Atlantic Shop-Talk

SOMEBODY once showed us an early-nineteenthcentury book whose dedication was substantially this:—

Of late, it has become usual to address a book to an audience more specific than that, and less scattering; to an audience whose thoughts are more probably our thoughts. Modern books are, therefore, likely to gather about themselves a special coterie, commonly more argumentative than sainted. For example, when a reader (of whatever tongue) finds a new volume that announces itself ‘A Book for the Curious and Careful in Words and Print,’ he picks it up, not only to see if he can qualify for that peculiar guild, but also with an eye open for his own peculiar hobbies.

If he chances to be an old contributor to the Atlantic, he reads this book by Mr. George B. Ives with special care. Mr. Ives has the knack of making ‘Text, Type, and Style’ his specialty, and human frailty in these matters his concern. Consequently, all writers whose manuscript has been through his hands turn the pages of his book with a feverish anxiety similar to that with which British statesmen thumbed the memoirs of Mrs. Asquith. One of the most distinguished of the Old Guard of Atlantic authors writes, —

‘I have been enjoying Mr. Ives’s book, and amused to find myself figuring as a horrible example. You might tell him that, when I saw he had examples from Atlantic contributors, a guilty conscience led me to look up “while" in the index and to learn the worst at once.’ He found it, sure enough, in the index, where anybody can find at a glance the page where any given question of usage comes in for its share of decisive comment. The book does not run so much to the regulation dogmatic ‘rules,’ as it does to matters of good and better, and to the clash of arms that takes place in an editorial office over the ma tters which young writers like to think are automatic to the experienced.

All authors reading their proof, and all authors wishing that they had proof to read, will be interested in the attitude of a certain author who refuses to read his proof at all. He sends back his compendious galleys unread, assuring the office that their official proof-reading is quite good enough for him, and concluding, with weary dignity, ‘I am not reading it myself, as it would only unfit me for life.'

At the opening of the college year, it seems in place to announce a new ‘Atlantic Reading,’ now ready for use: After Thirty-Five Years: A Freshman of ’85 to a Freshman of To-Day, by Frederick J. E. Woodbridge. Regarding it, a business-like member of the English staff of one of our colleges writes: —

‘ Your readings are capital. The latest one, from the Freshman of ’85, is going to be a treasure in teaching the loathed subject of structure and outlining in long papers. The article is good sense in the first place, and in the second place, it has an outline! By the shades of Lomer and Ashmun, it really has! Xo “Freshman of ToDay” can say it hasn’t. With the price at fifteen cents, each student can buy one, and paste it into the back of the notebook, and never forget to bring it to class. And, best of all, it is so inexpensive that he can afford to slice it up, with scissors.’

This sounds to us like a slashing method of teaching the gentle art of outlining, but it suggests that the series of thin, paper-covered reprints that make up the sixteen ‘Atlantic Readings’ can meet a special need.

While we are on the topic of educational texts, we wish to announce the arrival in the stock-room of a new collection of supplementary readings. Story, Essay, and Verse is designed with especial care to meet the needs of the senior high school. This is in direct succession to the very successful volume from the junior-high-school list, Atlantic Prose and Poetry, and is compiled by the same editors, Charles Swain Thomas and Harry Gilbert Paul. A few of the authors represented are Masefield, Strunsky, Crothers, Gay, Dunsany, Galsworthy, Frost, Gibson, and Mark Twain.

During the recent Pilgrim pageant season at Plymouth, we gained, besides a new respect for traffic-rules, a few bits of learned lore about the Fathers. For instance, we learned (not from the pageant, but from a friend) that the pastor of the Pilgrims in Leyden used to like to sign his letters, —

Yours to use,

JOHN ROBINSON.

That stately little term might easily serve as a motto to Mrs. Francis King’s new book, The Little Garden. The book is for constant use by all amateurs of gardening on small premises. It is not a fairy tale about impossible landscapes blooming with inaccessible flowers. It concerns itself with such earthly matters as spading, and sod, and seeds, and brown bulbs, and where to plant, and how, and when. ‘Yours to use,’The Little Garden.

Once upon a time, in a moment of prophecy, Mrs. Nickleby observed to her skeptical family,

‘ Well, all I say is, remember what I say now, and when I say I said so, don’t say I didn’t.’ In somewhat the spirit of Mrs. Nickleby, we recall a prophecy of our own, regarding Mr. Edward Yeomans’s book, Shackled Youth. If we are not mistaken, we predicted for it a varied audience. And here comes a letter suggesting a variety of audience that we had not foreseen: —

‘Shackled Youth, by Edward Yeomans, recently published by you, seems to me the most remarkable volume on education that it has been my privilege to see in many years. I don’t suppose Mr. Yeomans intended the book to be used by Sunday-school teachers, but I don’t know any book that would do more to give Sundayschool teachers the background which their work demands. I want to have every teacher in my Sunday-school read and meditate upon this book during the summer.'

Still another variety is suggested in a letter stating the fact that the book is being ordered, and presumably read, by many judges of Juvenile Courts.

The special edition of Mr. A. Edward Newton’s Magnificent Farce was, of course, oversubscribed six weeks in advance of publication. (When we say we said so, don’t say we didn’t.)

On a warm August morning, in Boston, a gentleman entered a Boylston Street bookstore, and inquired for ‘a book on Ichthyology for four-year-olds.’ (This really happened. We can point out the bookstore.) The saleswoman failed to hear the syllable ‘ic,’ and understood the customer to say ‘a book on theology for fouryear-olds.’ Inured to the eccentricities of the trade, she produced a book of Bible Stories, prettily illustrated. ‘Oh, no; Ichthyology!’ explained the customer. At that, the resourceful bookwoman was brought to pause for a moment; but, rallying quickly, she told the gentleman that if the four-year-old could use a book on ornithology instead, she had in stock a book called Bird Stories, by Edith M. Patch; or if entomology would more nearly pacify, there was Hexapod Stories, by the same author.

At the end of a busy day at 8 Arlington Street, the Shop-Talk editor went downstairs to the bookroom, and seated himself at the great desk, in one of the chairs sacred to visitors, loiterers, waiters for trains, and readers of books. The editor was waiting for the last mail. And as he waited, he picked up the volumes of Atlantic books, new and old, that were scattered on the desk, and opened them at random, to see what he would light upon. There are days that are lucky for this kind of text-hunting, days when one opens instantly at good sentences. This was one of the days. The collection grew so easily that the editor, who was born with a blunt pencil in his pocket, fished one out and made these jottings on the backs of some envelopes that he had about him: —

The periods of history that are most interesting are those which have been lighted up by spiritual bonfires. — William Lloyd Garrison, by JOHN JAY CHAPMAN.

Democracy is a difficult thing to develop, to live up to or down to. — Patrons of Democracy, by DALLAS LORE SHARP.

In the successful treatment of ground small in dimensions, in the beautiful quality of the little garden, lies the true future beauty of America. — The Little Garden, by MRS. FRANCIS KING.

It is an odd thing about the guest-chamber of the past, as we enter it by the door of literature, that it is so often gloomy; often the guest-chamber was the ghost-chamber: and I, for one, am glad that it is not so any longer. — The Comforts of Home. by RALPH BERGENGREN.

To be in the right is such an easy, such a pleasant thing; what is difficult and must be tragically difficult to endure is to be artistically, tragically in the wrong. — Adventures in Indigence, by LAURA SPENCER PORTOR.

I find a club tiresome if I go often, and do not go at all. Now, if I could come and dine with you to-morrow, on two smoked herring, what a feast it would be! — A Scholar’s Letters to a Young Lady, by FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.

One who is not familiar with the business naturally finds it hard to understand how the same perfectly obvious error can go undetected through proof after proof and be passed by reader after reader; but it always has happened, it happens now, and it always will happen. — Text, Type, and Style, by GEORGE B. IVES.

If you are dull, if you are unhappy, if you are bored — Collect! — Collector’s Luck, by ALICE VAN LEER CARRICK.

You may kill me, but you shan’t publish my photograph. Always lovingly yours, — WILLIAM JAMES.