ceremony in his haste to see America first, before we extend an invitation to him to address us on domestic virtue. Gorki came over a few years ago to enlighten us on the larger life as seen from a Russian steppe and y like a true genius took with him a young woman who did not happen to be his wife. Such a hue and cry was raised in New York that' the hotels refused to let him register and Mr. Gorki and one returned to Europe highly indignant at our middle class respectability. Thus was he prevented from penetrating deeper into the country and lecturing to young ladies on the counsels of perfection. absent-mindedl- To descend from the sublime to the somewhat frivolous, we may remark that there was an era of American journalism when the newspaper writer who could imbibe everything to the fatal verge of wood alcohol and still put pencil to paper was esteemed a genius. The cub reporters used to sit around and hear their sober elders refer with awe to the beautiful things the old soak could write if lie wanted to. Most of his masterpieces were vague traditions, but all the timers remembered old- - whn he had set |
