visit to our Club, and all, I am sure, are more or less familiar with his many stories, dealing with the characters who lived in or about Kennedy Square 'befo' de wah,' so it would be impossible for me to tell you anything new about him. "But I do not recall, either to have read or heard in public of his distinguished ancestry. Even the versatile speakers at the banquet, whom we have recently enjoyed, had nothing to say on this subject; so after spending considerable time in perusing that most entertaining page found in the Monday and Wednesday editions of the Boston Evening Transcript, known as the Genealogical Department, I have become convinced and am ready to maintain against all comers that he is directly descended, in the eleventh or twelfth generation (the Transcript is a trifle obscure on this point), from that gallant cavalier and bold adventurer and explorer, who in the very beginning of the eighteenth century coasted along our northern waters, touched here and there upon the cold and inhospitable shores of New England, which had no attractions for him, and finally settled in the Sunny Southland, along the shores of the James River. Here, you will remember, falling into the hands of hostile savages, he was condemned to death and was really about to feel the tremendous force of the big stick, when he was saved at the last moment by the heroic devotion of that somewhat mythical maiden whom we know as Pocahontas. Hence our Guest. "On my library table, with a dozen other books, is a little volume which I love to pick up and read when I have an evening's leisure. I hold it in my hand. It was published some twenty-five years ago and bears the joint copyright of the author, our guest, and that famous Boston publishing house, the Houghton Mifflin Co. The frontispiece is an oldfashioned wood engraving, a side of a library with an open wood fire burning cheerfully upon the polished andirons. Before the fire is a well padded and well valanced armchair of antique design. Seated in this chair, with feet encased in easy slippers, and gazing thoughtfully into the blazing embers, is that embodiment of Southern chivalry and ante-bellum optimism, Colonel Carter, of Cartersville. "Below the picture is placed this simple but most expressive legend, 'My fire is my friend.' "The dedication of this little volume is so choice, so characteristic of the author, that with his permission I wish to read it: "I dedicate this book to the memory of my counselor and my friend,-that most delightful of story-tellers, that most charming of comrades,— my dear old Mother; whose early life was spent near the shade of the Colonel's porch, and whose keen enjoyment of the stories between these covers-stories we have so often laughed over together is still among my pleasantest recollections. "Gentlemen of the Club, a thousand strong, I now present to you as our guest of the evening, the engineer, builder, painter, story-teller, man of letters, but more than all, a true Southern gentleman, F. Hopkinson Smith." Mr. Smith then delivered his new lecture, "Captain Tom, One who was not afraid and who spoke the Truth." A SAMPLE GROUP AT THE CLUB The locality described in the following, by "Oxford 3000" in the Boston Herald's "Talk of the Town" will be recognized by readers of the BULLETIN: Here is a sample of the groups that casually come together at a certain great Boston club, celebrated for the number of interesting people usually to be found there: Edward Joseph O'Brien had 'phoned to a member that he wanted to come to him with Vachel Lindsay, the young Illinois poet who promises to rank for his own state as James Whitcomb Riley for Indiana. O'Brien is the young man of letters who, still in his twenties, already has a wide reputation for his uncommonly intimate knowledge of contemporary English literature on both sides of the Atlantic; the other day he made a stir with his charges against the management of the Boston Public Library for its neglect of high-class contemporary fiction. Lindsay is making his first visit to New England, amazing as well as delighting people by the unconventional way in which he chants and even sings, as well as recites, his own work in tones of extraordinary range, flexibility and expressiveness-a sort of high-class vaudeville, it has been called; actually a 20th century equivalent of the troubadour, the Meistersinger, the bard, and even the Greek poets of antiquity. It is now more than 30 years ago that James Whitcomb Riley came to Boston, reciting his own poems and captivated the old Paint and Clay Club at one of its famous Bohemian evenings. Lindsay's appearance at the home of the Boston poet and novelist, William Lindsey, last month, and later at the Authors' Club, made so much talk that he was induced to book with a local lecture bureau. So, with his headquarters in Boston, he has lately been kept pretty busy through New England, ranging from Dartmouth College to Mount Holyoke, Wellesley and Yale. With Lindsay and O'Brien had come a young poet and player, named Newman. Joined by their host of the Club they had fallen to chatting with Le Roy Phillips and McCotter, the publisher. Phillips mentioned that Horace Traubel of Camden, New Jersey, the Boswell of Walt Whitman, was in the Club House, dining with a member. A moment later Traubel's picturesquely abundant white hair appeared on the stairs with his host, an ardent admirer of Whitman, and with them was also Thomas P. Mosher, the Portland publisher of the Bibelots. So they all sat chatting for the rest of the afternoon. The number was nine: three publishers, six authors, an actor and a physician. That makes ten? But Phillips was both author and publisher, lucky man-he can pass upon his own manuscripts! Traubel told not a few intimate things about Whitman-things that may never get into print: not because they ought not to, but because he sees no reason why they should be made public. Lindsay wanted to know about Robert Frost; one of the group had been much with him in Boston very recently; Phillips, it then appeared, had met him in London. at the dawning of his success there; and it furthermore developed that Mosher was an early admirer of Frost and had long known him by correspondence; in his index to his Bibelot series just completed, he had taken for the motto two stanzas from Frost's fine poem, "Reluctance,” written some years ago and long treasured by him: "Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world and descended; And lo, it is ended. "Ah when to the heart of man Seemed it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason Of a love or a season?" This casual coming together of these men is worth noting for the reason that it illustrates the sort of thing that is happening at that Club all the time. Whatever man of note comes to Boston from other parts, the chances are that he will very promptly find his way to that Club. Almost any day the sort of people to be found together there, and what they say, would have been worth chronicling by Howells and his contemporaries in the classic days when the Atlantic Monthly gatherings were "seats of the mighty." Vachel Lindsay, it may be added, has just returned to his home in Springfield, Illinois. He was greatly pleased with his first visit to Boston and New England and the many friends he made here. But he now means to put in a solid year in his literary work, and not even the most alluring inducements for lecture engagements at so much "per" can entice him away. But after January next he will be ready to come back to us. ART AND LIBRARY COMMITTEE NEW BOOKS The following books have been added to the Library: The Audacious War, C. W. Barron. History Bimetalism in U. S., J. L. Laughlin. Political History of Secession, Daniel W. Howe. The Moorish Empire, Budgett Meakin. Historic Pamphlets, State Street Trust Co. Siberia and the Exile System, By George Keenan. National Peace Jubilee, P. S. Gilmore. Grain Trade in France, Abbott P. Usher. ECONOMICS Insurance and the State, W. F. Gephart. Social Environment and Moral Progress, Alfred R. Wallace. Plutarch's Lives. Sheridan Memorial. Homes of American Authors. BIOGRAPHY Story Life of Lincoln, Wayne Whipple. Maj. Gen. William Francis Bartlett. TRAVEL Things seen in Morocco, A. J. Dawson. A Sentimental Journey thro France and Italy, Laurence Sterne. REFERENCE The Law of Arrest, H. C. Voorhes. Cotton Industry of the U. S., Melvin T. Copeland. FICTION Joan Thursday, Louis Joseph Vance. The Grand Assize, Hugh Carton. Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo, E. Phillips Oppenheim. DRAMA AND ART History of Art (2 vols.), Wilhelm Lubke. NATURAL HISTORY Useful Birds and Their Protection, Edward H. Forbush. Nature's Garden, Neltje Blanchan. Game Birds and Wild Fowl, Edward H. Forbush. GIFTS TO THE LIBRARY The Art and Library acknowledges with appreciation gifts to the library from the following: The following artists will exhibit in the Club House during the month of April: Miss Marion Howard, Miss Rosamond Coolidge, Charles W. Hudson, F. H. Richardson, Mrs. Nelly Littlehale Umbstaetter, Heinrich Roth, Abbott Graves. RECIPROCAL RELATIONS The Boston City Club has reciprocal relations with the following clubs: Albany Club, Albany, N. Y. Arkwright Club, 320 Broadway, New York City. Business Men's Club, Richmond, Va. City Club, Baltimore, Maryland. City Club, Chicago, Ill. City Club, Hartford, Conn. City Club, Milwaukee, Wis. City Club, St. John's, Newfoundland. City Club, St. Louis, Mo. Commercial Club, Chattanooga, Tenn. Commercial Club, Omaha, Neb. Commercial Club, Washington, D. C. Ellicott Club, Buffalo, N. Y. Moline Commercial Club, Moline, Ill. Underwriters' Club, 18 Liberty Street, New York City. MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE NON-RESIDENT MEMBERSHIP By a recent vote of the Board of Governors, a non-resident class of membership has been established. This is limited to 500 names, of per |