Life — March 15, 1888 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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-* & ) VOL. XI. MARCH 15, 1888. 28 West TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW York. No. 272. Published every Thursday, $5.00 a year in advance, postage free. Single copies, 10 cents. Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol. I., bound, $15.00; Vol. II., bound, $10.00 ; Vols. III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII, IX, and X., bound or in flat numbers, at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. Subscribers wishing address changed will greatly facilitate matters by sending old address as well as new. T appears that while Mr. Howells was in Buffalo he wrote to Nathan Haskell Dole, the translator of Tolstoi: “You would be surprised at the interest in Tolstoi here—something deeper and more practical than I have found at the East. You meet men who are actually desirous of modifying their lives by his teachings.”” Of course, it is to be expected that Buffalo should take Tolstoi harder than Boston. The Boston young man is usually not desirous to modify his life by anything except more Boston, He is not an impressionable entity at all. But what we are going to comment on is the tone of sur- prise in which Mr. Howells makes this communication. “Actually desirous of modifying their lives by his teach- ings!!!" He writes to Mr. Dole like a man who knows he is telling a stiff story, and hardly expects to be believed. It is evident that he has himself experienced the surprise that he anticipates for his correspondent. What is there in the situation that should surprise Mr. Howells? He has been preaching Tolstoi for months with great zeal from one of the most influential pulpits in America. He has not only held him up as the great novelist of the day, but has praised his religious treatises, urged men to read them, and has given them the full weight of his commen- dation. What, then, is he surprised at? Does it astonish him that he has influence, or is he amazed at the credulity of mankind in general and Buffalo kind in particular ! It has doubtless occurred to many persons who, at Mr. Howells’s instigation, have made themselves familiar with Tolstoi’s peculiar religious theories, to wonder how far Mr. Howells himself was in earnest about them—to wonder whether he admired them as instances of religious truth which could be practised in every-day life, or merely as curious examples of the working of the human mind. Perhaps now that he finds that there are men who in the eager search for something better to live by are ready to take Tolstoi seriously, and work him into their lives, Mr. Howells may be led to consider whether Tolstoi’s Christian- ity is the genuine thing, all other varieties being more or less bogus, or whether in his religious notions he is a crank, whose teachings are upsetting to enthusiastic inexperience and dangerous to society. It is the opinion of this journal that Tolstoi’s religious books are only adapted to edify discriminating minds, which can sort the grain from the guff. Would not Mr. Howells himself rather applaud his idol’s teaching than practise it ? * * * Fo one person who knows anything about the philoso- phy of the late Bronson Alcott, a dozen have heard of his phenomenal incapacity in practical matters, and remem- ber him as the man who couldn’t make a living. There are plenty of other men who are gifted in this peculiar direction, but such of them as have not the advantage of private fortunes are for the most part obscure, despised and of no account. We never heard that Mr. Alcott’s private means amounted to much, and yet, in spite of his financial incapacity, he left behind a distinguished and honorable name, and descendants whose renown transcends his own. His is an example that the world cannot afford to lose, and it is to be regretted that the Concord Summer School has no machinery by which he might be canonized, and be- come the patron saint of poor providers. Only once in his whole life, the story goes, did the dear man have ten dollars in his possession. He gave it to a tramp who told him an incredible story, and the tramp, they say, brought him back the money and apologized when he found out whom he had cozened. Is there in any of the Saints’ books a story to beat that ? Since writing the above, LIFE hears, with profound sorrow, of the death of that friend of the children, old and young, Louisa M. Alcott. * * HE London Telegraph avers that fine ladies in Boston make their calls now by proxy. It may not be so, but at any rate it is a good idea, and worthy to be practised. It saves the time of women whose social activities are in- tense, and opens a new field of profitable labor for ladies. By the same token, there ought to be trained hireling- proxies, with cast-iron stomachs, to dine out for men. That would give the more popular members of our claw-hammered labor class a better chance to recuperate. Dining out in the dining season is a business by itself, and wage-earning in other fields cannot be combined with it except in modera- tion. * * * ITH this issue, Mr. J. K. Bangs retires from the Associate Editorship of LIFE. . comicbooks.com