known to the percipient. It is almost need- ber, the latter constituting a vast multitude. less to add, that the love of the marvelous A few of the knaves may have, in the course is so strong that a recorded verification pre- of ages, developed into partially honest pared after the knowledge of the event is of fanatics; the dupes have developed a vast insignificant import as evidence on such amount of credulity. The knavery, no less questions. But it is insisted that credible per- than the credulity, has become fixed by the sons have witnessed the phenomena. Why principle of heredity. The mysterious manishould we not believe them? The same kind festations were performed by the descendof almost unimpeachable testimony is to be ants of unscrupulous magicians, astrologers, had for any number of astounding occur- soothsayers, fortune-tellers, who had for rences. Why are scientific men so mistrust- thousands of years followed the same callOn this point a few words may be ing, and acquired a hereditary skill in such necessary: deceptions. It is well known that propensities or traits of character transmitted through untold gen erations of progenitors assume the fixedness of permanent instincts. They become an essential and unchangeable element in the life of the individual. In man, the instinct which ascribes a supernatural or spiritual origin to the occurrences of life and to many observed phenomena in nature, has, probably been inherited from primeval man. It has been transmitted to us from the earliest times; and perhaps, from the assumed primitive man of the pre-glacial epoch. At all At all events, it is quite certain that the earliest Assyrian civilization of the valleys of the Euphrates and of the Tigris has handed down to us, in the cuneiform writings, the most complete account of their daily life and doings, and that we thus learn that these people regulated almost every act by the predictions of magicians, astrologers, soothsayers, oracles, omens, or one form or other of impostors. It is well known that the lives of the ancient Egyptians, as well as those of the Greeks and Romans, were similarly regulated. Even in this age of boasted enlightenment this era of assumed supremacy of scientific methods how all-pervading is the influence of the hereditary supernatural instinct on the lives and conduct of the great mass of mankind! Witness the prevalence of the belief in lucky and unlucky omens. Witness the thrift of astrologers and fortune-tellers. Thus we see, that for at least five or six thousand yearsperhaps for a thousand times that periodmankind has been divided into knaves and dupes; the former comparatively few in num Under the influence of the all-pervading hereditary supernatural instinct, even the most intelligent men are, more or less, governed by the inspirations originating in this source. Are scientifically trained men entirely free from such influences? Most assuredly not. No one is able to completely shake off influences springing from the fountains of human nature. When the phenomena are of such a character that every one can, by proper arrangements, test and verify them, supernatural agencies are excluded. agencies are excluded. Such is, at present, the satisfactory aspect of purely physical and chemical phenomena. But as soon as we are constrained to accept the imposed conditions of the manifestations-are not permitted to reproduce the phenomena ourselves or are not able to verify them by arranging the conditions ourselves-the satisfactoriness of the experimental verifications vanishes. The evidence loses its satisfactory character, the phenomena become more or less mysterious, and come under the influence of the hereditary supernatural instinct. Even the most matter-of-fact practical men become the victims of such inspirations. For example, in mining operations: so long as matters go on regularly, the miners are satisfied with the applications of known laws; but when unusual or unexpected results are manifested, a malignant or evil spirit (Kobold) is invoked. The most significant and perplexing of the "Psychical Researches" recorded in this volume, are the results of experiments reproducing, with more or less accuracy, draw ings and diagrams by so-called transference of the same from the agent to the percipient without, apparently, any sensuous communication between them. The results are certainly, in some instances, very extraordinary and inexplicable. Future researches will, doubtless, demonstrate whether all the precautions necessary to obtain trustworthy results were observed. In the meantime, it is but fair that every intelligent person should thoroughly comprehend and justify the incredulity which demands the complete veri fication of phenomena that can be reproduced only by certain individuals, and under conditions which are very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate. It is extremely difficult for minds trained in familiar legal methods to comprehend the utter untrustworthiness of human testimony, when the sentiment of the marvelous is stimulated when the hereditary supernatural instinct is called into activity. In the scientific investigations of this class of phenomena, this difficulty becomes overwhelming. John Le Conte. RECENT VERSE. LAST winter at the holiday season a goodly little flock of slender volumes of poetry that was not so slender came to us for review: Browning at the head, and no one at the rear who had not at least a very respectable place among the "minor poets" of present American literature. This summer comes a fleet of very much smaller craft, with Edwin Arnold's and Mr. Stevenson's latest books in the lead, and, truth compels us to say, several Californian aspirants quite in the rear. A little fleet of this sort-these very frail vessels is a pathetic sort of thing. The prosperous minor poets, such as we reviewed last winter, are nothing to grieve over; much of what they write has a title to existence, and brings them adequate return in esteem and possibly a little in cash. Nor need one compassionate the pretty volume in which some dilettant has given himself the satisfaction of seeing his verses printed; a few kindly notices, the knowledge for the rest of his life that he is a fairly enrolled private in the army of letters, and the pretty toy itself on his own and his friends' tables, really meet all his expectations; he knew beforehand that neither fame nor fortune come of such things, and the making of the rhymes was the amusement of his leisure. But the shabby, absurd little book, from a cheap press, with bindings that begin to warp before ten pages have been read; with misprints, and occasional orthographical slips, and verses that might easily be made texts for ridicule— this is really rather pathetic than reprehensible. The critic generally ridicules it savagely, with the entirely reasonable plea that such things should be stopped. And undoubtedly they should; there can be no possible good to any one in some poor soul's saving enough out of scanty means to procure the cheapest possible dress for the giving to the world of the author's personal emotions in inefficient expressions, which will never bring back money enough to begin to pay for the painful expenditure. But these voluble expressions are usually pretty sincere; they are not art for art's sake, but the pure desire to express one's self. The untaught usually in all seriousness believe this to be the function of poetry. This makes the shabby little books all the more discomforting to read; but it ought to make the reader think somewhat gently of the very genuine blues, or ache of poverty, or loss of children, or mortification because another man got the position sought, or enjoyment of the sky and sunshine at a family picnic, that moved these metrical narrations to the world of Jones's or Miss Robinson's states of mind. They always expect a great deal of the book, too; even cherish the hope that it is going to bring them in money; so the volume not only tells its own story of the past, but also of future disappointment, and of a sore spot over it in the memory. The proud consciousness of actual authorship, of being between covers, goes far to counterbalance this, it is true; and may, in some happily con stituted dispositions affect the poet as it did Volumnia in "Theophrastus Such." If the critic can find, by internal evidence, which are the future Volumnias among the authors of obviously hopeless poems, let him confine his lash to them; time will apply it fast enough to the others. Having thus expressed in generalizations the reflections that much recent verse must awake, we turn to the special volumes now before us. Three of these, as we have said, are from California presses: Poems,1 by Madge Morris; The Land by the Sunset Sea, and Other Poems,2 by Hannah B. Gage; and Poems, by J. D. Steell. The first of these three contains poems mostly of an emotional cast, some of personal application, some occasional. There is a good deal of simple earnestness in them, and some bits of real feeling for nature, and an entirely correct, though far from subtle, ear for metre. Two or three touch the level of possible magazine verse, but the rest are all of the class that are valuable only for the pleasure and comfort the writing may have given the author, and probably also her personal friends. We quote a couple of stanzas, which, though above the average, will give an idea of the quality of the verses: "In the twilight gray and shadowy, Deepening o'er the sunset's glow, "As my thoughts in listless wandering Faces loved in days gone by." Mr. Steell's poems belong in a general way to the same class-poems whose chief reason for existence is in the pleasure that 1 Poems. By Madge Morris. San Francisco: The Golden Era Company. 1885. 2 The Land by the Sunset Sea, and Other Poems, By Hannah B. Gage. San Francisco: Philip J. Figel, 1884. For sale by Chilion Beach. Poems. By J. D. Steell. San Francisco: Golden Era Company. 1885. the writing has evidently given the author; as Mr. Whittier sweetly expressed it to a suppliant for criticism: "If it be true, as it has been said, that poetry is its own reward, thy gift will not be useless to thee." These verses betoken more reading and mental training than those of the collection just noticed: they are refined and sincere in spirit, correct in language, and show (and this is their strongest point) a very sincere pleasure in nature, though expressed totally without originality. Thus: "The sun is warm, the sky is bright, The circling meadows gleam with light; Soft dimpling round its fairy isles; "By myriads sweet wild roses blow, Reflected in the wave below." The author is saturated with the work of the standard poets, and the one really original point of his book is that he announces frankly that he does not propose to express his ideas in feeble language of his own, when some one else has already expressed the same thing well; but that, in order to be perfectly above-board in this availing himself of others' language, he will credit each quotation to the original in a note. He has not caught himself in every instance- the ode on Garfield's death, for instance is modelled with even amusing fidelity on Tennyson's Wellington ode, and without credit--but he has done so in enough cases to prove his intentions perfectly honest. In one instance, he calls attention to a whole poem as being "little more than an imitation" of one by Elizabeth Akers Allen. The imitation was unconscious, and he prints the verses "to illustrate the effect produced on my mind by Mrs. Allen's fine lyric." It illustrates more than this: it illustrates the motive-power of all this sort of verse-writing. Young people who love poetry (and that Mr. Steel is young a dated poem on his own twenty-first birthday assures us), are almost sure to take the one step from admiration to imitation; and if they find in themselves a certain facility at the mechanics of it, they will produce a great deal of verse which is in reality only the expression of their admiration for poetry and the poetic mood. So long as they are modest, this verse-habit does no harm it gives themselves pleasure, and supplies an often very convenient reservoir of local occasional verse-the town Fourth of July celebration, the baby's birthday, the minister's death; it may pleasantly characterize in verse, too, the local streams and mountains and woods, and cultivate the appreciation of the dwellers among these. If it must go beyond the local paper and the neighborhood circle, and seek book-covers, it certainly goes beyond its sphere of usefulness: but it can do no harm to any one but the author (certainly not to the public, which is far less at the mercy of verse within book-covers than in papers or magazines or on platforms). When these very mortal verses are assuming, they are somewhat irritating to the reviewer; but when they are as modest, frank, and simple as those at present under review, he cannot have any feeling but of good-will toward them. The Land by the Sunset Sea is more assuming, and hints that the author would not be greatly surprised to become famous. There is cleverness and vigor about the verses, too; but no critical taste to speak of. There is evidence of very fair natural turn for society verses, but it is only half developed. Society verses, of all things, must be done with the most finely trained critical taste. There is not behind these verses a fraction of the mental training, the knowledge of the poetic art, the familiarity with good models necessary to poetry-writing. There is no indication of any existence of that complex quality in feeling and observation that go to make the poetic "gift," in its more serious moods. The serious verse runs about like this: "A ship swung proud in the lower bay, Much less commonplace is the lighter vein: "A wee brown maid on a doorstep sat, Her small face hid 'neath a wide-brimmed hat; A broken clock on her baby knee She wound with an ancient, rusty key. 'What are you doing, my pretty one? Playing with Time?' I asked in fun. Large and wise were the soft, dark eyes Lifted to mine in a grave surprise. 'I's windin' him up to make him go, For he's so drefful poky and slow." * "Ah, baby mine! Some future day You will throw that rusted key away, And to Phoebus' car will madly cling, As it whirrs along like a winged thing, And wonder how, years and years ago, You could ever have thought that Time was slow.” In taking up the Gray Masque,1 we pass over the vague boundary between verse that is not poetry and verse that is poetry: minor poetry, it is true, and not in the first rank of that; but still poetry. The author has long been a contributor to journals, and the poems that have been year by year printed in these, together with new ones, make a collection of nearly a hundred and fifty. This is undoubtedly too many: for the thread of inspiration that runs through them is by no means suf ficient to save this long succession of mildly entertaining poems from becoming monotonous; and many of them really lack reason for existence. Yet there is among them all no marked falling below the average of gently poetic expression, pleasing versification, and sincere and refined feeling. There is, perhaps, more warmth in this than in any other (and its suggestion of Mrs. Browning is not a trait of the other poems, which are not imitative): Remember. If within your crystal soul a question If its lavish incense thrown around you Know, no aureoled saint I hold above you- If you cannot answer all the fullness Know that even so 'tis joy to move you- 1 The Gray Masque and Other Poems. By Mary Barker Dodge. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. For in this 'I love you' is a meaning Know of worth attested I approve you- a Much poetry of this class fails to take place in men's memories that it is really capable of taking, merely from lack of concentration. Not only are entirely useless lines, stanzas, poems, allowed to stand, to the dilution of the whole, but the thought is often so spread through two lines or two stanzas, that excision is impossible, and yet there is too much the two weak parts ought to have been condensed into one strong one. The only poem in the present collection which attracts our attention by this terseness is the following: line of graceful trifling to the best very recent American writing of this sort—such as Bunner's or even Sherman's; but the best of them will compare very well with the lower level of these men's work, and none of them are really ill done; the only fault one can find with them is an occasional pedantry which sounds almost crude : "As merry are thy laughing lays As his who gained Hipparchus' praise, Than Grecian Autonoë.” "We see the heavenly band with gold citoles, Their brows adorned with spotless nenuphars." This class of poetry builds its claim on perfection of form, not on feeling or thought, and therefore the least appearance of consciousness or of straining at an effect, the least flaw in manner, is a serious defect. The majority of these verses are not thus defective, and some are very neat. Perhaps more of them are good in the way of simple pictures of some natural scene than in any other. We quote one which gives a fair idea of both the descriptive and the bric-a-brac turn of these "Pictures": Completion. and society verses and "impressions." These The wind went soughing through the spicy pines things, with their air of being not serious In tender undertone, achievement, but merely sketches and stud- The throstles piped amid the tangled vines, ies, the amusement of a leisurely man or the recreation of a student, have an unpretentious effect; and the prefatory lines put this into words: "For them no glory do I dream. I only wish that they should seem Their low, sweet notes out as they soar, For the most part, they fulfil this modest aspiration fairly well, and may be classed And soft the sunbeams shone. Afar old ocean thundered on the rocks And Neptune drove his emerald-girded flocks The oaks stood gnarled and grim like witches gray, The sweet veronica fringed the winding way, Like flickering torches through the leafage green And from the thickets where they lurked unseen justly enough under the head of "graceful And yet there seemed a something wanting there, trifles." They are not nearly equal in the 1 Pictures in Song. By Clinton Scollard. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884. To make all nature smile, When, lo! sweet Clarice, like an oread fair, Came down the forest aisle." |