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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1908)
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAX, PORTLAND, JANUARY 19, 190S. 11 VIEW OF UNCLE SAM'S SIXTEEN GREAT BATTLESHIPS IN LINE 1 -r- - ; . - ; r- ' "Ffttco? will uH at the smiling gate j Japanese frovert" ( WJBL 1 f IIBIIi r In Old Qsuntaiuiabia ILL J A.NV inAJlAU-Xl OLU lWMtC- r rn i Wwtlr and C'taatrAux of Old Navurre. By Francis Miltoun. Il!u(ttratd. L- C. Paga Co., Boston, and the J. K. Gill Com- ; pany. Portland. With a beautifully designed book cover In jrray. white, blue and gold, and inside pictures In color by Blanche McManus, and reproduced from paintings made on the spot Mr. Miltoun has succeeded in writing a useful book that is not only ornamental but ia a lamp illustrating; the comparatively little known region some times described as the Pyrenees, of which the old French provinces and before them the independent kingdoms, count slilps and dukedoms of Beam, Navarre, Kolx and Koussillon are the chief. No dry record appears of trade, or industrial VroRress pages are rather given from the historical book of the (rlorlous past. Feu dal days live again, and poets are proph ets as of yore. The book is what may be described irs daintily written, and from the beauty of its pictures an artistic treat. Mr. Miltoun well says that Henri dc Navarre is the. chief romantic and hia torlral figure in all that part of France bounded nn the south by the Pyrenean frontier of Spain. To an American, chief Interest must bo felt in the description Klven of the old Basque country for do not the old stories tell us that long before Colutnbua wus heard of.- Basque fisher men discovered North America? It Is thoupht that the Basques of today were originally Phoenicians, and In speaking of this people our historian writes: . Amld.t the succession ot dlrera domina tion?, one race alone came thronirh the mill hoi. unarathed and Independent. There were tie Basques. WeU sheltered In the goraren of the Pyrenees, where the Gauls. Kraucs and Saracena had never attacked their liberties, the Fta-ques have escaped any profound judgments of that race of historians and philosophers' which has dis sected mont pf the other peoples of Europe. Itome even durrd not attempt to throttle the Basque and merge them Into her ab eorblnn civilisation. A Basque will always tell you If you ask him as to whether he Ik Kronen or Spanish: "Je ne suis pas Krancels. Je euls . BuS'iue; Je ne suls V)s paanol. Je sills Basque; on tout simple-, roer.t. ye stils honime " In olden times the GoUe de Gascosne was frequented by sraat shoels of whales, and the Basques, har pooning and killing; them In the waters of their harbors, csme- to control the traffic. When the whale Industry fell off, and the whales themselves receded to the south seas, the Basques went after them, and for long they held the supremacy as before, finally chaslne; them again to the New foundland banks, which Indeed it Is claimed the Basques discovered. At any. rate, the. whaling industry proved a successful ' and profitable commerce for the Basques, and perhaps led the" way, for their migration lit large numbers to South America and other parts of the New "World. Among the Basques themselves, and per haps among others who have given study to the subject, the claim Is made that they were the real discoverers of the New World, long before Columbus sighted the Western isles. Thus Is the Columbus legend, and that of Leif, son of Eric, shattered by the traditions of a people whom most European travelers from overseas hardly know of as existing. It seems that a Spanish Basque, when on a voyage from Bayonne to Ma deira, was thrown out .of his course at the mercy of the winds and waves, and finally, after "many weeks, landed on the coast of HaytL Columbus is .thus proved a plagiarist. ' Several pages are devoted to descrip tions of the districts from whence come .the famous French wines of Bordeaux, the Sauternes, Barsac, Entre-Deux-Mers, St. Emlllon Toulouse, Armagnee, Beam, Roussiion. Languedoc, etc. The very reading of the names and their melliflu ous Bound make one thirsty! Throughout the pages are many representations of feudal castles or romantic crags places of abode not usually blessed by deeds of civic righteousness places where mur derous deeds were done at the pleasure of. lordly tyrants and where democracy was unknown. Yet Mr. Miltoun does not believe that all was oppression in feudal France. He says that the peasant land owner, as distinct from the "vilain" and "serf" was a real person and not a sup position, even before the Revolution "al though Thomas Carlyle on his fursy Scotch moor didn't know It." Feudal France consists of 70.000 fiefs or rere-fiefs of whfch 3009 gave their names to their eigneurs. All seigneurs wno possessed three chatellenles and a walled hamlet (ville closej bad the right of ad ministering Justice without reference 'to a higher court. ' There were something more than TOOO of these vllles closes within which or on the lands belonging to the eetgneurs .thereof f were l,bTZ.ouo monuments, churches,, mon asteries, abbeys, chateaux, castles' and royal or Episcopal palaces. Historians of 100 years back estimated the total population of France In the fifteenth century as being very nearly the same as at the Revolution, perhaps 3O.000.0O0. Today 8.000.000 or per haps 10,000.000 more may be counted. The French noblesse of today, the proud old French aristocracy. Is not on the whole as bad as it has frequently been painted. The feudal lords were a gallant race on. the whole. They didn't spend all their time making war they played -boules and the Jeu-de-paume and held court at their cha teaux, where minstrels sang and knights mads verses for their lady loves, and men and women amused themselves much as country-house folk do today. A' halo fit. romance seenis to be uni- I versally cast over Lourdes, possibly the most celebrated pilgrim shrine in all xthe world, but Mr. Miltoun's opinion is this: "Lourdes Is a beastly unclean and un comfortable place in which to linger, in spite of its magnliicent situation and its great and small hotels with 41 manner of 20th century conveniences. It's a plague spot on fair France, looking at it from one point of view; and a Hving supersti tion of Christendom from another. The medical men of France want to close it up; the churchmen and hotelkeepers want to keep Jt open.'J Accous is described as offering no curi osities to visitors, except as being the place where Victor Hugo gives the last glimpse of Jean Valjean when the police were close upon his trail, "at the place called the Grange de Doumec, near the hamlet of Chanvllles," runs the romance. Stirring references are made to past hlstoricaV days of Orthez, the old re ligious capital of the Huguenots. Spanish gypsies are stated to be numer ous in the Basque country, and their marriage customs are curious. "An old pot serves as a cure and notary. The marriageable couple, parents and friends assemble in a wood without priest or lawyer, or any ceremony which resem bles an official or religious act. An earthenware pot is thrown Into the air and the broken pieces as they tumble to the ground, are counted. The num of pieces indicate the duration of the partnership in years, each fragment .counting for a year.' Simple, isn't it?" ; The illustration on this book page rep resents a street scene in the old town of Feuntarrabia. ."itself a cluster of brown red houses piled high alon the narrow streets, with deep eaves overhanging grated wlno ,v and carved doorways leading' to shady courts. There is a cer tain squalid, gone-to-ruin air about everything which in this case Is but a charm. But one can picture from the blazoned stone, coat-of-arms seen here and there, that the dwellers of olden time were proud and reverend seigneurs." So passes a brilliant picture of a ro mantic, debatable land, fought ovur by Romans, Saracens, French, Spanish, and British armies. Mr, Miltoun has done his task well. But he has been guilty of one error of judgment: It Is not pos sible that all the people attracted to his book can translate from French into English. . He gives many extracts in French without adequate translation be ing appended. The Settler. -By Herman Whltaker. Price, SI. 50. Harper Brothers, New York City. It's worth reading through 100 novels of guaranteed excellence and parentage to meet this one of pure gold and drink deeply frbm its cool spring. What is the mysterious something that lifts a story like this out of the com mon rut? Surely its natural originality, ruggedness, bold character drawing, and pictures of mingled love, temptation and sacriflce leavened by a close study of primal passion. "The Settler" is a lead er and really one of the big prairie stories of the year, pulsing with human interest. Its men are strong and mas terful, while too many of the women belong to the "smart" set and are dis sipated a la Kipling. The author. Mr. Whitkker. ia a resident of Piedmont. CaL Never has such a severe attack in re cent years at least been directed against English "remittance-men" inr Canada, or worthless English idlers sent away for their country's - good and supported by money from the folks at borne. An oc casional '"rap" is .also directed against the Scotch, until the reader . begins to wonder at the bitterness displayed against two such sterling nationalities. Surely an Englishman or Scot has not come out ahead at any time in a busi ness deal with the - author, leaving the lat'ter disconsolate? If so, let this thought be his solace "it taks a lang spune tae sup wi' the dell!" But In spite of all this, Mr. Whttaker's undoubted liter ary ability shines forth and his readers are bound to admire his message. Two principal characters in the novel are Carter, strong-man and empire-builder in the Canadian Northwest, and ' Miss Helen Morrill, afterward Mrs. Carter. Carter Is usually spoken- of in the book as "Carter," and he is like a locomotive in leash. Both he and his wife are Americans. Action proper begins when Miss Morrill comes -to her brother's ranch In Manitoba to And him in the last stages of tuberculosis, and she Is escorted to her new home by tho ubiq uitous Carter, who at that time was not a very prosperous settler. The district is thus described:- "Each had Its log house, its huge tent of-firewood upreared against next Win ter's drift, and the same yellow straw stacks dotted their defenseless fields. One other thing they had in common a uni versal mortgage, legacy of the recent boom,' covered all." Young- Morrill died, and, left to earn her own living, his sister became school ma'am at Silver Creek. "I never taught school." she objects. "You'll never be gin younger," is the comforting advice she gets. All this time. Carter hovers near Ber as a sort of shy. guardian angel, but. alas! an angel who Is careless in his manner of speech and dress, although he is eminently a man. Two rivals ap pear for her affections Carter and Cap tain Calvert Molyneux, an Englishman who . was a British .army officer, but Who is in Canada as a gentleman-rancher, and Is mostly supported by wealthy relatives In England. Molyneux Is a moral leper, and all the time stands In need of a chloride-of-lime bath.' He and his idle but "aristocratic" companions are mercilessly flawed. A few extracts: Two-thirds of the settlers In Silver Creek were .of Scotch descent; . were deeply dyed with the granite hardness, harsh malig nancy, fervid bigotry which have caused the history of their race to be written In .characters of blood. Fiercely moral, dog matically religious. . . . Of Scotch des cent, dogmatic, wedded to' convention, in tense .clannishness reinforced in the settlers' bitter morality, racial hatred, the condem nation of sin. The English remittance men were Indeed over-refined. Five centuries ago the weld ing of Celt. Saxon, Roman, Norman Into one homogeneous whole was full ond com plete. Since then that potent mixture of blood had undergone , slow stagnation. Noble privileges and laws of entail had checked in the motherland those selective processes which sweep the foolish, the wicked and vicious from the face of the earth. Pro tected by the aristocratic system, the fool, idler and roue had handed their undeslra bleness down the generations, a heavy mortgage on prosperity. Ripe fruit of a vicious system, decay bad touched them at the core. Last links of a chain once strong, they had lacked the hot hammering from grim circumstance that alone could make them fit to hold and bind. . . . Their Insufferable national conceit and blind caste-feeling. ' "Frankly, my dearr we (English in Man itoba) are a rotten lot. A sweet gisl with conscience and -morality has no business among us. We couldn't scrape up enough of either article to outfit a respectable cat." Revolting from the rough settler life, she had turned to the Bngllsh set only to find that their polished ease was but the veneer "of their degeneracy, analagous to the phos. phoreseence Riven in the dark by a pois oned fish, and equally indicative ot de cay. - - Their moral and intellect ual leprosy. Miss Morrill and Carter, thinking they love each other, are married, tq find shortly afterward that they are unsuited. The young wife is filled with vain im aginings after 6tyle, polished English, and fine clothes, and is so cold to ber settler-husband that he imagines she doesn't care for him. He ultimately says: "It is' a shame to live- together, when love has fled," and leaves her to start a lumber camp elsewhere. He sends her money for support. Then the young wife is persecuted by the salacious at tention's of Captain Molyneux and other evil - remlttance-meii. Punishment meets Molyneux when in a fight with an avenger he -falls from a bridge and W drowned. The married women of his "set" make love to other women's husbands, and the bereaved husbands industriously hunt for other affinities. Carter forges ahead in his lumber camp, and ultimately emreges as a rail road king. His domestic difficulties with his wife are adjusted In sane fashion, and the closing scene is that of a reunited home. : . Oregonians will naturally prefer the admirable word pictures of lumber camp life what a pity the scene wasn't laid in Oregon! Oregon's woods are briefly mentioned on pages 221-222. In mood, a grim humor Is apparent over all, linked with critical sense. The book cover represents a plowed farm and cabin, while the frontispiece is a dashing picture in color of a woods man with his ax, cleverly painted by Mrs. Mac. M. Pease, ' wife of the editor of the Pacific Monthly of this city, in which magazine - the story recently ap peared in serial form. The Man. of'Oalllee: A New Inquiry.. By George R. Wendllng. 3. Olcott Publish ing Company. Washington, D. ' C. To decide doubts trhich high criticism had Insinuated and to widen somewhat the foundation on which his convictions rested, Mr. Wendling undertook this in quiry, and the result is a fervent appre ciation of Jesus Christ, to the extent of 270 unusually well-printed pages. Mr. Wendling says that he has pro found respect for the intellectual doubt represented by Professor Huxley, Herbert Spencer and Qoldwln Smith; believes in the sincerity of Strauss, Bauer, Schenkel and Renan; has entered fully into the spirit of Amiel; recognizes the force of much that the brilliant and profound Martineau has said as to the seat of au thority; has shared Robert-Elsmere's per plexities as to the value of testimony; and that no one holds in higher esteem the scholarship, industry and honesty of the later school of historical critics. But his one cry is: "Show us the master." Mr. Wendllng's great conviction Is that, after resolving to accept the teachings of the Galilean, and to live by them, and to confess allegiance to him you have the singular consciousness that you . are not exactly the same person you were before. ' The Chaldeans yearned for some wonder ful man to 'come; Egypt dimly foresaw h Ira; Confucius prophesied his coming; India longed for him in her Vedas; and the hope of Greek' philosophy found expression in Plato's famous prediction that such a messenger would some day visit the human race. What we wish to Impress upon the reader is this marvelous fact: After the year of our Lord S3, all that longing and aspiration found no further expression. This latter statement will be disputed today by Judaism. It is Interesting to note Mr. Wendllng's belief that Christ' native tongue was Aramaic; that he read Hebrew and prob ably spoke Greek and Latin; that he was not a reformer, but a revolutionist; that his appearance did not reveal that he was a mystic or a fanatic; that his eyes were blue and his long hair' and beard brown. "And in his face we see 'Inex haustible patience. Immovable firmness, wonderful majesty, illimitable sagacity, and fathomless, boundless love." One feels better . spiritually and Intel lectually, after reading such a sane, finely constructed presentation. The Sexual Instinct. By James Foster Bcott, M. D. 2. B... B. - Treat 4 Co.. .New York City.' ' It seems to me that no apology need be offered for the appearance of this book of wholesome advice intended for non-medical rather than professional people. It appeals with eagerness to those whose business It is to rear chil dren, whether, the reader be parent, teacher, big brother, humanitarian all bound together in the holy misbion of moulding a clean, healthy race.' The author has presented an array of terrible facts, drawn from an exten sive hospital practice, facts calculated to make'people think. His book fills a gap that has been too long empty, and all. the plain truths are explained in every-day language that leaves no room for doubt as to meaning. It's not a pretty subject this medical aspect of oneself. But all, men should read It, and then pass to neighbors. Never in a book of "know thyself," baa woman been written- about in that spirit of lofty chivalry stamped with the name of Dr. Scott of Yale and Edinburgh Universities and home and foreign hos pitals. The Sorceress of Rome, by Nathan Gallizier. . Illustrated. $1.30. I C. Page & Co., Bos ton, and the J. K. Gill Company. Portland. Rome 'in the Tenth Century, torn be tween revolting Italians and the soldiers of fortune whom they had called to pre serve order, forms ttie subject matter of this interesting novel. The special period illustrated is that in , which Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, raised the standard of revolt, expelled Gregory V as Pope and nominated as pontiff John XVI. King Otto III, of Germany, summoned his Saxons to the rescue of the rightful pontiff, the Army of Germans being led by the Margrave Bckhardt, of Meissen, Otto is a weakling who loves Stephanla, wife of Crescentius. and in the end the woman . poisons the King. . Barbaric splendor, statecraft, war and love hold the stage by turns, and the result is pleasing. There are four illustrations in color by the Kinneys, the decorations be ing by P. Verburg. These suggestive lines by Thomas Bailey Aldrich are used as a foreword: Somewhere, in desolate wind-swept .space, In, twilight-land, 'in no-man's land, ' Two hurrying shapes met face to face. And bade each other stand. "And who .are you?" cried one agape, Shuddering in the gloaming- light. "I know not."- said the second shape, "I only died last night" A Conrse In Isaac 'pitman Shorthand. Price. 1.50. Isaac Pitman & Sons, New York City. , . Recent returns from Washington, D. C. show that of the 1568 stenographic clerks employed in nine executive departments p the United States Government, 1360, or over 86 per cent, are writers of the pho nography invented by Isaac Pitman. At sthe first and second International con tests for speed and accuracy in shorthand writing under the auspices of the East ern Commercial Teachers' Association the first prizes were respectively" won by two Pitman writers, Sidney H. Godfrey and Miss Nellie M. Wood. This little book of Instruction is a new edition and will tell you all about phonography. It Is a clearly expressed exnosition of the 'author's system and designed not only ior' use in business colleges and high schools, but for self-instruction. I per sonally know Pitman's phonography, having written that system, for years. It's all right and the -"daddy" of them all. ' J. M. QUENTlN. IN. "LIBRARY ' AXD WORKSHOP The recently published "Letters of Dean Hole" probably cover a longer span than any similar collection Issued In many years. The first entry is dated 1834 and the last 1904. The "Letters" show the genial Dean of Rochester In his more - intimate aspects rather than in his official capacity as a churchman. "Manifesto of the CommuniBt Party," by Karl Marx and 'Frederick Gngels (Kerr & Co., Chicago), was first published as the platform of the "Communist League," an organisation well known In Europe just be fore the French revolution of 1848. The first English translation appeared two years later. Interesting as a a study in social economics. . . It Is expected that "In. the near future American readers will have the pleasure of welcoming new volumes lay the two most prominent of the younger English poets, Stephen Phillips and Alfred Noyes. Mr. Phillips promises "Faust: A Drama." and Mr. Noyes & miscellaneous volume, contain ing some of his wors that has not as yet appeared in print. v "The Exaltation of the Flag." edited by Robert B. Westcott.. and published by John R. Edgar & Co.. Manila, Philippine Islands, has -been received. During the Summer of HK7. sedition was active among a portion of the natives and demonstrations were di rected against Americans in the islands and particularly against the American flag. To correct .this, a patriotic maw meeting of Americans was held in Manila, August 23, 1907, and this little book contains the liter ature Incident to that interesting occasion. It forms a notable memento of our ex pansion policy. In course of the various comment attend ing his latest novel. "The Secret - Agent," Joseph Conrad has been called the rtifclple of Henry James. Such a comparison la especially curious ip view of the fact that Mr. James uses English as a natural heri tage, while Mr.- Conrad's native medium Is not English at all. but Polish. In this connection, loo, it is significant that dur ing th-s years when Joseph Conrad was ac quiring the tongue hts only model was the ppeech of the crew of a saillna-vessel. and that his occasional reading was elilelly French. - Mr. Conrad Is at present livin in Bedfordshire, England. Professor -A. Lawrence Lowell's long awaited and important work .on "England" is now in the hands of the printers and will be on sale this month. HOTEL CLERK ON FINANCE (Continued from Page 0.) war. As he crosses our main street ho Is astonished to note that many of our bright lights are still burning, with an utter disregard of cost, although it is nearly 8:46. Curiosity prompts him to stop off and investigate. "The next time the Self-Help YoyB con vene a familiar form is missing from the front pew. There's a gap in the circle where Donald sits. Dear m&! Can he be ailing? Not so as to be apparent to the eye. At that moment Donald, better known as the New Boy, Is Beated at Sherry's gazing into the soulful,' violet eyes of a winsome little keepsake from the chorus with a barber-pole com plexion and hair the color of the yolk of a four-minute egg, and he is buying for her a few of those edible knick-knacka that cost J2.15 a throw. . "About the same time he finds a large working capital Is needed. . Dainty Blanphe St. Claire, the coryphee pet, is ofttimes hungry. The boy financier knows the bank .doesn't care anything about money, because It Is willing to pay him as much as $9 a week with a promise of a raise to $10 after the third year. So he draws a few clandestine dividends without mentioning the matter to anyone. "Some fine afternoon he starts up Broadway on a car ana .gets oir in Canada. And then, Larryr they spring that Sunday school discovery, just as they sprung It on the old guy that's now en route back from the sub tropics." "I wonder what they'll do with him," said the House Detective. "The Jury will probably spend seven minutes convicting him and' seven months petitioning the President to pardon iim." said the Hotel Clerk. "That's the usual way of it." AFTER- MOTHER WAS BURIED (Continued from Page 2) geons. Lady Burton, wife of Captain Sir Richard Burton, ordered that her body should be pierced with a needle in the region of the heart" Edmund Yates. Miss Ada Cavendish, Hans Anderson aid other well-known writers left instructions that they should not be Interred until everything possible, had been done to make sure that they were lifeless. In some caBes it was the severance of a vein. In others even decapitation, that was resolved upon. Others, with a similar end in view, have adopted, or attempiea to adopt, different means. Think of Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote this subject up in his characteris tically weird fashion, trying to invent, a signaling apparatus so that those buried alive could call for help. . A Russian In ventor's Idea . was an instrument to be placed In the throat of the corpse, so that if consciousness returned and an effort was made to breathe, the effort set in mo tion certain wires, which resulted In a bell ringing in the cemetery keeper's lodge. In "Jezebel's Daughter" the Idea is very similar, save that instead of a throat apparatus, wires were fastened to the hands of the corpse. Sir Henry Lit tleton told his students at Edinburgh of a fancy coffin, fitted with patent springs 80 constructed that on the slightest indi cation of returning life they would Imme diately open the coffin and thus save th victim. The' largest quill toothpick factory Is in Paris. It was originally started as a manu factory ot quill pens.
