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Kansas University Weekly.
sentiment on her. But these are the chief weaknesses. Two Pioneers is a very good sketch, in the spirit of Victor Hugo. A priest is the hero, a courtesan the heroine. There are many good descriptions and touches that tempt to quotation. "To be master of the soil, that is one thing; to be the slave of it is another." "These men seem to have got their souls all covered with muck." "The big base-burner erected in all its hideousness in the middle of the front room, like a sort of household hoodoo, to be constantly propitiated like the Gods of Greece." "It takes some money for a man to be economical with." "A strong, splendid laugh, which had never had the joy taken out of it by drawing-room restrictions." Don't you want to read it, after that?
THE LAMP OF GOLD, by Florence L. Snow, Chicago, Way & Williams.
The sonnet is the perfection of poetic form. One must have a great clear thought to put into it. A thought that would do very well for an ordinary set of four-line stanzas may seem unsatisfactory in this noble body. By choosing a sonnet sequence Miss Snow challenges the most conscientious criticism. The title, the grouping into seven groups of seven, and the sub-titles rouse expectations of a deep significance in the whole—a significance which shifts from one form to another, and finally quite eludes me. Why not let me think that this is simply a panorama of your spiritual and poetical development? But, as it is, now I think your poet is your own soul, now Lee-Hamilton, now some great favorite, as Tennyson; now I think your lover is a real lover, now an ideal lover, now your woman friend, now the Christ. What is your lamp of Gold? Love? Poetic inspiration? Christianity? I have discussed the question with seven critical friends, seven times with each, and we cannot agree. Why have any lamp of gold? Let me look at these sonnets singly, and I shall find some fine ones, some good ones and some I do not like so well. Shall I tellyou which? Nearly all of the sonnets in the sections DAYBREAK and MIDMORNING, because they are
clear and objective. I know what they say, and it is good and well said. Especially good are those beginning, "O blessed wonderings of the blessed time," "No wonder when the day-spring from on high," "The after years hold nothing half so sweet," and, best of all, this:
How good it was beneath the mounting moon
To loiter past the hazel thicket where
The baby nuts in such green growth were born
And hid away with such especial care!
And then to lean against the ancient elm
That always watched my journeyings to and fro.
And, looking upward, find the fairy realm
That only birds and children ever know!
Or stretched full length upon the mossy ground,
Where fringing fern so tenderly uncurled,
How dear it was to catch the elfin sound
That sometimes echoes from the under-world,
And learn the secrets of the quiet nook
So fondly cherished by the faithful brook."
The chief fault of those poems I do not like so well is an uncertain vagueness--the author did not wrestle long enough with the form, and it mastered her. Thus "Every spoken word that men might share," where "men might share" adds nothing, but is misleading; the line merely means "Every spoken word of men." Thus also:
"The gladdest singer voices many a strain,
"The gladdest singer voices many a strain. Beneath the anguish sobbing through the world That feels the impress of the sacred gain Within the heart of grief so purely pearled."
I have spent several hours trying to get the connection of those phrases. Perhaps a better punctuation would help them. All the sonnets are in the Shakespearean form, and smoothly done save a few inadvertent hexamters. And should you get the book? Certainly; because it is the most ambitious work thus far put forth by a Kansas author, and because it contains poetry, and is altogether clean and fine in its tone and purpose. W.H.C.
The Kansas chapter of Phi Beta Kappa have issued in pamphlet form the address delivered before the society at the last commencement by Prof. Hodder on "The Duty of the Scholar in Politics." A printed list of the members of the chapter is in preparation.