Hanover Browsing

Reviews of New Works of American History and Comments on Current Poetry

LATELY I HAVE been doing a little browsing in American history and J biography. I read first The James by Blair Niles, the latest in the "Rivers of America Series" issued by Farrar and Rinehart. Miss Niles doesn't tell us much about the James River, for indeed of the river itself there is not much to tell, save where its headwaters begin, and that it flows to the sea. But of the country divided by the James, and the people who made history there, she does tell. Little of what she relates is new, but it is still interesting to hear again of Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Poe, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Robert E. Lee—and of Jamestown and Williamsburg. Miss Niles writes with the proper respect; she arranges magnolia blooms and wistaria about her, pats her organdies and crinolines in place, dips her quill pen in lavender ink, gazes upon the whispering foliage and waving tulips, remembers the shades of "Marse Robert," Uncle Tom, and Silas Legree, hums Dixie, and begins to write. Whatever the result, and it is not quite satisfying, she did stimulate me to go to the library and take out the four volumes of Douglas Southall Freeman's Robert E.Lee. I had determined to read this when it came out in 1934 and 1935 but you know how it is. Its size looked formidable. The author has long been a careful student of military tactics so one is not surprised to find that more than three quarters of the life deal with Lee's military campaigns against the North from 1861 to 1865. It is a little too much, I'm sure, for the average reader, and it might pay the publisher and the author to issue a two volume edition with some of the military detail left out.

Just a year ago John P. Wadham 03 took me out from Harrisburg to visit the battlefield of Gettysburg, where the cause of the South definitely became a lost one. The battlefield is one of the most interesting places in America, and so well has the government marked out the twenty- five square miles which mark the three days' battle, and preserved it, that with a little imagination the visitor can follow the action better even than those who took part in it. Mr. Freeman's account of Gettysburg is masterly, and interested me more than any other of his accounts of Lee's battles because I had been there and could visualize the men in blue and *?ray before Cemetery Ridge, on Culp s Hill and Round Top, in the Devil's Den, and across the Peach Orchard. But the magic in the names Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and so on, was less potent. Lee's status as a general, or as a great soldier is secure. Yet I felt, not without reason, I think, that his virtues which marked him as a traditional Southern gentleman, a Christian gentleman, above all a gentleman of Virginia, decisively marred his generalship. His faith in Providence seems at times a little pathetic. When Stonewall Jackson, his most valued general, lay dying after Chancellorsville, Lee felt that his prayers for him would restore him to the South; that God would not permit the South to lose so valuable an officer. Yet Jackson died of pneumonia, and Lee accepted it as God's will. So it went through every battle for four years. Finally it was God's will that Lee should surrender at Appomatox. Had Lee been less a gentleman and more of a soldier, he would have been less considerate of the sulky Longstreet at Gettysburg. And so on. There is something irritating about Lee; he was almost, though Mr. Freeman doesn't quite admit this, on the priggish side. Yet he was a great American and far more human than he appears from this brief review. The Southerners fought with incredible bravery; for four long years they fought and often defeated the armies of the North. They lacked food, medical equipment, ammunition, cannon, and supplies, and without Lee they would have succumbed much sooner. His personal qualities were such that he inspired tremendous loyalty. The North, then and later, destroyed the South, and not yet has it come back. Bitterness remains, especially on the distaff side, and this can be readily understood. Yet Grant was generous in his terms to Lee. The catch is, of course, that Lincoln, most un- fortunately for the South, was assassinated.

The real story of a cabinet member's betrayal of Lincoln may, one learns from Philip Van Doren Stern's The Man WhoKilled. Lincoln (Random House, 1939), be revealed in 1947. We might remember, as we celebrate Lincoln's birthday, that we in the East thought little of Lincoln during his lifetime: New England least of all. But we recognize and justly revere his greatness now. Lincoln, Washington, and Lee: all Southerners, all worthy of our homage.

From Mr. Freeman's great biography I turned to the above mentioned life of John Wilkes Booth. This romantic actor, fervent Southern fanatic, with one lead pellet from a Derringer ended the hopes of the better elements of both the North and the South for an equitable settlement. On such issues is history made; Providence seems to have little to do with it. Mr. Stern does a competent job, and does win a measure of one's sympathy for the misguided Booth. This book is recommended.

Professor George F. Whicher in his definitive study of Emily Dickinson called This Was A Poet, Scribner's, ig§B, has this to say of Samuel Fowler Dickinson, Emily's grandfather, of Dartmouth, Class of 1795: "He graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was so imperfectly educated that he remained all his life a fanatical believer in the virtue of education." Thank you, Professor Whicher. At any rate S. F. Dickinson sent his own son, the father of Emily, to Yale. Owing to the Dickinson family's ideas of propriety, and what not, a legend has persisted about Emily Dickinson. This legend has mainly to do with the men she was supposedly in love with. Miss Genevieve Taggard, and other biographers, have made romantic conjectures. Professor Whicher seems to me to have the facts, and his book is by all odds the best concerning this elusive, and delicate American poet. Highly recommended.

A book which has already excited such men around the campus as Leslie Murch, P. O. Skinner, and Davis Jackson, is TheSoul of the White Ant by the late Eugene N. Marais, and published by Dodd, Mead & Cos., in 1937. The author spent many years of a busy life in South Africa studying termites. His thesis is that the individual nest of the termites is similar in every respect to the organism of an animal; workers and soldiers resembling red and white corpuscles, the fungus gardens the digestive organs, the Queen functioning as the brain, and the sexual flight being in every respect analagous to the escape of the spermatozoa and the ova. The author precedes Maeterlinck in his investigations, and often differs with the distinguished French entomologist Fabre. This book will undoubtedly surprise you, and it may charm you, too.

Hanson Baldwin in Admiral Death (Simon and Schuster) has retold twelve familiar sea disasters. There is little that is ne\v here but you may find a story, the details of which may have slipped your mind. Some of the episodes are the sinking of the Titanic, the Lusitania, the horrible disaster of the Medusa, the stoicism with which a Japanese submarine captain and crew met their death, and so forth. If anything these recapitulations are too sparse in treatment, but probably Esquire wanted just so many words for their articles. I infer this as some of these chapters were first printed in that magazine.

Burns—By Himself, by Keith Henderson, is an attempt by the author to piece together by using letters, poems, and other literary fragments, the autobiography of Robert Burns. He succeeds as well as you would expect, and the value of the book is enhanced by Mr. Henderson's drawings.

At long last a life has appeared concerning that eccentric English poet, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, long a favorite poet and diarist of mine. Miss Edith Finch, directed by Samuel Chew of Bryn Mawr, after several years' research, has written (Jonathan Cape: London) the book: Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922). She has surmounted her difficulties very well indeed. She did get the help of Sir Sidney Cockerell, one time the poet's secretary, and other of Blunt's intimates and friends, but none, I gather, from Blunt's surviving daughter Judith (Lady Wentworth). The daughter did not like her father's treatment of her mother, Lady Anne Blunt, traveller and Arabic scholar. Your library should order this book. I doubt very much that it will be published in America. Blunt is almost unknown here, but that is not his fault. For those who like great eccentrics.

Suggestions

DR. RICHARD LEE WEAVER, College Naturalist, has written recommendations for the following stories, guides, and references for those interested in birds and adventuring with birds.

Birds in the Wilderness, by George Sutton, The Macmillan Company. A series of adventures in the life of this unusual author, who takes you afield in many of his exciting bird expeditions, describes them in an amusing or breath-taking way, and then illustrates the object of the search with his brush, and finally astonishes you with the ease with which you have acquired an intimate knowledge of the habits of a bird.

Artist and Naturalist in Ethiopia, by Fuertes and Osgood, Doubleday, Doran, and Company. A memorial volume to Fuertes, America's renowned bird artist, which contains the diaries of these two great outdoor men, as they guide an expedition into the wilds of Ethiopia. An interesting contrast between these men, and an intimate account of this little known country is given. It is illustrated with six- teen full color plates by Fuertes.

Bird Studies at Old Cape May, by Witmer Stone, Academy of Natural Science, Phila. These two readable volumes succeed admirably in the difficult task of bringing together a complete record of the bird life of a region and writing it in such a way that any layman can enjoy and appreciate all of it. Its attractiveness, many illustrations, and amazing low cost, will make it a prized and easily obtained possession.

Oceanic Birds of South America, by Robert Cushman Murphy, American seum of Natural History. Two volumes brilliantly written and illustrated with sixteen of the finest illustrations of F. L. Jaques. Many years will pass before this vivid, exhaustive, and dynamic account of the bird life of a continent will be surpassed scientifically and then it will stand as a classic in natural history writing. The book will bring you near to the sea and to South America through the fine characterizations of the birds of the ocean.

Portraits of New England Birds, by Fuertes and Brooks, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. These 92 plates, beautifully colored, were the illustrations for the monumental three volume work, Birdsof Massachusetts and other New EnglandBirds, by Forbush. Although out of print, this volume is still recommended as the best set of pictures to aid the amateur in learning birds by pictures.

Bird Portraits in Color, University of Minnesota Press. This set of 92 plates contains portraits of 295 species of birds. These very serviceable and accurately colored pictures were painted by six of the best bird artists in the country and served as the illustrations for the comprehensive and attractive two volumes, Birds ofMinnesota, by Thomas Roberts.

Book of Bird Life, by Arthur A. Allen, D. Van Nostrand. An authoritative reference and profusely illustrated guide for the study of such things as migration, song, courtship, and the family life of birds, with many helpful suggestions for bird photography, bird banding, and other methods of study.

A Field Guide to the Birds, by Roger Tory Peterson, Houghton Mifflin. A book to use in helping distinguish the small differences between closely related birds. It contains only the few characters of each bird that are diagnostic in the field and many are illustrated in line drawings. The several full color plates and many black and whites are by the versatile authorartist. It is handy in size, and is an indispensable tool for the amateur.

PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE