years—no more. Pope began at twelve and ended at fifty six. In our own age, Tennyson has done well. Making an early effort to begin, he, like Dryden, did not really reach the creative epoch until he was fully thirty. His creative period covers about fifty-nine years. It extends from "A Dream of Fair Women," in 1833, to "Crossing the Bar," in 1892. The best example, however, in the history of the human mind, is that of William Cullen Bryant; that is, Bryant has real creations that lie further apart in time than can be paralleled, so far as I know, in the case of any other of the sons of men. The date of "Thanatopsis" is not precisely known. It belongs, however, to the years 1812-13. Bryant was then eighteen in his nineteenth year. Add to 1812 sixty-four years and we have 1876, the date of the publication of the "Flood of Years." The two poems in question lie apart in production by the space of fully three-score and four years. It is a marvel! And why not? To him who in the love of nature holds why should not life, productive life, enthusiastic fruitful life, be extended until its last acts of creation, shot through with the sunshine of experience and wisdom, shall flash in great bars of haze and glory over the landscape of the twilight days? Kaboto. Old John à Venice in his cockleshell Breasted the salt sea like an Englishman! Bore him to shore, whereon his hands upran Of the old Doges' wave-girt citadel. Dominion and Democracy are ours! From the first day unto the last we hold Under the Star-flag, for eternal hours, Both free and strong from mountain crag to sea! H A STROKE FOR THE PEOPLE. The ERE is a message for all: FROM AND AFTER THE ISSUANCE OF THE NUMBER FOR JULY THE REGULAR SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF THE ARENA, THE MAGAZINE OF THE PEOPLE, WILL BE REDUCED TO $2.50 A YEAR. reasons for this reduction are not far to seek. The stringency of the times, the hardships of the people, their lack of money, the decline in the prices of their products, the relentless grip of the mortgages on their homes, and the absence of any symptom of present relief from a Government under the domination and dictation of the money power, have induced the managers of THE ARENA to bear their part of the common burden and distress, and to express in a practical way their sympathies with the masses by reducing the price of the magazine to the lowest possible figure consistent with its maintenance at the present standard of efficiency and excellence. One of the immediate causes and suggestions of this course will be found in the following private letter written to THE ARENA by a plain Kansas farmer. We have obtained his permission to use his letter as an appeal to the public: "To THE ARENA. "SYLVAN GROVE, KANSAS, May 22, 1897. "GENTLEMEN: I enclose my subscription for THE ARENA for the current year. The only reason for my tardiness in doing this is pinching, grinding poverty. If we farmers do not assist the OLD ARENA, so loyal to our interests, we shall deserve the fate many of us have already accepted; that is, the doom of serfdom under the club of plutocracy. "We, at our home, are straining every nerve and denying ourselves of almost the comforts of life for the purpose of meeting our mortgage that falls due on the first of July. Our farmers here in the West are divided into four classes: "First. Those who have failed to meet even the interest on loans, who have been closed out, and are now renters, often, of the very farms which they once fondly hoped to make their own. "Second. Those who are still paying interest or keeping the companies at bay in the courts until one more crop may ripen, but without any well-founded hope of saving their homes. "Third. Those who are skimping, pinching, almost starving to pay their mortgages. I belong to this class. I still struggle with the incubus. "Fourth. A very few who wisely have never encumbered their homes. I have given the classes in the order of their numerical importance. "I live in the beautiful little West Twin Creek valley about seven miles in length. There are but two pieces of unencumbered property in the valley; one belonging to a poor widow, and the other to a bank president. Thirty-five per cent of the farms have already passed into the hands of mortgagees; many of the remainder have changed hands, shifted under renewals and various expedients to avoid the ruination of closing out. This is more than an average well-to-do community, selected from this or any other central county of Kansas. We are realizing to the full that Beneficent Effect of Falling Prices' which was so ably set forth (from his standpoint) by Dean Gordon in THE ARENA for March. If all people were out of debt, falling prices might not work so great injustice. But when a vast majority of the people are in debt, and heavily in debt, and when a man talks of the blessings that fall from falling prices, the conviction is forced upon us that the killer of fools in his annual round has missed one conspicuous example. The trouble is, our dollar of debt, instead of decreasing, has more than doubled in its power as compared with labor and the products of labor. Meanwhile our Solons talk glibly of vested rights,' 'corporate rights,' etc., strenuously objecting to squeezing the water out of their stocks, while they have by legislation for the last thirty-five years remorselessly squeezed the value out of our property. "When our debts were contracted the values of everything were double what they now are. I could then have sold my farm for three thousand dollars; now, although it has been much improved, it would go a-begging at one thousand dollars. Perhaps there is not as much distress in our country as there was three or four years ago. People have adjusted themselves somewhat to their straitened circumstances, and a few are becoming actually reconciled to their condition! I heard one man who had recently failed in business as a grain-dealer say, 'Well, Cleveland is right on this money question; we want a money good in Yurrup or any other part of the world.' As I looked at the battered hat of this personage, at the split toes of his shoes, the ragged elbows of his coat, and the rents in his demoralized nether garments, I could but ejaculate, May the Lord have mercy on your ignorant soul! what does it matter to you what kind of money they use in Europe?' "We are now taking the advice of Governor Morrill, who says: 'If you cannot get seventy-five cents a day, work for fifty cents.' Our Republican speakers advise us to dress plainly, live the same, and work still harder. We are told to stop running around to Alliances and picnics.' We have taken this advice. We had to take it! But we have now reached the bottom. We can curtail our dress no further without making our garb identical with our complexion. We cannot further reduce our rations and live. We cannot extend the hours of labor, for most of us have already adopted the blessed eight-hour system; that is, we work eight hours before dinner and eight hours after dinner. 6 "However, Kansas is coming to the front again. Since the mortgage companies are willing to do business once more our Governor is no longer ashamed of the State.' Occasionally a Republican politician squirms and kicks as the pressure is turned on. The eloquent and volcanic Ingalls breaks out at intervals. In these eruptions he pours lava upon his party in fine style. But he does not break out often enough! "The most serious bar to the progress of reform is that the people are too poor to pay for reform papers and magazines; out of these they might get the truth. The publishers of such are unable to send their periodicals for less than cost. Not so the party in power. Thousands of people get complimentary copies of the gold-bug papers, and other thousands get them for a nominal sum. Somebody pays for them. Who? "I have been pleased with THE ARENA, both old and new. I first subscribed to it in order to get 'The Bond and the Dollar,' which I consider the most succinct exposition of the American money question ever written. No publication that I am acquainted with equals THE ARENA as an educator. I wish you godspeed in your efforts for the betterment of our people and of humanity in general. I hope (almost against hope) for the peaceful solution of the difficulties that now beset our beloved country. "Sincerely yours, "A. BIGGS." Moved by the foregoing communication and scores of others of the same purport, and knowing the truth of what the honest producers (who are the very blood and sinew and soul of this Republic) say of their trials and of the wrongs to which they have been mercilessly subjected for years, THE ARENA has decided to share the common lot. With the people we shall stand or fall. Let all who can rally, therefore, rally to the support of THE ARENA, and the management will try to show the nation what a great and free American magazine devoted to American interests and American democracy really is, and will be, in the battle for human rights. Address all subscriptions and all other business communications to JOHN D. MCINTYRE, Manager of THE ARENA, Copley Square, Boston. BOOK REVIEWS. [In this Department of THE ARENA no book will be reviewed which is not regarded as a real addition to literature.] The Emperor.' At the hour when, on the evening of the first day of this century, the first asteroid was discovered by Piazzi at Naples, an olive-complexioned man was sitting smileless in a box in the opera house in Paris. He sat back where nobody could see him. It was his way not to be seen - except on business. The man was thirty-one years, four months, and sixteen days of age. He had already done something. If he had not equalled the work of Alexander at the corresponding age, he had at least surpassed Cæsar; for Cæsar at thirty was still a comparatively unknown roué in Rome. The figure in the opera box was slender and trim. He who sat there was only five feet, four and a half inches high; but his head was fine, heavy, symmetrical. His features twitched when he was disturbed, but were beautiful when he smiled. To a profound observer he looked dangerous. He had the faculty of making his face signify nothing at all. He had been begotten an insular Italian, but was born a Frenchman. His wife, a Creole, more than six years older than he, was in the box with him. She sat at the front, and was seen by thousands. She wished to be seen; and when the pit shouted in the direction of the box she smiled a little smile, with a puckered mouth for her teeth were not good. The birthplace of this man had been oddly set on the map of the world, for the meridian of Discovery and the parallel of Conquest intersect at the birthplace of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The birthlines of Cæsar and Columbus drawn, the one due west from Rome, the other due south from Genoa cross each other within a few miles of Ajaccio! It is a circumstance that might well incline one to astrology. Friends and About the birth of great men cycles of fiction grow. enemies alike invent significant circumstances. The traducers of Napoleon have said that he was illegitimate that his father was the French marshal Marbœuf. They also say, on better grounds, 1" Life of Napoleon Bonaparte." By Willian Milligan Sloane, Ph. D., L. H. D.; Professor of History in Princeton University. Four volumes, imperial octavo; pp. 1120. New York: The Century Company. Boston: Balch Brothers, 1896. |