ing to hounds, not of killing lions with the rifle. He was
fond of horses and dogs; associated democratically with gamekeepers,
grooms, whippers-in, poachers even; as Roosevelt did with cowboys,
tarpon fishers, wilderness guides, beaters, trappers, and all whom Walt
Whitman calls "powerful uneducated persons," loving them for their
pluck, coolness, strength, and skill. Kingsley's "At Last, a Christmas
in the West Indies," exhibits the same curiosity as to tropical botany
and zoology that Roosevelt shows in his African and Brazilian journeys.
Not only tastes, but many ideals and opinions the two men had in
common. "Parson Lot," the Chartist and Christian Socialist, had the same
sympathy with the poor and the same desire to improve the condition of
agricultural laborers and London artisans which led Roosevelt to promote
employers' liability laws and other legislation to protect the
workingman from exploitation by conscienceless wealth. Kingsley, like
Roosevelt, was essentially Protestant. Neither he nor Mr. Roosevelt
liked asceticism or celibacy. As a historian, Kingsley did not rank at
all with the author of "The Winning of the West" and the "Naval War of
1812." On the other hand, if Roosevelt had written novels and poetry, I
think he would have rejoiced greatly to write "Westward Ho," "The Last
Buccaneer," and "Ode to the North-East Wind."

In fine, whatever lasting fortune may be in store for Roosevelt's
writings, the disappearance of his vivid figure leaves a blank in the
contemporary scene. And those who were against him can join with those
who were for him in slightly paraphrasing Carlyle's words of dismissal
to Walter Scott, "Theodore Roosevelt, pride of all Americans, take our
proud and sad farewell."

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Mr. Edwin Carty Ranck, of the Roosevelt Memorial Committee,
calls attention to the following sentence, which I had overlooked: "As a
woodland writer, Thoreau comes second only to Burroughs."--"The
Wilderness Hunter," p. 261.

FIFTY YEARS OF HAWTHORNE

Hawthorne was an excellent critic of his own writings. He recognizes
repeatedly the impersonal and purely objective nature of his fiction. R.
H. Hutton once called him the ghost of New England; and those who love
his exquisite, though shadowy, art are impelled to give corporeal
substance to this disembodied spirit: to draw him nearer out of his
chill aloofness, by associating him with people and places with which
they too have associations.