Modern American Prose Selections | Page 2

criticism need not be dull or
deficient in charm is obvious from an examination of Mr. Bliss Perry's
masterly study of James Russell Lowell and Mr. Carl Becker's subtle
and discriminating analysis of The Education of Henry Adams. Both
writers attack subjects of considerable complexity and difficulty, and
both succeed in clarifying the thought of the discerning reader and
inducing in him an exhilarating sense of mental and spiritual
enlargement.
From the many notable autobiographies that have appeared during
recent years the editor has chosen two from which to reprint brief
passages. The first is Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, the
simple and straightforward personal narrative of one whom all must
now concede to have been a very great man; the other is that human
and poignant epic of the stranger from Denmark who became one of us
and of whom we as a people are tenderly proud. The Making of an
American is in some ways a unique book; concrete, specific,
self-revealing and yet dignified; a book that one could wish that every
American might know.
Also concrete and specific are the chapters from Mr. Ralph D. Paine
and Mr. Burton J. Hendrick. In "Bound Coastwise" Mr. Paine has
treated, with knowledge, sympathy, and imagination, an important
phase of our commercial life. As an example of narrative-exposition,
matter-of-fact yet touched with the romance of those who "go down to
the sea in ships," the excerpt is thoroughly admirable. Mr. Hendrick, in
entertaining and profitable wise, tells the story of what he considers
"probably America's greatest manufacturing exploit."
Dr. Finley "starts the imagination out upon the road" and "invites to the
open spaces," especially to those undisturbed by "the flying
automobile." "Walking," he says eagerly, "is not only a joy in itself, but
it gives an intimacy with the sacred things and the primal things of
earth that are not revealed to those who rush by on wheels."

In "Old Boats" Mr. Walter Prichard Eaton, in a manner of writing that
has of late years won him a large place in the hearts of readers,
thoughtfully contemplates the abandoned farmhouse, and lingers
wistfully beside the beached and crumbling craft of the "unplumb'd,
salt, estranging sea." Few can read, or, better, hear read, his closing
paragraph without thrilling to that "other harmony of prose." That such
a cadenced and haunting passage should have been published as
recently as 1917 should assure the doubter that there is still amongst us
a taste for the beautiful. "I live inland now, far from the smell of salt
water and the sight of sails. Yet sometimes there comes over me a
longing for the sea as irresistible as the lust for salt which stampedes
the reindeer of the north. I must gaze on the unbroken world-rim, I
must feel the sting of spray, I must hear the rhythmic crash and roar of
breakers and watch the sea-weed rise and fall where the green waves
lift against the rocks. Once in so often I must ride those waves with
cleated sheet and tugging tiller, and hear the soft hissing song of the
water on the rail. And 'my day of mercy' is not complete till I have seen
some old boat, her seafaring done, heeled over on the beach or amid the
fragrant sedges, a mute and wistful witness to the romance of the deep,
the blue and restless deep where man has adventured in craft his hands
have made since the earliest sun of history, and whereon he will
adventure, ardently and insecure, till the last syllable of recorded time."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor's thanks are due to the holders of copyrights who have
generously permitted him to include selections from books and
magazines published by them. More particularly he would express his
gratitude to the Yale University Press, to Harper and Brothers, to Henry
Holt and Co., to Doubleday, Page and Co., to the Macmillan Company,
to the Century Company, to the Frederick A. Stokes Company, to the P.
F. Collier and Son Company, to the Houghton Mifflin Company, to the
Outlook Company, to the Indiana University Bookstore, to the editor of
the Harvard Graduates' Magazine, to the editors of the American
Historical Review, and to Harcourt, Brace and Howe. Specific
indications as to the extent of the editor's borrowing will be found with

the selections.
Authors from whose work the editor has wished to quote have been
invariably gracious. To President Wilson for his essay "When a Man
Comes to Himself," to Governor Coolidge for his Holy Cross College
address, to Secretary Lane for two addresses, and to Commissioner
Howe for his article on immigration, he would express his gratitude.
President John Finley, Mr. Walter Prichard Eaton, Mr. John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., President W. L. Bryan, Mr. Alvin Johnson, Mr. John
Matthews Manly, Miss