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Show I HooK. JVebv and Literary JSfotes. B " 1 he Philosophy of Despair." I 'The Philosophy of Despair," by David Starr Jordan, is a souvenir volume from the house of Elder & Shepard, San Francisco. The book is a I stately essay, the burden of which is to show that B there is a philosophical sorrow that the self-con-B tained soul can cultivate which amounts to cheer-B cheer-B ful resignation in the face of a man's short life and the impossibility of scientific demonstration of w hat what awaits the soul when the life here is finished. It is the work of a finished scholar, there is a great wealth of language, indeed in places the language is too majestic for the thought expressed by it: some of the deductions we think are faulty, but in the main from a lofty opening the key is maintained without one flat note to the end. "We should imagine that the writer has been immured in books all his life and .has not much mixed with all classes of men high and low. We should say that notwithstanding his high and perfect diction, it is a pity that in his youth he did not have a year's training on a daily newspaper newspa-per under a discriminating managing editor until he caught the style of writing in a way that all men could read and be charmed by his work. Through his essay there shines out a nervous, sensitive, hopeful and self-conscious nature one that abhors everything sordid, or coarse or unclean. un-clean. The book is altogether lofty in tone, some of its periods are delicious. It is beautifully gotten got-ten up and altogether a winsome volume. The Romance of the Commonplace. From Paul Elder and Morgan Shepard, San Francisco, comes "The Romance of the Commonplace," Common-place," by Gillett Burgess; essays on commonplace themes not purporting to be great, but nevertheless neverthe-less splendid, shrewd, jolly and told in words so genial that one's heart is insensibly drawn toward to-ward the writer. The writer evidently tries to picture himself through his writings as a great deal worse than he is. In the same way he tries to conceal by a seemingly careless style the vast amount of careful work which he performed before be-fore he permitted his writings to take form in type. The best of the book is its wholesomeness. There is nothing morbid, nothing pedantic. From it we would expect that the writer belonged to the Bohemian club, but at the same time would be the member selected by acclamation to perform per-form any stunt required from grandsire to funeral orator over a departed friend. A splendid book fit to go as it does in an illuminated cover. Addison Mizner, His Book. Fat and funny Addison Mizner, ably assisted by Ethel Watts Mumford and Oliver Herford and ' the good pressman at Elder & Shepard's in San Francisco, has issued "The Cynic's Calender of Revised Wisdom for 1903." And we're glad he has. It is one of the quaintest, quaint-est, most curious productions of th San Francisco Francis-co brain, and will appeal especially to San Francisco, Fran-cisco, and those who have been "through it" In other cities. From the modest black cats on the front corir ' to the three hot birds at the finish, the courses are delightfully flippant and served in the clever style peculiar to those Western publishers. The reminder is printed in red aid black, with the right poster effects asserting themselves from time to time, and such clever remarks as: "Look before you sleep." "Many are called but few get up." "Those that. came to cough remained to spray." "A church fair exchange is robbery.-" "Where there s a will there's a lawsuit" "A little lit-tle widow is a dangerous thing." "Who so find-eth find-eth a (rich) wife findeth a good thing." "As tbmi hast made thy bed, why lie about it." It is one of the best of the claw of such sayings published and makes a cunning gift to send to the right sort. But Addison, you have left out several things particularly the remarks you "made one evening last April, the night you pinched the bowl from "The Poodle Dog," and they were good7 man you remember, they were good. T. G. |