SNAP SHOTS
Middleton, George
Snap Shots Books, Art, Drama By George Middleton THERE is much that is beautiful in the little sonnet sequence Songs of The Love Unending (published by Brothers of the Book, Chicago). Kendall...
...It requires good judgment in buying and selling...
...It demands clear business organization and management for the efficient use of capital, labor, horses, and machinery...
...The change from cheap land, hand tools, and farming to raise one's own food and clothing to farming as a commercial undertaking has come upon us so suddenly that business principles are not always well understood by farmers...
...And in the sonnet called "Coronation" he strikes the power of grief to motivate life nobly and with high endeavor: My footsteps shall not falter...
...And the rest is well...
...Its scope is well indicated in the author's preface from which the following paragraphs are taken: "Farm management is the study of the business principles in farming...
...Indeed, few poems of the last decade have such a calm quality of strength underlying the pain upon the surface...
...The best way to find out what methods' of farm organization and management are most successful is to study the methods now used and profits secured on large numbers of farms, and determine how the more successful ones differ from the less successful, and find to which of the differences the success is due...
...This work treats human development from the standpoint of the ideals of the different racer as these ideals disclose themselves in the art and literature, in the philosophy and religion and in the conduct and political fortunes of each race...
...After such principles are found, they need to be tested by use in reorganizing farms...
...His faith is pictured in the sonnet entitled "Communion:" No circumstance of death shall part us twain...
...But love, our king, shall reign...
...Comment would rob them of their intimacy, as though one pulled aside the curtain with careless words...
...The conclusions in this book are based on investigations of the kind given above, and on cost accounts, census data, travel and study in different parts of the United States and experience in farming...
...Literary Notes A NEW EDITION of Henry Osborn Taylor's Ancient Ideals in two volumes has just been published...
...To some there can be no going on when life has taken the loved one without the hope of an ultimate reunion...
...Men, creeds and worlds and gods, in grim array, Like chaff before the storm, shall sweep away, And death shall die...
...My love for thee is not for but a day...
...But there is less background of tradition concerning business methods on the farm, and colleges have given little attention to this kind of problems...
...I have often wondered how much our belief in immortality has sprung from our need of it...
...I shall win My throne beside thee, by love's sword, and bear My soul erect, and as a crown shall wear The glories of the love-life that has been...
...It is hoped that the conclusions may be of use to farmers and students...
...But sometime, somehow, ever and for aye, Mine arms shall hold thee to mine own again...
...I have sought to make clear the nature of the contribution made by each of the stages of human growth reached before the Christian era...
...For there is a distinct reach towards the belief in immortality as the balm of grief, and here Mr...
...Kendall Banning has recorded in lines of deep feeling the record of a private loss and this personal note of grief transmuted into verse is touched with a high philosophy which lifts and ennobles...
...It is temperament as much as instruction which molds our philosophy of life and death...
...Others look ques-tioningly and suffer because they cannot believe...
...In these four little sonnets a note of strong faith is struck with the added resonance of a subjective strength which promises a richer, fuller life in spite of loss...
...and to indicate in what respects these contributions became permanent elements of humanity and thus elements of its further possibilities,—possibilities that find in Christianity perfect conditions for their final realization...
...The success of the individual farmer, is as much dependent on the application of business principles as it is on crop yields and production of animals...
...In vjew of the progress of historical research, causing some modification of opinion— and our judgment of the past alters not merely through the increase of our knowledge, but likewise because of changes in ourselves in these progressive decades—I have ventured to hope," says the author in his preface, "that a new historical survey of the mental and spiritual growth of mankind may be of interest to the scholar as well as to the thoughtful general reader...
...Taylor, "to preserve a unity of plan in setting forth the part taken by each race in the human drama...
...Nor do those who understand the application of such principles to city conditions often know how to apply them on the farm...
...Time shall not enter unto love's domain...
...Taylor will be remembered as the author of The Mediaeval Mind, pronounced by many authorities to be the most remarkable contribution to knowledge of recent years...
...but one may merely speak timidly of the idea back of the lines themselves...
...It may be defined as the science of the organization and management of a farm enterprise for the purpose oi securing the greatest continuous profit...
...Perhaps the most eloquent lines are the little phrases of questioning with which the sequence is introduced: When all my little worldly tasks are done, And life is through, Shall I, my love, lie down in sleep at last To dream with you...
...A BOOK which has been eagerly awaited for some time is G. F. Warren's Farm Management (Macmillan, New York), published recently in the Rural Text Book Series of which L. H. Bailey is the editor...
...Successful farming requires good judgment in choosing a farm and in deciding on a type of farming...
...Or shall I find when you and I shall rest In peace supreme, That Death is Life but on a larger plan, And Life the dreamt...
...It has been my endeavor," to quote further from Mr...
...Long ages of experience and a generation of scientific research have resulted in a fund of popular knowledge on how to raise crops and animals...
...Somewhere, between the black, abysmal night That broods in silence, endless and profound Below the thunders of the seventh hell, And heaven's utmost high, celestial height, Where perfect love by perfect peace is crowned, My soul shall find thee...
...Mr...
...Banning touches a universal note...
Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 17
