246
OF A FAMILY OF MUSICIANS
The Organist of the First Congregational Church and His Antecedents.
W. T. Taber and His Accomplishments -- The Puritan Boy Learning the Organ in the Deserted Church.
[Drawing] The wonderful thing about music -- heavenly maid -- is that she grows young whenever she is wooed. Ordinary women lose a few wrinkles out of their faces, and walk with lighter step, too, when they are loved, but at most they can only enjoy life for a part of a century, whereas music keeps dancing on down through the ages, always growing fairer to look upon, whether she wears purple robes and swings her timbrel of triumph by the Red Sea or mimics the white woes of Elsa of Braban upon the modern stage.
The lovers of music are different from the lovers of other women, because they are born with this love implanted in their souls, and no sooner do they hear the far off callings of the voice of her they are destined to live for than they cry, without so much as looking on her face: "Here, by God's rood, is the one maid for me."
These lovers come from every country on earth, and it is said that some as true crouch over the fire under the pale icelandic sky, as those who lift impassioned eyes and voices under the [hronding?] stars of Italy.
One finds these lovers right at one's own door, looking very much like other people, to be sure, but wearing on their hearts an amulet against old age and carking care.
Not so very many years ago there was born in Sherborn, Mass., one of these fortunate persons. Almost every one in Omaha knows him -- W. T. Taber, organist of the First Congregational church.
There were certain localities in the old Puritan and Pilgram districts where to be born a musician was a distinct misfortune. The frightful chill of a dogmatic and auto-eratic faith blew on all the flowers of beauty and blighted them. Wordly happiness was a crime, and music, being one of those things which conferred happiness was regarded as frivolous and dangerous. But in this desert of arid schism there were a few little onses where the esthetics grew and were cherished for a hundred years past. There was one in Maine; there was one in New York city; and there was one in Massachusetts.
Sherborn lies within a district which has given to America some of her best musical festivals and her finest musicians. So no one complained when Mr. Taber, then a shy and lank lad, hurried two miles after school to the old Pilgrim church, and climbed into the dusky organ left to play in solitude on the great organ. The occupation was at once an indulgence and a study. Each day the secret of some new harmony was learned; the function of another pedal, or the purpose of a stop, to many came there in the silence, into the knowledge of the boy -- a very shy boy, who did not like to talk, and who was even anxious that no one should know how well he was beginning to play. He shrank from voicing his enthusiasm; he was afraid that someone would discover in him an emotion. And he did not like it when anyone stole into the chilly to find out what made the organ swell so on a week day.
Practicing of a laborious sort was not a necessity with this boy. He read music with as much ease and more interest than he did letters. When he opened a music book it was to go through it from cover to cover, with avidity, as one reads a novel. And no one found any fault, or told him he was a fool or a coxcomb, as is often the habit in America when a boy is detected with a musical talent concealed about his person.
But then, who could have found fault? There was his grand-uncle, who had played the same organ for thirty years. there was his grandfather who organized the first brass band anywhere around Boston, and who could blow on any kind of an instrument you could get wind into and music out of; and another grand-0uncle, who sold pipes and horns, fiddles and flutes, melodeons and music; and there was his mother, who liked to sing better than to do anything else; and cousins and uncles and aunts, who made up a sort of faintly and musical society. None of these, it is evident, could with consistency find any fault with the lad.
After a time and much study in the New England conservatory, and particularly with Arthur Whiting of Boston, the composer and organist, and a cousin of Mr. Taber's, he took the position as organist, which had been held by his uncle for three decades. Mr. Taber played there five years. He played in a church at Worcester four years. He was seven years with the Chickering musical bureau in Boston. Then he came to Omaha. He essayed to live entirely by music, and would have managed to do so, discouraging as the circumstances were, had it not been that he was anxious to assume new responsibilities. He accepted the position of organist, of the First Congregational church and took up pen and ledger in the offices of the Burlington and Missouri railway. Then he went east and married.
Out here Mr. Taber began to try his hand at writing music. Sometimes it was a glee, sometimes a serenade, sometimes a Ge Deum. It was hard, though, to keep in the mood after a day at the desk. Anyone will admit that it is difficult to write Go Deums when one is writing in a railroad office.
The very first thing that Mr. Taber ever wrote is "The Brookside," a ballad. He did this one lazy afternoon back in Natick, in Massachusetts, in the summer of '77, when he chanced to be loading for an hour with some friends in a drug store. IN the original manuscript, where the ballad is written, is stuck the label of some patent tooth ache lotion, and on the reverse side of the sheet the [rollcking?] pencil has jotted the "Pillmaker's Waltz" -- a tribute apparently to the friends present. "Two Roses," a tenor solo, written for and often sung by Walter Kennedy, is another early song. Mr. Estabrook of this city sings an exquisite melody to the words of "Break, Break, Break." Mrs. Stowe's lines, "Think Not All Is Over," have been used in a soprano solo. William Winter's "The Apples Are Ripe in the Orchard" have furnished the idea for a gayer ballad. "O! Paradise," has been employed for a strong and simple harmony. A Te Deum in G, which promises much originality, is still unfinished. An exquisite serenade by Shelley has given the inspiration for a tenor melody which is perhaps the most delicate and imaginary work that Mr. Taber has done.
But better known than anything else that he has done is the "Cannibal Idyl," an octave chorus for men's voices. it is a very "snappy" song indeed, with a most invigoration and piquant melody, and no one who listens to it can be astonished at hearing that it is a favorite with the glee clubs of Harvard and Yale and other universities. Mr. Lang, leader of the Apollo club of Boston, the largest musical organization of the country, took it up and made it popular in Boston. It has also been sung lu light operas.
Recently, after several years of book keeping here and there, Mr. Taber decided to give his whole time to the pursuit of music. And now it will be safe to expect both dainty and serious work in the way of musical compositions form him. He is an honest worker in the field of true music. His successes may not be proud ones, but they will be creditable from every standpoint, though they will bring no more pleasure to the soul of a musician than his quietest and most unknown work. For here is an artist who works for true love of his art. Notoriety cannot add to his enthusiasm. He is never happier, perhaps, than when the congregation has filed out of church after the evening service, and he sits in the half-darkened loft, letting flow the sonorous fancies that can come through the pipes of the organ fresh from the organist's brain.
And there are many besides the musician who enjoy that hour. ELIA W. PEATTIE.
REFLECTS THE DAYLIGHT.
An Invention Which Ought to Prove a Blessing to Many People.
A very practical invention has just been completed and put on them market abroad, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It is nothing less than a "daylight reflection," by which dark rooms, factories, cellars and casements, museums, stores, etc., can be suffused with the light of day. This apparatus is impervious to the influences of inclement weather, rain, etc., because it is not lined with mercury, but consists of a highly polished, peculiarly [fluted?] metal surface. It is easily adjusted to a window by a carpenter or locksmith. The best results are obtained by adjusting the reflector to the upper part of the window, so that the sky is reflected in it and the diffused light thrown into the space that is thus to be lighted.
Many dark corners can in this way be serviceable, or used to advantage by prolonging the hours of daylight and saving the cost of artificial illumination.
The reflector can be adjusted that the light is carried to any desired point in the room.
AN ANECDOTE OF BOSWELL.
Walter Besant, in Harper's Magazine: Once, in a country inn, an aged man told me at great length, and with an infinity of windings, turns, harkings back, and episodes, a story. He was once, a long time ago, he said, a child, and in the days of his childhood there was once, remembered, some kind of fete or rejoicing at which he was present. A gentleman who was there took him into his arms and kissed him. "My dear," said the gentleman, kindly, "you will now be able to tell your children that you have been kissed by the great Boswell." "Pray, Mr. Boswell," said a lady (and I do think it was a most cruel thing to say) -- "pray, Mr. Boswell, why are you great? A story like this seems to give one a kind of connection, not granted to all the world, with the last century, because Boswell died in the year 1705.
AN OLD FASHIONED NOSEGAY.
An old fashioned nosegay, it standeth before me In old fashioned shape and in old fashioned dish; 'Twas culled by my mother, an old fashioned lady, And not here to grant me an old fashioned wish.
There's pinks and sweet williams with bergamot mingled. There's gay ragged robbins of every shade, There's roses of May time and milky white pansies A prettier nosegay could hardly be made.
A cluster of sweet scented flowers fo woodbine, And yes there's a bunch of red clover in view: And here, like a star, is a waxen day lily. Well flanked by a mass of the tall feverflow.
And low twined around is a spray of ground ivy. It's tiny blue flowers just [poeping?] in sight. While fern leaves serve well for a background effective To just a small bunch of the pretty by night.
An old fashioned nosegay with stems long and slender. Their texture unmarred by stick, wire or thong, An old fashioned girl sitting here to admire, And weave up their names in an old fashioned song. MAY BLACK. Lamar, Neb., May, 1891.
247
THE OLD FASHIONED WAY
A Pair of Old Style Lovers Found at Spirit Lake.
A Dissertation on Love in General and the Spirit Lake Variety in Particular- The "Help" Ball.
HOTEL ORLEANS, SPIRIT LAKE, Ia. Aug. 16-- It is a very pleasant thing when one has reached calm middle age, and is quite satisfied with the trend of his or her individual life, to sit down and write an essay on love.
It can be done without any personal inconvenience. It does not cause any painful palpitations nor awaken any uncomfortable memories. Or if it does, not a one of us all will admit it.
Love is commonly supposed to be the same in all ages. And its emotions may be always the same. But its demonstrations are not.
Take for example the mild love making that goes on at the Hotel Orleans. It is conducted under the eye of a chaperone. It conceals itself behind persiflage, gaiety and badinage. It does not have an opportunity to be sweet or serious.
All about this hotel stretch beautiful woods. The aspens grow in them, and the darker leaved oaks, and the lake rims the whole with silver. There is a gentle splash of water on the large stones of the beach, and a continual rustling in the woods where the gophers and the squirrels play. It is just the sort of a place where one would expect lovers to stroll.
But do they do it?
Not a bit of it. It would be eminently improper. No girl at the Hotel Orleans would think of doing such a thing. None of those elegant young men who play tennis in summer flannels and a high state of perspiration would dream of requesting a young lady to take a walk in the woods.
The chances are nowadays that if a young man and woman who have been "correctly" brought up, get married, they will be strangers at the altar.
All the discreet mothers hold nowadays that it would be decidedly contaminating for their daughters to wander away with a masculine escort under the lights and shadows of a beautiful and solitary forest. They would consider their daughters compromised, not only socially, but morally by such an act. And the odd part of it is, that the mothers were guilty of these very acts which they now so deprecate. They found a grassy road with the evening star at the end of it, a perfectly proper place to walk with a lover. And they found love a very appropriate theme of conversation.
What is more, there has been a sort of splendor, which came from that evening star that has shone with tender radiance down the long path of the years. It has pierced the darkness of despair; it has glorified the commonplace, it has illumed sacrifice, and it will triumph over death.
Now, listen, cautious chaperones and well and properly brought-up maids. Divorces are more frequent under the new regime than they were under the old! The reason is obvious. The men and women whose courtship is conducted according to the restrictions of society, do not have an opportunity to become acquainted. I insist that the dangers of the fashionable system are much greater than those of the natural one.
But as for the dangers of love- the only way to avoid them is not to love! I insist once more that both men and women become very calculating and unconsciously coarse when they are taught to act so artificially and to look upon each other with distrust. It is better to be a fool and a betrayed one, than to have knowledge which cramps the soul. The fool will be surer of heaven. In short, the person who thinks is apt not to be so moral as the person who feels
Society demands her sacrifices quite as if she was a first class goddess instead of a fifth rate one, and one of the beasts burnt on her alter is that of conventionality. It is all very well. There is no use in protesting. But I do not think real love thrives very well in such ground. I incline to the old indiscretions which were indulged in when the west was younger and we westerners were simpler than we are now.
I walked down the beach the other day. There wasn't a mortal in sight. The afternoon was perfect. The sky was grey with a tinge of blue in it which the lake did not echo. Somewhere behind a softening mist the sun made itself felt. The distance was silver. The gray waves were tipped with white, and all along the beach lay a wreath of foam. In the midst of what I supposed to be absolute solitude I raised my eyes.
Near me were two persons much younger than myself. The young man had broad shoulders and a splendid turn of a neck. His bead was simply and grandly molded. He had both arms about his companion. She was a farmer girl apparently. I do not think she was beautiful, but I really cannot tell, because she was some way so sanctified to me Beauty would have been but a trivial accessory. These two young animals were not making use of that rather harassing prerogative of man known as speech. They were simply looking at one another. I caught the look in their eyes and it made me dizzy with a sort of vicarious rapture.
They didn't see me, and I went on, feeling in an indescribable way like one of those glad, youthful figures who, eternally beautiful, move in the old Greek friezes, in an unalterable exultation of joyousness and youth. And I quite forgot that in fact there were lines in my face, and that my feet were already weary.
When I got back at the hotel I felt a sort of a shame for the immodesty of the age. For the chaperone is the confession of an immodest suspicion. She represents and protects that spurious virtue known as reputation. And in nine cases out of ten she does more to dim the soul of the maiden she conducts through the perplexing tangle of the social thicket than to brighten it.
Take it for all in all. I would rather be the farmer girl in my unsophistication, conscious of nothing but my lover's arms, than one of those worldly wise young ladies who find out too late that union of soul is necessary for married happiness.
For it is hard to get at the soul of a man or a woman in society, and the people in it are not to blame if they discover what the soul qualities of their betrothed may be.
All the same there are two or three cases of real love here at the Orleans, but they exist in spite of society and not by the grace of it. The hotel is comparatively free from what Mr. Nyo designates as a 'My God where will it all end affairs," and the air is not poisoned to any perceptible extent with intrigue. For a summer resort the Hotel Orleans is an innocent place and no contamination worse than frivolity is like t to touch anyone here.
Cottage life is every year becoming more of a feature of Spirit Lake life but as the cottage folk spend a good part of their lives in the hotel, one cannot help suspecting that the Orleans is a pretty good place to be. The Clapp cottage stands nearest the hotel and is very popular. It is an ornamental little affairs and not the least of its ornamental features is the oldest daughter of the house- who is only called old in comparison with her brothers and sisters, who are yet in the nursery, so to speak. The Clapps are from Des Moines. Beyond them lies the Ives cottage. Mrs. Ives is the wife of the president of the Burlington Cedar Rapids & Northern railroad, and a lady very much liked at this resort. She is not here this year, and her cottage is occupied by her son and his wife. The Ells worths of Iowa Falls, Dr. Ristine of Cedar Rapids, the horlems of Cedar Rapids, and Colonel Henderson of the same place have cottages along the wooded shore, all in sociable proximity to each other. A new cottage is being added to the number, built by the Pratts of Des Moines. Upon Lake Okojobi, near by, are the cottages of Colonel Clark of Cedar Rapids and the Stevens of St. Louis. The interiors of these little summer homes are gay and cheerful but not elaborate as they too frequently are at some resorts. A tire place is the chief feature, and a very welcome one, for in the early mornings here the weather is very chilly. More than one person has suffered illness from coming here without proper preparation in the way of clothing. A few rugs, some light curtains, some gay little pictures and plenty of hammocks and easy chairs make the requisite furniture of the summer cottage here. The kitchens are the only rooms that have a full equipment of "things" And then there are the boats which are more necessary than beds in this region.
At the hotel there has been a ball given. It was a notable one for two reasons. There weren't any half naked girls at it nor any champagne suppers afterward. It was the bail, in fact, of the "help". There are 125 "help" at the Orleans and very nice people they are. There never was a better set of waiters. Your correspondent has been at most of the fashionable resorts in the United States, and she was never at a place where she was waited on with such quickness and good nature. It was quite a comfort to know that all these nice fellows one meets in the dining room had the privilege of dancing with fresh faced, modest and jolly girls. These girls looked just as well, they danced just as well-or almost as well-and God, who looks at hearts and not at wardrobes, knows they were just as the ladies who thought there was a deal of difference between them- the girls and them.
There is one thing sure, there were among the "guests" of the hotel some plebeian hoses and hands and feet, some of those harsh skins which tell the story of plebeian birth, that would have been better in the servants' hall, if the eternal fitness of things was considered, than out where they were. And yet, after all- perhaps not. It is better that the world should be mixed. It is better that among those who serve there should be many with kind and courteous eyes, and grace of form and movement, and the ability to do their tasks very well and very proudly. This keeps the balance better, doesn't it?
Anyhow the ball of the "help" was a great success. Harry Sycamore's band, which plays nightly for the guests, discoursed its very best music for those feet which were oftener tired with work than with play. There was lemonade served in nice little glasses. There was Mr.McCarthy, who swung Indian clubs with grace and energy to a tune from "Ermime" There was a gentleman in the kitchen department who blacked up and gave an excellent break down. There was Mr. O'Brien who sang "My Mamma Told Me So," and got encored. And there was a reception committee which all the young women in the dishwashing departments, and the chamber departments, and the vegetable departments wanted to be on. And there were dances to "Our Employer," and "To Our Head Walter,": and "To the Ladies," and to "The Chicago World's Fair."
And there was some of the "help" which didn't care to dance with the rest of the help because the first help was in the office department; and then there were the guests who wouldn't have danced even with some of those in the office department, and then there was Fate laughing at the whole of them, and thinking how some day he would dump them all down commonly in a square of ground, reeking with the richness made of rotting humans and leave them for worms, which are the great levelers, and would just as lieve eat the little pink girl who pares the potatoes in the kitchen and sings "Annie Rooney," as that lady in point lace who sings Schubert in the drawing room.
Fate must have a lot of fun looking on at things and people and chuckling by himself! ELIA W. PEATTIE.
THE SKEPTIC'S REVERIE
I sat with my child one evening At the close of a summer a day, And she looked at me and questioned, "How far is heaven away?"
"I cannot tell, my darling," Was all that my lips could say, While I sat and thought and wondered "How far is heaven away?"
"Why you out to know, dear father, You were never puzzled before." But I could not respond, for her question Made my doubting heart feel sore.
Night a dreamy light was shining And casting on the floor The spectral shade of the poplar And the spreading sycamore
The harmony of the evening And the little [word] creed Filled my thirsting soul with longing For my nature a greatest need.
And I kissed my sweet [word] visage, Full of innocence and mirth And thought if all were like her, Then heaven would be on earth Chilo Stevens in the Pittsburg Dispatch.
OMAHA LOAN AND TRUST CO.
Subscribed and guaranteed capital $500,000 Paid in capital 500,00.
Buys and sells stocks and bonds negotiates commercial papers receives and executes trusts, [word] as transfer agent and trustee of corporations, takes charge of property; collects rents.
OMAHA LOAN AND TRUST CO.
SAVINGS BANK
S. E. Cor. 16th and Douglas Sts.
Paid in Capital $50,000 Subscribed and guaranteed capital 100,000 Liability of stockholders 200,000
5 Per Cent Interest Paid on Deposits
FRANK J LANCE. [?]
OFFICERS- A. U. Wyman resident; J. Brown, vice president W. P. Wyman, treasurer
DIRECTORS- A. U. Wyman, J. U. Millers, J. J. Brown, Guy C. Barton, W. Nash, Thos. L. Kimball, Geo, B. Lake.
Loans in any amount made on City and farm property and on Collateral [word] at lowest rates of interest.
248
AMID ANCIENT VOLUMES
Down in a Cool Cellar Surrounded by Many Ancient and Interesting Books.
Who Some of the Omaha Buyers of Rare Books Are -- What lodge Savage's Taste Runs to -- Other Collectors.
Let Omaha hurry and fret as much as she chooses, the thermometer get as outrageous as possible, and stock go up till it intoxicates or down till it plunges in despair, there is one man who does not mind.
His name is Henry Schonfeld.
When it is cold Mr. Schonfeld has a fire in his stove. When it is hot he takes off his coat and alts in the shade just without his door. Past him the crowds hurry. All around him men are fretting and planning, and wondering when rest will come from the pressure and the fever. Now and then some of these hurrying mortals stop before Mr. Schonfeld's door, linger a moment, get a damp and soothing smell from within and descend his steps.
Then for half an hour they, too, find rest.
And the secret of it is that Henry Schonfeld is a dealer in old books. He deals with an interesting past. He is surrounded by that dim and pacifying title "Antiquarian." It is ten years now since his [?] first bore that legend, and the first man lured into Mr. Schunfeld's little hole-in-the-ground by its allurements was Mr. James Ross who, was everyone knows, is a writer of charming light verse, a bohemian, a book collector and a newspaper man.
Ten years ago Mr. Ross came into the store, which had already been in existence for eleven years, but not as a concern of its present nature, and bought a copy of "Melanchton's Commentary."
"I remember quite well how it looked," says Mr. Schonfeld. "It was in a stamped vellum [?] and printed in 1530. Mr. Ross paid $15 for it." From that time to this Ross has been an almost daily visitor to the shop. He likes the coolness of it, and the dull roar from the street and the dimness of the light, and the faint but unmistakable odor of old paper, dear to the nostrils of the collector.
Poetry is usually Ross' choice -- and Mr. Schonfeld has had some rare old volumes in the course of the years.
Mr. Charles Offutt, the well-known attorney, likes to pick up women of rich exterior and classical interior, and does not object if it is a wanderer from some famous library, which, having gone the way of all libraries and suffered wreck, floats over to this country as the flotsam and jetsam of literature. There is the same delight in securing a book which has drifted about on the seas of vicissitudes that there must be in pulling in a cask of Spanish gold out of the surf to one engaged in the polite occupation of wrecking.
The writer has never had any experience with the Spanish gold exploits, and the reference is purely imaginative, but as to hauling in a book which has rested on the shelves of a great man and been touched by distinguished hands, and taking it home with a pleasure almost guilty to place it on meagre and common shelves, amid exceedingly unpretentious surroundings, she knows all about that. In the first place there is the pleasure of exulting over the book for its down fall.
"Oh, Book!" you say to yourself in the quie of your midnight hour. "to think that Wadsworth has read out of you, written in you, thought about you, and that you have sailed the high seas of his approbation to end at last on such a dull lagoon as this. Here you are, the possession of a born foo, who never had an extraordinary thought, who never did any good to anybody, who cannot even understand the best in you, although dimly she knows that there is in you some way and some where a virtue, if only she had the wit to find it! Book! Isn't it humorous? Do you not wish you were dead, like the majority of books?"
Then you open the pages and imagine you smell mould, and you are delighted at a few brown and sinuous worm holes, which are to a book what the Indian trade mark is to an oriental shawl, and you are happy.
Then too, you have another reprehensible pleasure, -- even more malicious than the one of exulting over the fallen Book. It is a sensation such as the thief must have over his stolen goods. You never feel quite honest about your Book. You know that if all had gone well you would not have had that Book. In a way it does not belong to you. It was another man's brain that first perceived its excellence. It was another man's hand that proudly wore his name -- as like as not a name with a creat above it -- and you have stolen the fruits of his discrimination, and appropriated his intellectual delight, while he poor soul lies rotting -- at least [?] grey matter does. And you laugh a sardonic, contemptible laugh, that you, plain and stupid John Smith have that book, with its crest, its number, its many evidences of having belonged to a man of great worldly and intellectual estate, and that the earl who owned it can be dust while John Smith --, is a living, breathing man -- in the flower of his meanness. Under some circumstances it is better to be John Smith than to be an earl. And one of them obviously is when John Smith is eating and the earl is being eaten -- to borrow a phrase that Judge Cooley will recognize as having been invented by his friend Hamlet.
The judge buys books, by the way. They are mostly political works. He does not confine himself to American politics in his selections. Of course Mr. Byron Reed buys works on American numismatics. If Mr. Reed were in the heart of darkest Africa, he would still be hunting for works on numismatics. Few men living have the right to plume themselves over Mr. Reed on their possession of a library on this subject in particular.
Mr. Arthur II. Bishop, the manager of the Consolidated tank line company, buys works on art, and he is not satisfied with an artistic interior, but must have a binding which will gratify the eye. No man in the city is a better up in the intricacies of dentile edges. Illumination, the treatment of tree calf and the use and history of the tall piece. He likes the elaborate illustrations of the second empire, the microscopical colored plates of the directory and the fine old margins of the careful publications of the English presses in the last century.
Brad Slaughter, the United States marshal, prefers works on art to works of art. R. W Breckenridge, the attorney, is a general reader and does not object to having the dust of a hundred years on the books he buys. He is fond of works of travel, and takes journeys by land and sea, with many great and brave men without the necessity of leaving his library. Mr. F. I. Haller likes a saunter on the cool basement where Mr. Schonfeld smiles upon Philistine and philosopher and buys extensively of works on art, particularly those relating to the old [?].
Judge Savage used to haunt the place. He was buying Shakespeareans. His collection in this direction is most exceptional. Lately he has not visited the place. His collection is doubltess complete.
Judge Bartholomew looks in almost every day. He is a fastidious reader and is not willing to insult his shelves with any but first rate books. He calls that nothing good may get away from him. But he knows what he wants, and is not to be deluded by any cheap pretense at peculiarity or excellence that any impudent book may make. The judge used to buy American biographies, but he has doubtless got his fill of American worthies -- that is, of those who are dead. It is an odd fact, by the way, that one is apt to be indifferent to contemporaneous biography. The life of Grant was an exception -- but that was an autobiography. But as a general thing one wishes his heroes to be dead at least fifty years before one reads about them. There is no objection to appreciating a recently dead hero, or even one who labors under the disadvantage of being alive, but when it comes to reading about him itis quite a different matter. A hero, like wine, is best laid away for a century. At the end of that time he acquires a fine flavor. Judge Bartholomew has no doubt got down to the last part of the nineteenth century, and is now buying the spick and span volumes that come from the eastern presses. But he probably finds his pleasure in biography diminished when he purchases the lives of the men whom he has known -- or all but known.
Charles Brown, the attorney, likes elegant light literature. "The Rev. John Williams, priest at St. Barnabas, turns a scholarly and critical eye on Mr. Schonfeld's book shelves, and sorts ou such works on philosophic and theologic subjects as he inclines toward. No doubt Mr. Williams looks remarkably well in an old book shop with that ascetic and fine face of his, and and those piercing blue eyes in which burn the fires of intellectual activity, never ceasing. His long linen duster no doubt slips back from the shoulders, his broad rimmed pannama gets pushed to the back of his head, and the good gentleman turns upon the books that magnificent concentration of his which makes him a marked man in this community -- a striking figure standing out from the commonplaceness of the clergy in particular and humanity in general, "like a good deed in a naughty world" or a panel of Correglo among the chromos of a hideously inventive ge. Father Williams doesn't like nonsense, and he will, of course, consider all this horrible nonsense. But he may allow the indulgence of it, simply for the pleasure it gives the writer, who is never better pleased than to see his long figure, graceful, severe, scholastic, whether leaning over the azure cloth on the altar of his quaint little church, speaking with his simple and beautiful positiveness, or strolling with long strides down the street with his fishing rod over his shoulder, and on his lips the general smile which includes all mankind -- even his enemies. There is one thing certain, if Mr. Williams resents these remarks, then he was only himself to blame, for he permitted himself to be bore remarkable.
It is a far cry from Father Williams, the most profound churchman of this city, to Fred Nye, the bohemian, but they both like books and know books -- which, perhaps, is their only bond -- unless the controversial babit, so well developed in both of them, can be called a bond. Mr. Nye likes humorous books, and he knows a quaint thing in old-time wit when he sees it, and has a fellow feeling, no doubt, for the man who used to jest before he was born. Perhaps these old wits have taught Mr. Nye something of that felicitous style of his. No inclination to go on the stage has ever been observed in young Mr. Henry Estabrook. None of his friends have been anxious to run him as Hamlet. But he has undeniably a fondness for dramatic literature. He likes historical and philosophical works also. Frank Irvine, the attorney, is a great book worm. He has no specialty. He buys for the pleasure of reading something entertaining. His book shelves are liberal, and so long as the company is good, he cares not what country his book guests come from, what they preach or what age they reflect. He only insists that they shall belong to the elite of literature, though he is not above taking in some one who has previously been unrecognized, and would take a distinct delight in reading a delicious book which the rest of mankind had not had the discernment to discover to be delicious.
R. S. Erwin likes biographies of statesmen and of celebrated lawyers. He wants to see how the great jurists have risen.
James B. Maikle likes works on oratory and he still finds the best wisdom in the ancient classics. The eloquence and the wisdom of the present are a little too flip for him.
Mr. C. W. Stockton, who is the chief of clerk of Wells-Fargo express company, is a man with a terrible appetite -- not for drink, but for something far more inexhaustible -- books. He reads and he buys -- no doubt he also borrows and reads -- but whatever comes he reads. He is not a specialist. His trained intellectual organs, accustomed to feats of endurance, can digest anything. No doubt he has gone from Kant to E. P. Ros and from Virgil to Will Carleton.
Mr. Homer P. Lewis, the principal of the high school, takes nothing warmer than philosophical works. Mr. Cavanaugh, the attorney, selects with critical taste such belle lettres as represents the most delicate expression of the age in which it is written. And there are many others -- chance visitors, who go out of the glare of our white streets and our relentless sun and hide a wee in the pleasant dimness of the shop of Henry Schonfeld.
Mr. Sconfeld has some funny experiences now and then. The other day a mild looking old gentleman came in. His voice was very insinuating. His smile was propitiating.
"How much do you pay," he asked in a confidential manner, "for books half an inch thick and six inches long?" He looked grieved when he learned that books were not ordinarily estimated in that manner, and could see no reason why they should not be. IT is not infrequent for a person to come into the shop and say: "I have a lot of books to sell. What are they worth to you?"
Several times in the course of his experiences Mr. Schonfield has had persons come in and say in a disgusted tone: "I've got some books up at the house and I want to know what to do with them." Mr. Schonfeld has some times suggested that it would not be a bad plan to read them. Boks are considered a very embarrassing possession by a large number of persons. They are not sufficiently marketable to recommend themselves.
One of the many amusing incidents of the old book trade here is connected in a way with Judge Savage. An old woman brought a quantity of school books in Mr. Schonfeld's in a market basket. She took them out to display them, and made a bargain with Mr. Schonfeld. One book she did not take out of the basket.
"What's that you have there," Mr. Schonfeld asked.
"Well," said she in rather a shamefaced manner, "I guess I won't take that out. It's so old I'm ashamed to show it to you." The book dealer helped himself to it It was printed in Latin, and was printed fifty
A Beautiful Ha
The boy or girl wh scribers for the Even HERALD will be give which appears below.
or four-weeks is 60c; Call for blanks at the you cannot win the Sa
This elegant whee grade of the machine m
A "SAFE
It is equally suita machine of the day.
years after printing was invented. Mr. Schonfeld preserved an impassive face.
"I will pay you $2 for it," said he. The old creature was delighted. She had not dreamed of such a windfall. Mr. Schonfeld kept it for a long time. No one seemed to want it. He concluded that he had not stuck the right market for it, and was glad finally to offer it to Judge Savage for the same price that he paid for it. The judge showed it to a number of his friends.
"It's worth $500 if it is worth a cent," they cried. There was a unanimity of sentiment on this point that rivaled a Greek chorus.
The judge went abroad in course of time and took the book with him. All of his friends over there said:
"You ought to get $300 for it."
"All right," said the judge, after the subject had become osmething of a bore. "I am willing. Give me [$500?] for it." But his friends cools at the proposition, and it is said that the judge still has the book on his hands -- and that it is still indubitably worth $500. ELIA W. PEATTIE.
A WARNING TO HOUSEWIVES.
Washington Star: A lump of ice will be mist very soon these warm mornings.
THOUGHTS IN SORROW.
These light afflicational must I then resign The name of mighty woe for grief like mine? I paused a moment, for my anxious hoart Seemed from its long-worn burden both to part. Then I remembered days and nights for [?]. Whose secret bitterness no friend might know I thought of my fond affections vainly [burst?]. Of [?] [?] that rose and glittered but to burst; Of secret struggles with unconquered sin; Of all the mighty warfare yet within! "But for a moment" sorrow seemed to stay, Through many a weary hour and live-long day;
Each opening month renewed the secret tear, And memory claimed it each revolving year. "But for a moment," could I read it right? And must I reckon these afflictions light? I looked again, and [?] before my sight There lay, in vision stretched, the land of light! There were the living streams, I heard them roll. And softest gladness rushed across my soul; I heard the ransomed wake their golden lyres. And living music breathed from all their wires. I would have learned their praise, but 'tis not given To [?] car to catch the notes of heaven. High on those hills I saw the rainbow zone That guards with circling light the golden thrones.
I gaze intently, but my beable sight was dimmed and dazzled by such cloudless light: For I am weak, and may not vainly dare That far exceeding weight of joy to share. O, 'twas not floating [?] -- no changeful day Marked how those blissful moments stole away.
The love, the joy, the praise could never cease;
Where every echo hymed sternal peace! Then I returned to weigh my grief again With that unbounded glory. O, 'twere vain, I might compare a bubble with a sphere, A heaving ocean with a trembling tear. Yes, I can reckon earthly things like this. But not my fleeting woe with endless bliss! Yet, "crushed before the moth," I seek relief
Beneath the present load of pressage grief.
* * * * * * * *
My pitying Savior, sympathy like thine Distille its healing balm with power divine; The depths of human woe to Thee are known, And Thou canst pity -- tears were once thine own.
O, leave me not to sink in faithless fear -- Let me thy gentle voice in whispers hear; THose hills of light are now thine own abode, They faithful band has marked the onward road.
Lead Thou are, and when my thankful voice shall raise
Its first glad anthem of unfaltering praise, I'll own the love that could such plane employ And work from "light afflictions" endless joy.
W. DOUGLASS CLAYPOOL.
249
A THANKSGIVING STORY
(Copyrighted 1904 Dally Story Publishing Company)
Dick Halliday and [?] criteria for the Port was a visitor for natural exits. They used to say of him that he cared less about how en actor deported himself on the stage than the manner in which he quitted it. It had read his stuff--we offices-with admiration and envy. I had aspiration in the way of dramatic criticism myself, and felt I would sacrifice almost anything if by doing so I could enjoy such opportunities as Halliday's. Imagine, then, with what a confusion of feelings I learned from the managing editor of the piper that Dick Halliday had himself made an Unexpected and involuntary Exit-as natural as life or death- and that I was invited to take his position.
Under the circumstances I thought it only decent to restrain my eagerness. I waited an interminable half day, you put on a suit of black and presented myself at the Post. I was installed in the office of the dead man I hung my coat upon his nail. I patin his chair before his desk. I pick up his pen and dipped it in his inkstand. Then I started at it and wondered if it would ever drove as trenchant, as discriminating as devoted to the ideals of art as it had been in hand which were now insert. I had not know Halliday personally, but I has admired him and sympathized with him for years. I had a right to feel regret at the quenching of his mind-or, at least. the destruction of the body which served as a medium for that reckless spirit, that peculiar imagination! I leaned back in Lick Halliday's chair, musing so, and stared at DicK Halliday's desk.
It was the desk of an orderly man. There were labels on the pigeonholes to a the effect that 'live matter' could be found here and "advance matter" there, "biography" in one place and "obituary" in another. I found a cataiogue of photographs and the photographs in a cabinet. Then I openrd the drawers of the desk. Here was a quantity of stationery some smoking tobacco, a meerschaum pipe, somewhat burned in the coloring, a clean collar and two folded handkerchiefs, half a dozen packages of letters and a memorandum book. The personal articles I took at the maraging editor.
NOT FINISHED
250
MRS. PEATTIE'S BOOK OF STORIES.
Under the title, "A Mountain Woman," Mrs. Ella W. Peattie, as heretofore noted, has issued a book of short stories which we believe will in for her a place among the most eminent American writers.
Mrs. Peattie for several years has written for an ever-widening circle of admirers. Her work upon the World-Heral day by day has given her a reputation in the west equaled by no other women while her occasional contributions to the magazines of the country have made her known to the rapidly swelling multiple of magazine readers in all parts of the United States.
The literary critic of the Chicago Times-Herald has written such an admirable critique of "The Mountain Woman" that we republish on this page in lieu of a review by the World-Herald, which might be considered somewhat prejudiced in the author's favor.
Without setting itself up as a prophet the World-Herald ventures the predication that Mrs. Peattie has now formally entered upon a literary career which will make her a wide reputation.