The Opened Shutters; A Novel, by Clara Louise Burnahm, with frontispiece by Harrison Fisher. Published 1906.

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The Building of a Book; A series of Practical Articles written by Experts in the Various Departments of Book Making and Distributing, by Frederick H. Hitchcock. Published 1906.

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Gleanings from Old Journals.

Old newspapers make good reading–if they are old enough. Like the deciphering of moss-covered epitaphs, the reading of journals of other days gives rise to reflections that mingle the sweet with the sad. It shows plainly that time does not alter human nature, much as customs may change.

The Scrap Book, Volume 1, Number 3, published May, 1906 by Frank A. Munsey.

I have an old friend who lives just around the corner from one of the main lines of travel in New England, and whenever I am passing near by and the railroads let me, I drop in on him awhile and quarrel about art. It’s a good old-fashioned comfortable, disorderly conversation we have generally, the kind people used to have more than they do now–sketchy and not too wise–the kind that makes one think of things one wishes one had said, afterward.

We always drift a little at first, as if of course we could talk about other things if we wanted to, but we both know, and know every time, that in a few minutes we shall be deep in a discussion of the Things That Are Beautiful and the Things That Are Not.

Brim thinks that I have picked out more things to be beautiful than I have a right to, or than any man has, and he is trying to put a stop to it. He thinks that there are enough beautiful things in this world that have been beautiful a long while, without having people–well, people like me, for instance, poking blindly around among all these modern brand-new things hoping that in spite of appearances there is something one can do with them that will make them beautiful enough to go with the rest. I’m afraid Brim gets a little personal in talking with me at times and I might as well say that, while disagreeing in a conversation with Brim does not lead to calling names it does seem to lead logically to one’s going away, and trying to find afterwards, some thing that is the matter with him.

“The trouble with you, my dear Brim, is,” I say (on paper, afterwards, as the train speeds away), “that you have a false-classic or Stucco-Greek mind. The Greeks, the real Greeks, would have liked all these things–trolley cars, cables, locomotives,–seen the beautiful in them, if they had to do their living with them every day, the way we do. You would say you were more Greek than I am, but when one thinks of it, you are just going around liking the things the Greeks liked 3000 years ago, and I am around liking the things a Greek would like now, that is, as well as I can. I don’t flatter myself I begin to enjoy the wireless telegraph to-day the way Plato would if he had the chance, and Alcibiades in an automobile would get a great deal more out of it, I suspect, than anyone I have seen in one, so far; and I suspect that if Socrates could take Bliss Carman and, say, William Watson around with him on a tour of the General Electric Works in Schenectady they wouldn’t either of them write sonnets about anything else for the rest of their natural lives.”

I can only speak for one and I do not begin to see the poetry in the machines that a Greek would see, as yet.

But I have seen enough.

I have seen engineers go by, pounding on this planet, making it small enough, welding the nations together before my eyes.

I have seen inventors, still men by lamps at midnight with a whirl of visions, with a whirl of thoughts, putting in new drivewheels on the world.

I have seen (in Schenectady,) all those men–the five thousand of them–the grime on their faces and the great caldrons of melted railroad swinging above their heads. I have stood and watched them there with lightning and with flame hammering out the wills of cities, putting in the underpinnings of nations, and it seemed to me me that Bliss Carman and William Watson would not be ashamed of them … brother-artists every one … in the glory … in the dark … Vulcan-Tennysons, blacksmiths to a planet, with dredges, skyscrapers, steam shovels and wireless telegraphs, hewing away on the heavens and the earth.

The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century, by Gerald Stanley Lee. Published 1906.

Thanks to Lee Spector for suggesting this project!

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The real problem that stands in the way of poetry in machinery is not literary, nor æsthetic. It is sociological. It is in getting people to notice that an engineer is a gentleman and a poet.

from: Gerald Stanley Lee, The Voice of the Machines: An Introduction to the Twentieth Century, Mount Tom Press, 1906.

The Religion of Numa; and Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome, by Jesse Benedict Carter. Published 1906.

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A systematic analysis of the titles of works of fiction, if undertaken in a scientific spirit, might lead to some interesting, if not positively valuable, re-suits. A collection, classification, and comparison of the products of the mental energy—we had almost said agony—expended in thinking up appropriate names for stories might possibly come within the scope of the work of the Society for Psychical Research. So serious an undertaking as a matter of scientific or philosophical speculation, however, is out of place here. But, nevertheless, it may interest the readers of this department to have called to their attention a few curiosities in the titles of recent novels which, possibly, have escaped them. To be sure, nothing of any very profound significance is disclosed, nothing more, perhaps, than a series of coincidences. The title of Mrs. Wharton’s book, “The House of Mirth,” was a striking one, though if it had not been the name of the most successful book of the winter, it might have attracted little notice of itself. But the very popularity of the book, the talk it created, put its name into the mouth of everybody, and so the reiteration of the title began to attract attention; it was even used, we believe, to describe a house in Albany dedicated to the entertainment of members of the legislature. Next appeared another popular book, “The House of a Thousand Candles,” and it is easy to see how curiosity was stimulated to discover other titles of novels with similar names. No great effort or research was required to make up this list:

• “The House of Cards,”
• “The House of Hawley,”
• “The House of Dreams,”
• “The House of Sin,”
• “The House of Fulfilment,”
• “The House of Merrilees,”
• “The House of Mystery,”
• “The House of the Black Ring,”
• “The House of Mirth,”
• “The House of a Thousand Candles,”
• “The House of a Hundred Lights,”
• “The House in the Mist.”

In the same way other names with a key word, so to speak, were suggested, hearts, for instance, being as popular as houses. Here are some of them:

• “Heart’s Haven,”
• “Heart’s Desire,”
• “Hearts and Masks,”
• “Hearts in Exile,”
• “Brave Hearts,”
• “Contrite Hearts,”
• “The Heart of Lady Anne,”
• “The Heart of a Girl,”
• “The Heart of Hope,”
• “The Heart of the World,”
• “The Heart of Happy Hollow,”
• “The Heart of Rome,”
• “Jules of the Great Heart.”

More curious than these, however, is the attraction that colors seem to have for title-makers, and in this list the degree of popularity of each color is noticeable:

• “The Black Motor-Car,”
• “The Black Barque,”
• “The House of the Black Ring,”
• “Black Friday,”
• “Black Beauty,”
• “The Black Arrow,”
• “The Black Spaniel,”
• “The Red Cravat,”
• “The Red Triangle,”
• “The Red Book of Romance.”
• “The Red Window,”
• “The White Terror and the Red,”
• “For the White Christ,”
• “White Aprons,”
• “The White Cat,”
• “The Yellow Cat,”
• “The Yellow Journalist,”
• “The Yellow Holly,”
• “Purple Peaks Remote,”
• “The Purple Parasol,”
• “Purple and Fine Linen,”
• “Green Mansions,”
• “The Green Shay,”
• “The Gray World,”
• “The Blue Cockade,”
• “The Scarlet Pimpernel,”
• “The Scarlet Empire.”

It may be considered doubtful whether “Freckles” should be included in this list, but our readers can take their choice according to their tastes.

If space permitted, this sort of thing could be carried on almost indefinitely. Flowers, fruits, and precious stones, man, woman, girl, are made to do duty, as well as all the family relatives, except “father.” Mother, daughter, and brother are to be found.

The selection of a name for a story has a good deal to do with its success, as authors and publishers know, sometimes to their cost. Just how much careful forethought is given to the problem in individual cases is indicated to some extent by the showing that these titles make.