Oshkosh High School - Index Yearbook (Oshkosh, WI)

Page 27 text:

APRIL INDEX FOR NINETEEN HUNDRED SEVENTEEN Oliver Holmes was fond of, and influenced by, the eighteenth century writings, and much of his verse was modeled after Pope ' s couplets. The Bible helped toward the making of William Cullen Bryant ' s fame. When he was but a child nine years of age, he turned the first chapter of Job into classical couplets, while his later famous productions reflect the dignity, gravity, and simplicity of the Hebraic Scriptures. Washington Irving, one of our great essayists and historical writers, was mainly influenced by Addison ' s Spectator. This influence is shown in the newspaper letters which he wrote under the pen-name of Jonathan Oldstyle. These letters were modeled after the Spectator, while in his Sketch Book, many of the stories and essays are also suggestive of it. Nathaniel Hawthorn ' s early life, which was solitary, predisposed him to reading. Bunyan, Shakespeare, and Spencer were his favorite authors. Bunyan ' s and Spencer ' s writings influenced him enough to make him love the allegorical method of presenting truth. This influence was what induced him to name his daughter, Una, after one of Spencer ' s allegorical heroines, and the big cat which she played with, Lion, as suggested in the Fairie Queen. Abraham Lincoln ' s life was very much influenced by the following good and everJasting books: The Bible, Aesop ' s Fables, Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrims ' Progress, Franklin ' s Autobiography, Weems ' Life of Washington, and two or three text books. Without this good reading, which served as a guide in his writings and speeches, he could never have become President of the United States, as he had very little school education. Parts of his second Inaugural Address show even better than his Gettysburg .Address the influence of the Bible on his thought and style. Thus, we see the great part which book s have played in the lives and writings of American authors. And what is true of our own writers is equally true of the authors of other countries from Demosthenes of Greece to Thomas Carlyle of England. 0 books, ye monuments of mind, concrete wisdom of the wisest; Sweet solace of daily life, proofs and results of immortality; Trees yielding all fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations; Groves of knowledge, where all may eat, nor fear a flaming sword; Gentle comrades, kind adi ' isers; friends, comforts, treasures, Helps, governments, diversities of tongues; who can weigh your worth? — D. P. Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call Books! — Carlyle. Page twenty-five

Page 26 text:

APRIL INDEX FOR NINETEEN HUNDRED SEVENTEEN The Influence of Books on American Authors INVESTIGATION of the lives of some of America ' s greatest writers shows that they were mainly or partially influenced in their writings by famous books written by authors, who lived and wrote in an earlier time. When Benjamin Franklin, our first great American writer, was but a boy, he was very fond of reading. The books which he read at this time, Bunyan ' s, Pilgrim Progress; Burton ' s, Historical Collections; Plutarch ' s, Lives; Defoe ' s, Essay on Projects; and Cotton Mather ' s, Essays to Do Good, Franklin says in his Autobiography, gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal events of my life. He also says that this bookish inclination made his father determine that he should be a printer. During the time that he served as an apprentice for his brother,- he read the Spectator, and imitated it. The influence of this paper made him ambitious, and improved his style of writing. Daniel Webster, on the other hand, received the wrong kind of influ- ence during his early life from the Oratorical Dictionary, which contained a plentiful amount of such words as compestral, ' lupidecent, and obnu- bilate, ' with which he amply filled his early speeches. This ponderous style, which he had acquired through the influence of the Oratorical Dic- tionary, soon disappeared, however, under the tutalege of Jeremiah Mason, who made all sorts of fun of his ornate efforts. After being cured of this tendency to use flowery language, he became our greatest American orator, being no worse, but all the better for his experience. Even our great learned men were not free from this influence of books. These men were our Harvard poets, Longfellow. Lowell, Holmes, and our Quaker poet, Whittier. When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a child, he lived in a world of books. It is not strange, then, that while on his first trip abroad, the sketches of his trip, entitled. Outre Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, which he wrote during this time, should show traces of the influence of Irving ' s Sketch Book, of which he was fond as a boy. James Russell Lowell ' s mother used to sing to him the old Scotch ballad. Sir Patrick Spens, and read him to sleep with Spencer ' s Fairie Queen, when he was a child. It was probably this influence, combined with the inheritent poetic tendency, which made him one of America ' s greatest poets. When John Greenleaf Whittier was still a youth, his school teacher read aloud to the family, the poems of Robert Burns. When Whittier learned that Burns had been only a plowman it gave him hopes for himself. Burns ' influence helped him to see ... through all fa miliar things. The romance underlying. Page twenty-four

Page 28 text:

A !• K I L I N n K X FOR NINETEEN HUNDRED SEVENTEEN Books That are Worth While ONE of the best sellers this year and probably one of the most worth while books of recent years is Mr. Britling Sees It Through, by H. G. Wells. It is a book for thinkers and a book which will stimulate thought in many directions. Its action is mainly psychological, and in fol- lowing the mental processes of Mr. Britling or merely in trying to keep up with the ordinary trend of the plot, we find our ideas on many questions of modern intellectual and political interest broadening and developing. We like the atmosphere of the book, the humor and depth of thought hold us, and we are touched by the broad sympathy of the letter from an English father, whose son had been killed in battle, to a German father, also bereaved. So, dear reader, do not be scared out in the first hundred pages by the large vocabularly of Mr. Wells, and we are sure that you will enjoy the book as much as we did. When a Man ' s a Man, by Harold Bell Wright, also a best seller in 1916, is another book that is considered worth while. It has an artistic beginning and ending, but otherwise anyone ignorant of the authorship, on reading this book, would judge it the work of an ine. perienced writer. At any rate, we do not consider that it can add anything to the reputation of the man who wrote The Calling of Dan Matthews and The Winning of Barbara Worth. However, it has some very good points beyond those already noted. It is pleasant reading and quite harmless, and it has two good characters in the Dean and Jim Reid. Patches, also, is quite human, but most of the rest of the characters are either very vague or hopelessly perfect, like Phil. Indeed, if it is true that the good die young, we fear that Kitty will soon be a widow. We do not mean to score the book unjustly, for it is perhaps as good or better than most modern novels, but we are tired of the fallacy that anything written by Harold Bell Wright must be very good. Best sellers are made, not so much by public opinion favorable to the book as by extensive advertising. There is a fascination about The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield, which we can only describe as intense human interest. This book is more or less psychological and has for its theme the old proverb, As the twig is bent, so shall the tree incline. .As the plot progresses, we note that in every incident, not matter what the circumstances or situation, Sylvia reverts to type and follows the instincts aroused by her early environment. The characters in the book are all well drawn. I particularly admired Sylvia ' s mother, and Judith, with the strong character and the clear foresight. For this reason I felt disappointed and unsatisfied when the book ended with tragedy for both. This book, like Mr. Britling, is inclined to broaden one ' s views and increase one ' s vocabulary. The pictures of campus life at a Page twenty-six