Life — May 28, 1896 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LIFE: 439 LIFE’S TIPS TO.SUMMER READERS. yield them solid information which will be useful to them in their business. Poetry will not do that. It does not afford much solid information at best, and very little of what it does afford is useful in anyone's business. Prac- tical usefulness is not its province. People who think they can live by bread alone (as the majority of people do, for all they ought to know better) have no occasion to meddle with poetry until they have found out their mistake. But people who know that a bread-alone diet makes clay men, and who want to get all they can out of life, can- not afford to ignore poetry in this generation any more than their fathers could before them. To read good poetry is troublesome. To takein any poetry, enough to determine whether itis good or bad, involves some effort. To get at the best there is in the best poetry one must be familiar with it, and must read and study it until it gives up the ideas and the music its maker put into it. People are ready enough in these days to find recreation in physical exercise. They go out by the hundred thousand on bicycles, and keep their bodies alive, and find sport in it, but they are sluggish about exer- cising their intellectual faculties enough to get any considera- ble degree of spert out of them. When they neglect the pleasure of reading poctry they neglect a good thing, which is worth far more than it costs in time, effort and moncy. Average people, who can do what they choose, will cheerfully travel a thousand, or two or three thousand miles and spend a thousand dollars for a change of air and scene, but they grudge the dollar and the hour they spend ona book of verse which would give them a change of thought. It is less trouble to travel than it is to be amused at home, so they travel. It is more trouble to read a book of verse than to read a news- paper, so they read a newspaper. The point of least resist- ance is the easiest point at which to make the breach, but the hole through it rarely leads in the direction that it is most profitable to take. There is an attraction about a new book, even when it is a book of verse. The sages tell us to read old books and few, but new books and many are more to our taste, and itis well for the book trade that it is so, Much of the poetry of poets now deceased is better than the new poetry, but very much of it is worse. The contemporary poetry is of various merit, of course, but a great deal of it is worth reading and produces in the reader's mind the effects that poetry should produce. Then, too, in reading new poetry there are chances of discovery that are pleasant. To find a good thing that is new is more of an achievement and more exciting than a MARK TWAIN’S JOAN OF ARC. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC By Louis pe Coxre. Trans- lated fromthe French by JEAN FRANCOIS ALDEN. Ilfustrated from Drawings by Moyo, and from Paintings. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $2.50. COMPLETION OF THE BARRAS MEMOIRS. Member of the Directorate. Edited, with a General Intro- Prefaces and Appendices, by GEORGE DURUY. Translated: With Seven Portraits in Photogravure, Two Fac-Similes and Two Plans. Four Volumes. Vol. 1. The Ancient Be rime and the Revolution. Vol. II. The Directorate up to the rsth Fructidor, AILS ene, Directorate from the 18th Fructidor to the 18th Brumair ‘ol. IV Mthe sulat ‘he Empire.—The Restoration.—An Ana- Inical ladex. Svo} Cloth, Uncut Sages aed Gilt Tops, $3.75 per volume. MARY ANDERSON. APEW MEMORIES. By MARY ANDERSON (MME. DE NAVARRO). With Six Portraits, of which Fiveare Photogravures. 8vo, Cloth, Deckel Edges and Gilt Top, $2.59. ON SNOW- SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS. Teraty-six Hundred Miles after Musk-Oxenand Wood Bison, By Caspar Wirt Asthor of & jgrimage." Illustrated from Drawings by and from Photographs. 8vo, Cloth, 3-50 By WILLIAM BLACK. A Novel. By WILLIAM BLack. Illustrated. :2mo, Cloth, $1. s° ize with Harper & Brothers’ rary Edition of Mr. Black's Novels. By MARY E. WILKINS, PUDELON. A Novel. By Mary E. WILKINS. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $r.2s. THE QOUANANICHE, nadian Environment. By E. T. D. CHAMBERS. Sol, ANDREW C, P. HAGGARD, D.S.O. tamental, $2.00. IN Srhamental Huges and Gilt Top, $ ERISEIS. form in Uni- Aad its C. With an Introduction by Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Or- MARK TWAIN, New Library Editions from new electrotype plates. lished of in preparation for early issue. {he Adventures of Huckleberry Fiaa, ia King Art Court. Illustrated. ThePrince‘and the Pauper. Illustrated. aie ‘The, following volumes are pub- Crown svo, Cloth, Mlustrated. $1.75. A Life on the Miss Wher volumes to follow. nnecticut Yankee ippl. Illustrated. HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK MACMILLAN & C0’S New Novel NEW NOVEL by the author of ‘A Kentucky Cardinal,” ‘* Aftermath,” ‘Joh Gray,” ete. . Summer in Arcady A Tale of Nature By JAMES LANE ALLEN, Author of ‘A Kentucky Cardinal,” Aftermath,” Blue Grass Region of Kentucky,” "John Gray,” etc, r6mo, cloth. $1.25 “The close communion and sympathy with Nature, and the noble interpretati the wayward moods and changing phases manifested in ‘A Kentucky Ca dinal"” and ‘*Aftermath,” find nobler, sweeter, ampler expression ia thi luminous, sunlit, sun-flushed pages of his new story. NEW NOVEL by EMILE ZOLA. . Rome By EMILE ZOLA Author of ‘ Lourdes,” ‘* La Débicle,” ‘* Doctor Pascal,” ete. 201 Translated by Erne: A. Vizetelly. 2'vols,, mo, cloth. $2.00. MARION CRAWFORD'S NEW NOVEL. Adam Johnstone’s Son By F. MARION CRAWFORD Author of ** Saracinesca,” ** Pietro Ghisleri “Don Orsino,” “Casa Braccio,” eid With 24 full-page illustrations by A. FORESTIER. 12mo, ‘cloth. . $1.50. Mr. F. The Dream Charlotte A story of of Echoes. By Betham Edwards. Author of ‘John and I,” “Romance q jijon,” ‘Dr. Jacob,” etc. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. The Daughter of a Stoic By Miss Cornelia Atwood Pratt, 12mo, cloth. $1.25.