Show JH JHa I Ars t r 1r fTh p r sr 9 11 Sr c 1 1 f SfKfs > J iiMil c TJ 4 IpI i III U MALi r p A Wildfr Th S L tI iILL I 4 f ij I I 1I ¼ c 1J 1 J p J C I I SP c 12 t v1i s Bret Harte Is said to be at work on anew a-new series of condensed novels The first series appeared In 1SC7 and was successful Jn this new one it is sup posed > that he will parody modern novels nov-els that haVc had a greater or less yes tic j The centenary of Cowpers death comes on the 5th of this month and the occasion will be marked by the formal opening of the Cowper museum In the poets home at Olney Mr Cle mit Shorter wJll give an address at a public meeting In the afternoon and Dean Farrar will preach In the evening even-ing ingA S a A writer In Blackwoods Is weary of the adulation poured on eminent men by SOl others who arc rather Ian I-an dous to be heard tharyiuallfled to speak lie says The moral pathologist 1 patholo-gist of the future will have much to say of the parasites of the nineteenth I century A long chapter will be devoted de-voted to that wellknown variety the Glarlstonlan Toady assentator locu pIes and crossreferences to It I in The Index will bf Place and Peerage But space will nevertheless bo found td cio justice to the idiosyncrasy of the Toady of Robert Browning and of the Toady of John Ruskin Mary E Wilkins lias In press n historical his-torical romance which will be called The Hearts Highway I is to bo noted that in It Miss VlIklnu has forsaken for-saken HerNow England meadows and j village stories The scene is laid in Virginia In I the seventeenth century v 0 9 Mark Twain has been telling i commit on copyright of the British House of Lords that a careful Investigation Investi-gation has revealed the fact that for along long period of years the Government liir dealt unjustly with him The bur Mis of Mr Clemcnss personal complaint com-plaint was that his literary output had icoii taxed by l the Government t as gasworks gas-works Whon Mr Clemens finished with the aristocratic tribunal It Is iSo Ueved I every member of the latter was a convert to the theory that the copyright copy-right law as It stands Is a delusion and K snare But will they have Ihe courage age to act upon the knowledge Mr I Clemens ran ht < serious at limes generally I Scn erally when he does not try ant If he has rendered a substantial service to American authors Including himself in his tight for more equitable copyright copy-right laws the gratitude of the literary guild will be this l Chicago Chronicle a o o Olive Schreiners book on the South African situation is nearly ready for publication Iftr house at Johannes burt by the way has been looted and many of her possessions dispersed a o Fuddy You havent read David Harum Why I heard you tell Davi p leIgh that you had tel 101 Duddy It Is my practice when a man asks me If I have read a certain book to say yes I prevents him from telling me all about ft Fuddy But suppose he should ask you to tell him something about it Duddy People who ask If you have read a book only ask to give them selves an excuse lo tell you what they know about HBo ton Transcript I e b I Publishers announce the twenty sixth edition of Richard Carvel It is thousand now in its three hundred a and fortieth RARE BOOK SALE From the standpoint of a collector of rare books the most notable tc 1otable event at the sale of the library of Auguslln Daly in New York city was the price brought by two volumes One was Poetry for Children by Charles and Mary Lamb London iSO ICmo G D Smith got the two volumes at 1110 a volume the 110 olumc highest price ever paid The Letters of Charles Lamb edited by Alfred Ainger London 1S8S in two volumes were bought by G D Smith for 1200 each A History of Sign TIstorr SISl boards In six volumes by Larwood and Ilottcn was bought by Dodd I Mead Co for 1200 S for 100 An letter j I autograph leter of Mary Queen of Scot written to Catherine de Medici advising that the assassins of the Due de Guise be punished was with other papers bought by Charles Serlbuers Sons for 180 Moores Life of Byron two vol umes was bought by G D SmIth for 1310 The original title deeds to Nell ment CJwyns document house In with Pall an Mall engraved five Nel trait of Charles I and cJgr Privy por seal attached bearing the signatures of the Earl of SL Albans Lord Lrd Ilervey Law rence Jlydc W Fanshawe Baptist Mny Will Chlljlinch and the initials I r ID I InltuJ G four times le was schltoJ O Wright for 1100 Among other books sold were a first folio ShakespeJue Imperfect thc roses opposite the title page being in laid SolOO a second folio G50 a third < folio 100 a fourth folio at 110 A Boydell edition with 1300 Illlustrallonn Ilustrlon in interjcd < nineteen volumes S551 living Marshall edition of 188S In fortythree volumes Qlttlee 800 a complete 8IJ set of Wssrly novels excepting I Tales of My Landlord third series the original bindings of the first cdl llons 1113 a complete set of first edi tions in eighty volumes 7GO first cdl llops of Marmlon the Vision of Don Roderick Uokeby and The Lord of the Isles 1050 each the Abbotsford edition of Scott with 1710 engravings Inserted in ihlrlyseven I volumes 703 Scotts The Mother and the Son in original manuscript 135 Sir Walter Scotts Romance of I Dunoln original manuscript 103 Scotts Saint Cloud original manu script 90 Scotts Tho Field of Waterloo original manuscript 1C5 Scott s Farewell to Mackenzie origi nal manuscript 130 Svotts The Vision of Don Roderick original manuscript not perfect two volumes 100 a volume Luras Mait forthcoming no l has the queer and wugprstive ltk The GatelessBarrier ItIs to published In a few weeks a a o His entourage at once prostrated themselves kissecj the hem of his garment and Implored him to be pleased to relieve their anxious curlosi 1 ty as to what he rncaht Certainly said the editor indul I gently Its a series of war articles I by a janitor of the Wai department Including the contents of 163 wasto II paper baskets not hitherto published copiously I lllustralod by the Jest artists ar-tists There worn doublless other maga allies having each the largest number of Intelligent readers but that there was nuiie equally as enterprising this the entourage did not permit themselves I them-selves to doubt lit a Not long ago we based an article on Leigh Hunts graceful suggestion of asocial i a-social genealogy whereby a living poet may trace an acquaintanceship back to the greatest of poets says the Philadelphia Press Somewhat In the I same line was a paragraph In the London Lon-don Chronicle Jatel propounding the Interesting query Is there any one living that has looked into eyes that have looked win Dr Johnsons eyes To this a correspondent of tho paper replies T have aCiimlmanc of a charming old fellow who remembers talks with an older lady who saw John Wesley preach upon horseback at her native town of Whltby Bucks This may be Interesting to you for It goes back irito the last century j dq Marlon Crawford announces that his Life of Pope Leo which represents enormous Amount of labor will n it be published until after the Popes death U 0 Q The formation oC a Russian olllcinl 1 academy of letters I is announced The Ilrst immortals are lerlid and one Is mystified by unheard of names Tolstoy we know and he Is one of the band Tho others are Vladlmlr SolovIetT i I philosopher J and poet A M henlchuj I jiikoT humorist A A Polyekhln r novflist dramatist and porlrnyer of the moujlk A P Kon Jurist and orator ora-tor Count Golenlshtchcff Kutiisoff lyrical l poet Vladimir Korolenko writer on social subjucts A Tchek hoff h psychologist and the Grand Duke Constantino Constantinovltch author of a book oC verses Academy J u I It Is safO i that F T Bullori Is writing a novelUCll 1 1 is as good as many of his sea sketches are it should attract alien al-ien lion O C Mr Augustine Birrell author of Obi 1h ter 1 Dicta and one or two more clever hooks h of essays published In the larch number of the Cornhlll Magazine Maga-zine the substance of a lecture delivered deliv-ered by him in Edinburgh several months ago on lie conundrum which a good many besides himself cannot help asking Is II possible to tell a good hook h from a bad one and his answer to It such as it Is Is not so encourag ing l as his wish Is fervent Speaking for myself 1 could wish for nothing better apart from moral worth than to be the owner of a taste at once manly refined and unaffected which should enable me to appreciate real excellence In literature and art and to depreciate bad intentions and feeble execution wherever I saw them To be forever alive to merit In poem or In picture In statue or bust to be able to distinguish between the grand the grandjose and the merely bumpti ous to perceive the boundary between simplicity which Is divine I and that which Is ridiculous between gorgeous rhetoric and vulgar ornamentation be iwccn pure and manly English meant to be spoken or read and sugared phrases which sewn Intended like lolli pops for suction to feel yourself gohrg out in Joyful I admiration for whatever Is I noble and jjermarnem and freezing Inwardly i l against whatever Is preten tious wire drawn nnd temporary thlu Indeed i Is to taste of the fruit of the tree once forbidden of the knowledge of good and evil Mr Birrell draws a moral In his lec ture the melancholy truth of which continually forces Itaelf upon our con science and that Is i a great crowd of books is as distinctive of the literary instinct which Js a highly delicate thing as Js I a London evening party of the social instinct a ti a The Tolling of Felix a new volume by Henry Van Dyke which is an nounced for early publication will con sist of poems 110 O 0 Emperor Williams play The Iron Tooth does not seem to have mot with much success In Berlin oltliough not all the papers take that view of the case The pluyi whose mQral Is submission of the people to their Em peror was beautifully staged and the chief cliurnctirs were Intrusted to I nUll performers who have received honors from the Emperor playwright I The Berlin correspondent of the New York Herald says The acting and I mlsenscene were marvelous TJie cos tunics were moat beautiful and the scenery such as has seldom been seen I in the Royal i heater But as the play progresseddisapproval became so I manifest that one report saye u num ber of the audience Ignoring iho I axiom The King win do no wrong came to thc conclusion that the royal l play was no good After uuch a re ception many papers are doubtful as to the final issue of the play t e Of Matthew Arnold it Is l said tliat In i spite of hiM conalanl ofllclal work he got through a surprising amount of reading In bin diaries at the begin ning of each year ho noted what he meant to read in the courseof it and as ho finished each work he drew a line through It carrying on to the next year the bookw which he had not man aged to read The Bible with tho clan sics had a vi ry largo share of his time The last book he adIn bed the night before he dioti was the sixth volume of G cargo Sands letters I Tlv book world Is i constantly being I recruited from the ranV of newspaper j men ITfirnson Itoberlson nhoso novel I I of Tirrl Blood and Blur 1 in i nearly ready for publication IH on the edl torlal staff of the Louisville Courier Journal and Robert Shackleton whose volume of short stories Toomoy and Others Is noW In press has Just accepted ac-cepted an editorial position on the Philadelphia Phil-adelphia North American Mr Shack leton l has made lilt home for several years In New York In the crowded districts dis-tricts of which the scenes of his pathetic pa-thetic and humoious stories are laid whither he came from Cleveland a a IT D Fralll the hardworking critic who died suddenly In England two weeks ago Is described as a man of stolid apPearance Uc could at need turn out ii sulTlrlenlly stolid not lo say stoclgy article All the same he war qno of the brightest wits of his genera tlon an few lighter touches exist incurrent in-current literature than those to be found In his new Lucian and In his Barbarous Britishers books which won for him tin praise he most apprc elated that of his friend George Meredith Mere-dith There was hardly an author of njark among his contemporaries whom he has not reviewed sometimes as In the case of Francis Thompson the poet daring to he ihe pioneer among eulogists O 0 I Tn London a literary Journal has offered of-fered a prize for the beat list of six old English words which might 1w l revived with aeh1II age The winning list contains one word mournfully appropriate appro-priate In time of war The word is c mIlOl enl which signifies dying to gotlior Another list supplies the old Chaucerian wordjalgato meaning at any rlftk To Dyomede algatc I wol 1 be Irewe I li x It was at the foot t of the Athenaeums Staircase that Thackeray amid DlcKens matfn up their quarrel Dickens passed jv Thackeray without I speaking I but Thackeray followed him and insisted on shaking hands saying that he rould not bear hat I there should any longer be illfeeling between them DIekens though he frequently came to the club evidently did not consider himself a popular member and rarely spnke to any one who had not previously ad Uressed him o a Algernon is very Interesting said the stockbrokers daughter t What does lie talk about Inquired i her father Why hes ever l so well I posted In Shakespearean quotations 7 Young woman wttid the financier sternly dont you let him make SpOIt of your Ignorance There aini no such stock on the market TitriUts 0 9 CAn C-An amusing anecdote Is I told of Mary Fairfax Somcrvllle the fampus writer and scientist While at her work either In research or In writing she would become so Inlent upon It that she vas utterly oblivious of her sur roundings This power of concentra tion grew upon her so that her family often laughingly referred to It and it led to sonic very funny Incidents One day her friend JIairict Martin eau the authoress and political economist econo-mist went to visit her Mr Somer vlllo received the visitor and explained lint it would be almost l npo lblc lo make her presence known as his wifo wus rltlng Hoxyever he led 1 thc guest Into the room whoreMrs Somer vllle Aas busily engaged ut u table Several members of the family and some friends were present but they were la Ik Ing without fear of disturbing the wi iter I Mv SomervIIle stood by the table opposite to his wife and began In a Joud voice to uddross her bin as she paid no attention to him In began lu use abusive language calling her lazy saying that she was not Industrious and adding majiy things thai kept the company laughing for they all enjoyed the Joke Everything he said however fell on deaf ears and Mrs SomervIIle worked on utterly regardless of his presence Suddenly he ceased speaking and the unwonted silence made her look up Pardon me rhe said In the quaintest quaint-est siu prise did you say something |