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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
New-World Analogues Of The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, Louise Pound
New-World Analogues Of The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, Louise Pound
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
I wish to question in this paper, for the second time, two currently accepted affirmations concerning the processes and the development of English popular ballads in the Old and the New World. The first of these affirmations is that a body of folk-song exists in America which supports the theory of “communal” origin for the English and Scottish popular ballads,—an idea which has made considerable headway since it was advanced five or six years ago. The second is that real ballads and ballad-making are extinct. This position is frequently taken in this country, and, being sustained by excellent authority, it …
Tolstoi And The Doctrine Of Peace, S. B. Gass
Tolstoi And The Doctrine Of Peace, S. B. Gass
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Nowhere in modern times, I dare say, have the ideals that the current war in Europe has violated found a more moving exposition than in the later works of Tolstoi. Is war right ? Are any of our hopes, or beliefs, or ideas worth fighting for? Tolstoi spent the last thirty years of his life giving these old and almost trite questions an impassioned negative. It is impossible to say what his influence has been. No corner of the world but has his admirers, even his disciples. The cult of peace has perhaps never had so many followers. And yet …
Emerson As A Romanticist, Louise Pound
Emerson As A Romanticist, Louise Pound
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
It was the romanticists who tended to write poetry of “autobiography,” who inquired of themselves concerning themselves, and assumed that the world was interested in what they found. Nor was the habit of self-consciousness regarding the poetic office let drop by their successors. That the words poet and poetry were so often on Emerson’s lips would be evidence enough to students of literature, in its changing temper and shifting modes, of his probable localization in time. It is also evidence of his relation to certain European movements of thought to which he gave—comparatively late in their currency and much tempered …
On The Headland, Lloyd Mifflin
On The Headland, Lloyd Mifflin
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Through twilight haze, the West, with lurid red,
Flushed all the uplands. There, in trance, I stood
And watched the Vision,-saw the ensanguined feud
Rage on the summits, whence was heard the tread
Of conquerors coming and of captives led,
And moanings of a mangled multitude,
Where, 'mid the carnage on a field of blood,
I saw the Warrior Queen uncharioted.
American Traits As Seen By The French, George D. Morris
American Traits As Seen By The French, George D. Morris
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Long before the vogue of Taine's theory of literary criticism made it incumbent on the critic to explain the characteristics of his author by race, milieu, and moment, many of his compatriots had already employed the method-in so far, at least, as the element of environment is concerned--in attempting to account for the peculiarities of American novelists. Each of these attempts, whether it was successful or not, gives us a glimpse of the author's conception of the American people. If we supplement the information obtained in this way with that contained in the direct affirmations which they …
Some Legal Aspects Of The Invasion Of Belgium, Sumner Allen
Some Legal Aspects Of The Invasion Of Belgium, Sumner Allen
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
In the fifth century before the Christian era the two powerful states of Greece, Athens and Sparta, were at war. Greek culture was then at its highest level, and Athens was the centre-in the phrase of Pericles, "the school of Hellas." Its attainments in art, letters, and government were a source of pride and the basis of the Athenian claim of superiority. During the progress of that long and terrible war, the Athenians conceived that the neutrality of a small colony on the little island of Melos was a military disadvantage, and an army was sent to reduce it to …
Joseph Chamberlain, The Radical, Cephas D. Allin
Joseph Chamberlain, The Radical, Cephas D. Allin
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
The approaching retirement of Joseph Chamberlain from the House of Commons awakens a sympathetic interest throughout the world. It is pathetic indeed to see the oft-victorious warrior stricken down and borne from the field at the very moment of the triumph of his political foes. Time has turned against the venerable statesman. The principles for which he so stoutly fought are apparently going down to defeat. The Home Rule question, which he had hoped was buried, has risen again to haunt his declining days. The policy of preferential trade, to which he owes his imperial reputation, has been practically set …
Colonial Aspects Of The War, Cephas D. Allin
Colonial Aspects Of The War, Cephas D. Allin
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
In a recent speech Mr. Asquith declared that the greatest mistake that Germany had made in respect to the war was in her failure to recognize that there was a British Empire. Great Britain has long been regarded as a small, insignificant island off the European coast. She has been looked upon as a second-rate European power somewhat in the class with Italy and Spain. And such she is in fact if considered by herself alone. But the war has revealed, what the Empire has long since known, that England is an imperial rather than a European nation, that she …
Nietzsche, P. H. Frye
Nietzsche, P. H. Frye
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
On account of the attention which Nietzsche has been attracting of late, the occasion seems a favourable one for reviewing once more his life and work. In a letter to one of his acquaintances, written in March, 1884, he himself prophesies with the proverbial modesty of genius that" in fifty years, perhaps, will the eyes of some few (or of one, for it requires genius) be opened to what has been done through me. For the present, however, it is not only difficult but quite impossible (in accordance with the laws of 'perspective') to speak of me publicly without falling …
The Ideal Of Peace, S. B. Gass
The Ideal Of Peace, S. B. Gass
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
The present temper of peace-loving America is very close to that of a nation on the brink of war. There is something in it almost baffling to one who has thought of his countrymen as a people to be saved from excess by a cool humour. No doubt their moral sympathies have been deeply stirred by the present conflict. Many of their prepossessions have been shocked, and one at least has been quite shattered. It had been hoped in many quarters that the age of war had passed, that international understanding and economic interdependence had made an open breach between …
American Traits As Seen By The French, George D. Morris
American Traits As Seen By The French, George D. Morris
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Long before the vogue of Taine's theory of literary criticism made it incumbent on the critic to explain the characteristics of his author by race, milieu, and moment, many of his compatriots had already employed the method-in so far, at least, as the element of environment is concerned--in attempting to account for the peculiarities of American novelists. Each of these attempts, whether it was successful or not, gives us a glimpse of the author's conception of the American people. If we supplement the information obtained in this way with that contained in the direct affirmations which they …
Giosuè Carducci, Ruth Shepard Phelps
Giosuè Carducci, Ruth Shepard Phelps
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
It is a commonplace to say that the nations of the north have seen in Italy from the first the home of romance, the pleasure-place of the imagination. And they have always delighted to heighten her effects. From Chaucer to Walter Pater she has been ever the land of mystery and tragedy, of soft lascivious manners and gorgeous crimes, of a deep magical melancholy which has laid a spell upon the northern mind-a spell, however, which that mind itself and its tastes have largely created. The deep racial differences have fascinated the Teutonic imagination, which in turn has exaggerated them; …
The Diplomatic Background Of The European War, Bernadotte E. Schmitt
The Diplomatic Background Of The European War, Bernadotte E. Schmitt
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
When on August 1, 1914, the fateful news came over the wires that Europe stood at Armageddon, the people of this country were scarcely able to accept the fact, for it was difficult to understand why the flower of European manhood should be sent forth in arms to shatter the cultural and material progress of a century. But to the close student of European diplomacy it has long been evident that some day the conflicting interests of the Great Powers and some of the smaller states, an intricate system of alliances, ententes, and secret agreements, and the armaments accumulated …
German Versus English Aggression, A. D. Schrag
German Versus English Aggression, A. D. Schrag
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
The present state of public opinion is quite inexplicable unless we remember that great wars are periods of the abnormal, not only in the political, the industrial, and the commercial, but in the intellectual sphere as well. The mental chaos that confronts us on every hand can be accounted for only on the theory that wars are days of sickness in the life of the human race. The bold assertions, wild speculations, fanciful prophecies which one hears on every hand must be regarded as the incoherent prattle of a delirious public mind. Not only the unthinking public but men of …
Sociology And The Law, Arthur W. Spencer
Sociology And The Law, Arthur W. Spencer
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
A significant recent development in the field of legal science in this country, the importance of which is not yet generally recognized by laymen, is the noteworthy awakening of interest in the philosophical literature of the continent of Europe dealing with legal institutions. Progress in this field of legal philosophy has been especially rapid since the late seventies, particularly in Germany. In English-speaking countries no phenomena of equal significance have occurred. America has never produced any notable philosophical jurists; and the work of English legal scholars of the past generation, though in some instances it has been brilliant and of …
French Opinion Of Our Civil War, Louis Martin Sears
French Opinion Of Our Civil War, Louis Martin Sears
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
In these days when America is the spectator of world war, it is of increased interest to notice the views of Europe when America was the battle ground itself. An awakening interest in this study has recently impressed upon our public the paramount importance of the English attitude toward the war; and our vast debt to Cobden, Bright, and John Stuart Mill and other English Liberals has stirred the national gratitude. The Liberals of France played an equal role. Their voice, not loud but deep, operated to curb the opportunism and militancy of Napoleon III and his cabinet of adventurers. …
The Man From The Moon, W. G. Langworthy Taylor
The Man From The Moon, W. G. Langworthy Taylor
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Man from the Moon: I thought I knew something about mundane affairs from my study of the newspapers; but to see a Jeffersonian with a ring through his nose led about like a dancing bear by a socialist! It's enough to make a man believe in possession- or what amounts to much the same thing, conversion. But hold; I will accost him. (To Jeffersonian.) Why do you offer yourself to be bullyragged by this person, whom I recognize by his salt-and-pepper suit, white tie, and kid gloves to be a follower of the creed, "property is robbery"?
Jeffersonian: …
Pacifism As An Offspring Of The French Revolution, Charles Kuhlman
Pacifism As An Offspring Of The French Revolution, Charles Kuhlman
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Modem pacifism is a by-product of social democracy. It originated in the extreme left wing of the French Revolution. Its first representatives are found among those men of terror and blood who made themselves known and abhorred throughout the world as "Jacobins. " The revolution was, at its inception, a revolt against the absolute monarchy in France only. It was not until this monarchy had been completely overthrown that it took the form of a declaration against practically all the other governments of Europe. The classic argument of kings, the bayonet, failed Louis XVI when the army stood aloof or …
"Ground Arms", Paul H. Grummann
"Ground Arms", Paul H. Grummann
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Every great' novel is born of the conviction, on the part of the author, that he has had experiences or conceptions which the race should share in the interests of a fuller manhood and womanhood. Frequently such novels are evolved in the throes of a great movement-religious, political, or social; and the novel with a purpose is the result. If these premises are correct, it would seem at first sight that the novel with a purpose is the highest type of novel, for if the novelist is the mediator of ideals, that writer who throws himself headlong into a great …
In Defence Of The Professor Who Publishes, Alvin S. Johnson
In Defence Of The Professor Who Publishes, Alvin S. Johnson
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
At the present time, when our whole educational system is under criticism, it would be remarkable if any tendency in university life were to escape the searching scrutiny of laity and schoolmen. University ideals and university organization have been exploited in books and articles without number. Everybody has taken part in the work of defining the respective powers of president and board, of determining the scope of student self-government, and the appropriate relations of the university to the community at large. With these large problems discussed to the point of universal exhaustion, we may well turn our attention to others, …
Canada And The War, J. E. Le Rossignol
Canada And The War, J. E. Le Rossignol
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
Canada is a protected country and the Canadian people have given little thought to the danger of war. On the Atlantic and Pacific coasts she is protected by the sea; on the north there is a wilderness of barren land, a barrier of ice and the Arctic Ocean; on the south there is a good neighbour, with whom she has had no serious trouble for a hundred years. There are no enemies close at hand, and the danger from distant foes has always seemed remote and problematical.
The Renaissance, E. Benjamin Andrews
The Renaissance, E. Benjamin Andrews
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
In the early part of the fifteenth century a change as subtle and indefinable as it was significant, came over the spirit of European society. Without sharp break with the past, involving no strictly new creation, no sudden or unheralded revolution of ideas, gradually rose an altered mode of viewing man, the world, life-far less theological than the old, less respectful to tradition, more confident in man's powers and future-in fine, laic and human. Renewed study of classical antiquity was sign and instrument, rather than essence, of the new movement. If men looked back, it was mostly to clear their …
The Mantle Of Browning, Hardin Craig
The Mantle Of Browning, Hardin Craig
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
As one grows older one becomes sadly conscious that there are problems in one's life and in society for which there is no solution in the poetry of Robert Browning. A very great deal has happened since Robert Browning wrote; and what he tells us to do is not the thing we want to do, and his presentation of the situation in which we stand is not one that commends itself as entirely adequate. Part of the great outcry for the practical with its too wholesale rejection of the idealistic teachings of the last century, is a definite feeling that …
A Classical Romanticist, George R. Throop
A Classical Romanticist, George R. Throop
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
It is necessary in the interpretation of any writer, and especially if he be of the present day, that the literary motives which actuate him should be thoroughly understood. Through their realization and through what we might term his interpretation of his own ideals, we are enabled to form a sufficient idea of his literary originality and a better comprehension of his relation to his own and preceding times. It is of course truistic that all writers can not create new fields, that they can only follow, modifying, adapting, enlarging, or lessening, as the case may be, the accumulated heritage …
Charles Peirce At Johns Hopkins, Ellery W. Davis
Charles Peirce At Johns Hopkins, Ellery W. Davis
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
In the company of scholars and investigators which Daniel Coit Gilman gathered at Baltimore in the seventies and eighties was Charles S. S. Peirce, son of the Harvard mathematician, Benjamin Peirce, and considered by Sylvester (surely a capable judge) “a far greater mathematician than his father.” But great though his mathematical powers were, it is not they alone which chiefly distinguished him among the scientists of his generation. Mathematics was simply one of the many fields of thought tilled by his active brain. At Harvard it was in chemistry that he had chiefly distinguished himself, but it might as well …
Justice According To Law, Roscoe Pound
Justice According To Law, Roscoe Pound
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
A generation ago, when the law schools of our state universities were first founded, the dominion of law appeared to be complete. Almost every phase of public and of individual activity was subject to judicial review. It was taken to be an axiom that the people themselves were subject to certain fundamental limitations, running back of all constitutions and inherent in the very nature of free government, and it was assumed without serious question that the scope and the extent of these limitations were questions of law. Administration was subjected to strict judicial control, and almost every measure of police …
Old Solutions Of A New Problem, Edwin Ray Guthrie
Old Solutions Of A New Problem, Edwin Ray Guthrie
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
When King David said in his haste that all men are liars, was he led to acknowledge the hastiness of his remark through reflection on its logical consequences? If he were, he showed commendable delicacy in taking for granted that we should see what the logicians insistently point out, that it must follow that he himself could not be believed. Reflection on this problem of verbal paradox has led some of the logicians, as well as the Psalmist, to wonder whether they have not made haste too rapidly. The paradox of the" Liar" is still with us; but modern writers, …
Legislation By The Courts, W. G. Hastings
Legislation By The Courts, W. G. Hastings
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
It is remarkable that in this second century of the republic our courts should be so vehemently assailed for interference in legislation. One who knew of our duplex governments only by study of their written constitutions would open his eyes when told that there is any such thing under them as legislation by the courts. The citizen of Nebraska lives under a constitution which devotes an entire article to declaring, not only that the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of its state government are and must be kept distinct, but that no person in anyone of them, except as specially …
Professorial Ethics, Edgar L. Hinman
Professorial Ethics, Edgar L. Hinman
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
We are aware that a lawyer, by the very nature of his profession, comes into peculiar relations with his clients, and therefore with other lawyers, with the courts, and with the outside world. By reason of the trust that is reposed in him, there are many things which he might do in an underhand way to gain personal advantage. All this, however, has been in some degree rectified by the development of a code of professional ethics, of such character that the man who offends against it is damaged by a certain loss of caste. The physician, in like manner, …
The Mystery Of Pain, Robert Johnston
The Mystery Of Pain, Robert Johnston
Mid-West Quarterly (1913-1918)
One great mystery which confronts all men, as they contemplate this universe, is the mystery of pain. The problem is universal in its extent, for although there are the very few who claim never to have known a moment of sickness, the natural processes of their existence are inevitably accompanied by physical suffering in a greater or less degree, and pain is claiming its own among those with whom they come in daily contact, while the greater number of them have felt its iron hand upon themselves. Naturally an explanation is demanded. The eternal "why" rises from millions of hearts, …