OF DEATH
(To Michael Monahan)
[From the same]
Why should I fear that ultimate thing-- The Great Release of clown and king?
Why should I dread to take my way Through the same shadowed path as they?
But can it be a shadowy road Whereon both Youth and Genius strode?
Can it be dark, since Shakespeare trod Its unknown length, to meet our God;
Since Shelley, with his valiant youth, Fared forth to learn the final Truth;
Since Milton in his blindness went With wisdom and a high content;
And Angelo lit with white flame The pathway when God called his name;
And Dante, seeking Beatrice, Marched fearless down the deep abyss?
Where Plutarch went, and Socrates, Browning and Keats, and such as these,
Homer, and Sappho with her song That echoes still for the vast throng;
Lincoln and strong Napoleon, And calm, courageous Washington;
Great Alexander, Nero--names That swept the world with deathless flames--
I need not fear that I shall fall When the Lord God's great Voice shall call;
For I shall find the roadway bright When I go forth some quiet night.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] Copyright, 1909, by Mitchell Kennerley.
[90] Copyright, 1911, by Mitchell Kennerley.
WILLIAM E. WALLING
William English Walling, writer upon sociological subjects, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, March 14, 1877. When twenty years of age he was graduated from the University of Chicago with the B. S. degree; and he subsequently did graduate work in economics and sociology for a year at the same institution. Since 1902 Mr. Walling has been a resident at the University Settlement in New York. He has contributed to many of the high-class magazines, but he is best seen as a writer in his two books, entitled _Russia's Message_ (New York, 1908); and _Socialism As It Is_ (New York, 1912). The first title, _Russia's Message_, is one of the authoritative works upon that race; and it has been received as such in many quarters. And the same statement may be made of his excellent discussion of socialism. Mr. Walling is a member of many political and social societies. He has an attractive home at Cedarhurst, Long Island.
In the early spring of 1913 the Macmillan Company will issue another book for Mr. Walling, entitled _The Larger Aspects of Socialism_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Nation_ (August 6, 1908); _Review of Reviews_ (August, 1908); _The Independent_ (May 16, 1912).
RUSSIA AND AMERICA[91]
[From _Russia's Message_ (New York, 1908)]
Russia, like the United States, is a self-sufficient country; more than a country, a world. Like the new world, the Russian world forms an almost complete economic whole, embracing under a single government nearly all, if not all, climates and nearly all the raw products used in modern life; both countries are large exporters of agricultural products, both are devoted more to agriculture than to manufacturing industry. Both of these worlds are composed largely of newly acquired and newly settled territory; though both are inhabited by very many races, in each a single race prevails numerically and in most other respects over all the rest, and keeps them together as a single whole.
As the result of the mixture of races and the recent settlement of large parts of both countries, their culture is international, world-culture, unmarked by the comparatively provincial nationalistic tendencies of England, Germany, or France. We may look, according to a great German publicist, Kautsky, to America for the great economic experiments of the near future and to Russia for the new (social) politics.
America is essentially a country of rapid economic evolution, while Russia is undeveloped, economically and financially dependent. America is the country of economic genius, a nation whose conceptions of material development have reached even a spiritual height. The great American qualities, the American virtues, the American imagination, have thrown themselves almost wholly into business, the material development of the country. Americans are the first of modern peoples that have learned to respect the repeated failures of enterprising individuals with a genius for affairs, knowing that such failures often lead to greater heights of success. They have learned how to excuse enormous waste when it was made for the sake of economics lying in the distant future. They can appreciate the enterprise of persons who, instead of immediately exploiting their properties, know how to wait, like some of our most able builders that, foreseeing the brilliant future of the locality in which they are situated, are satisfied with temporary structures and poor incomes until the time is ripe for some of the magnificent modern achievements in architecture, in which we so clearly lead. All three of these types of men we admire are true revolutionists, who prefer to wait, to waste, or to fail, rather than to accept the lesser for the greater good.
So it is with Russians in their politics. There seems no reason for doubting that the near future will show that the political failures now being made by the Russians are the failures of political genius, that the waste of lives and property will be repaid later a hundredfold, and that the hopeful and planful patience with which the Russians are looking forward and working to a great social transformation promises the greatest and most magnificent results when that transformation is achieved. Already the political revolution of the Russian people, though not yet embodied in political institutions, is becoming as rapid, as remarkable, as phenomenal, as the economic revolution of the United States.
FOOTNOTE:
[91] Copyright, 1908, by Doubleday, Page and Company.
THOMPSON BUCHANAN
Thompson Buchanan, novelist and playwright, was born at New York City, June 21, 1877. Before he was thirteen years of age his family settled at Louisville, Kentucky; and from 1890 to 1894 he attended the Male High School in that city. Being the son of a retired clergyman of the Episcopal church, it was fitting that he should select the University of the South as his college, and in September, 1895, he reached the little town of Sewanee, in the Tennessee mountains, and matriculated in the University. He left college without a degree in July, 1897, and returned to his home at Louisville, where he shortly afterwards became police court reporter for the now defunct _Louisville Commercial_. Mr.
Buchanan was connected with the _Commercial_ until 1900, save six months of service as a private in the First Kentucky Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War. He saw service in the Porto Rico campaign with his regiment and, after peace was declared, returned to his home and to his position on the paper. In 1900 Mr.
Buchanan went with _The Courier-Journal_; and during the same year he was dubbed a lieutenant in the Kentucky State Guards. In 1902 he left Colonel Watterson's paper for _The Louisville Herald_, of which he was dramatic critic for more than a year. The year of 1904 found Mr.
Buchanan in New York on _The Evening Journal_, with which he was connected for four years, when he abandoned journalism in order to devote his entire attention to literature. Mr. Buchanan's first book, _The Castle Comedy_ (New York, 1904), a romance of the time of Napoleon, which many critics compared to Booth Tarkington's _Monsieur Beaucaire_, was followed by _Judith Triumphant_ (New York, 1905), another novel, set in the ancient city of Bethulia, with the Judith of the Apocrypha as the heroine. His dramatization of _The Castle Comedy_ was so generally commended, that he decided to desert the field of fiction for the writing of plays. His first effort, _Nancy Don't Care_, was met with a like response from the public, and the young playwright presented _The Intruder_, which certainly justified belief in his ultimate arrival as a dramatist, if it did nothing more. The play that brought Mr. Buchanan wider fame than anything he has done hitherto was _A Woman's Way_, a comedy of manners, in which Miss Grace George created the character of the wife with convincing power.
_Marion Stanton_ is quite unfortunately in love with her exceedingly rich, but bored, husband, Howard Stanton, who seeks the society of other women, one of whom happens to be with him when his motor car is wrecked near New Haven at a most unseemly hour. The New York "yellows"
are advised of the accident and they, of course, desire details--which desire precipitates the action of the play. "Scandal," in type the size of an ordinary country weekly, is flashed across the "heads" of the big dailies, extras are put forth hourly, a family conference is called at the home of the Stantons, a rich young widow from the South is regarded by the papers as Stanton's partner in the accident, and a very merry time is had by all concerned. The way the woman took out of her difficulties is unfrequented by many, although it should have been well-worn long before _Marion_ made it famous. The drama was one of the authentic successes of 1909, and it certainly established its author's reputation. A novelization of _A Woman's Way_ (New York, 1909), was made by Charles Somerville, and accorded a large sale, but how infinitely better would have been a publication of the play as produced! Quite absurd novelizations of plays are at the present time one of the literary fads which should have been in at the birth and death of Charles Lamb. _The Cub_, produced in 1910, a comedy with a mixture of melodrama and farce, was concerned with a young Louisville newspaper man, "a cub," who is assigned to "cover" a family feud in the Kentucky mountains. That he finds himself in many situations, pleasant and otherwise, we may be sure. A celebrated critic called _The Cub_ "one of the wittiest of plays"--which opinion was shared by many who saw it. _Lula's Husbands_, a farce from the French, was also produced in 1910. _The Rack_, produced in 1911, was followed by _Natalie_, and _Her Mother's Daughter_, all of which were given stage presentation. Mr. Buchanan spent most of the year of 1912 writing and rehearsing his new play, _The Bridal Path_, a matrimonial comedy in three acts, which is to be produced in February, 1913. None of his plays have been issued in book form, but, besides his first two romances and the novelization of _A Woman's Way_, two other novels have appeared, entitled _The Second Wife_ (New York, 1911); and _Making People Happy_ (New York, 1911). That Thompson Buchanan is the ablest playwright Kentucky has produced is open to no sort of serious discussion; with the exception of Mr. Dazey and Mrs. Flexner he is, indeed, quite alone in his field. Kentucky has poetic dramatists almost without number, but the practical playwright, whose lines reach his audience across the footlights, is a _rara avis_. Augustus Thomas, the foremost living American playwright, resided at Louisville for a short time, and his finest drama, _The Witching Hour_, is set wholly at Louisville, although written in New York, but Kentucky's claim upon him is too slender to admit of much investigation. Mr. Buchanan has done so much in such a short space of time that one is tempted to turn his own favorite shibboleth upon him and exclaim: "Fine!"
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Theatre Magazine_ (April; May, 1909); _The American Magazine_ (November, 1910); _The Green Book_ (January, 1911).
THE WIFE WHO DIDN'T GIVE UP[92]
[From _A Woman's Way_ (_Current Literature_, New York, June, 1909)]
_Act III, Scene I. Mr. Lynch, the reporter, enters, joining General Livingston, Mrs. Stanton's father, and Bob, Morris, and Whitney, all of whom have had escapades with the winsome widow._
_General Livingston._ I represent Mr. Stanton, and I tell you, sir, I do not propose to have him hounded in this damnable fashion any longer. I shall hold you personally responsible.
_Lynch._ General, you're the fifth man who's said that to me since three o'clock.
_General Livingston._ (_Sharp._) What!
_Lynch._ And if you do physically assault me, General, I shall certainly land you in the night court, and collect space on the story spread on the front page, sure--"Famous old soldier fined for brutally assaulting innocent young newspaper man."
(_General Livingston stands completely dumbfounded, his hands twitching, quivering with rage._)