International studio (23.1904)

Book Reviews

original and native productiv-
ity, we may as well cease our
search for anything approach-
ing a school of American
criticism. Give us more of
those who till their own home
soil—the Hawthornes, the
Mark Twains at their best,
the Walt Whitmans—sons of
the soil in the best sense—
from “the child’s and less of the would-be cos-
book-plate” mopolitan Lowells and his
myriads of dry-bone disciples
in criticism of to-day,—and we should quickly
find our American literature freed from the just and
warrantable reproach of “bour-
geois,” as Mrs. Atherton rightly
stigmatizes it. This fatuous vying
with the experienced versatility of
European students and critics in
their own literature, and prepos-
terous presumption of acquiring a
point of view which their very air
and soil give them as an inherit-
ance, but to which we over here
can no more attain than we can
change the geographical position
of our continent—this fruitless
emulation is, we submit, an affec-
tation as blighting to our own
literary productiveness as it is fatal
to the very conception of the faculty
for criticism. Somewhat too much
of the text—for the critiques are
better than were to be expected
from one who apparently pins his
faith to Lowell’s utterance. In
fact, the author’s essay on “The
Solitude of Hawthorne Iso-
lation” would have been a better word—is excel-
lent and suggestive—not criticism proper, however;
but a perspicuous subjective dissertation on one of
Hawthorne’s characteristics. Other subjects dis-
cussed by the author, generally with an infusion of
far too much of the personal element, and, hence,
far too subjective for criticism proper, are as fol-
lows: A Hermit’s Notes on Thoreau; The Origin
of Hawthorne and Poe; The Influence of Emer-
son; The Spirit of Carlyle (“New Letters of
Thomas Carlyle”); The Science of English Verse
(“An Introduction to the Scientific Study of English
Poetry,” by Mark H. Liddell); Arthur Symons:
the Two Illusions; The Epic of Ireland (Lady
Gregory’s “Cuchulain of Muirthemne ”); Two

Poets of the Irish Movement (W. B. Yeats and
Lionel Johnson); Tolstoy; or The Ancient Feud
Between Philosophy and Art (“What is Art?”
by Tolstoy; “Resurrection,” by Tolstoy); The Re-
ligious Ground of Humanitarianism (Mallock’s
‘ ‘ Aristocracy and Evolution ’ ’).
The Child’s Book-Plate. By Gardner C. Teall.
With illustrations in color, and black and white.
Square, 3 2mo. New York: Charterhouse Press.
This is a little gem of book making—comprising
just sixteen pages of deckle-edged hand-made paper;
the title page a little masterpiece in black and three
flat tints; the text-pages delightfully printed in an
old style black face font; the dainty illustrations, of
which there are jnine, being each one
separately printed and lightly affixed
to the book page with paste—each
an actual book plate, in fact, inserted
in the booklet as examples of the
author’s work, and illumining his
letter-press; the binding red buck
ram, stamped in gold. We quote
from its pages: “There is nothing
in which a child takes more de-
light than in a mark of some sort
denoting ownership of his little
possessions. . . . The posses-
sion of a little book plate of his
very own, a little label well de-
signed and printed, denoting his
ownership of a book, quite leads
a child to greater interest in his
diminutive library and its care;
wherefore, it is an idea to be en-
couraged. Indeed, there can be
no more appropriate gift for a child
of any age, who cares at all for his
books, than a well selected book
plate—one that he himself will appreciate and enjoy
owning.” The author’s idea is as charming as his
expression of it, and
in choosing Christ-
mas gifts for the chil-
dren,it would indeed
be well to bear it in
mind. One can so
readily figure to one-
self the delight of a
child fixing into his
books the copies of
the design which was
drawn and printed from “the child’s
all for himself. book-plate”



FROM THE “child’s BOOK-PLATE:


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