Show p L I rc L4 dt4 111 1 41 b6HJ A fi j a tNJ f r A Ii I I I Herbert SpenCer In spite of his reat age Is sufficiently well in health to continue the work of revising his books He hopes eventually to revise re-vise all those that form part oC his great system of philosophy Already he has revised three volumes which include the First Principles and a fourth may be ready next year It Is likely that Mr Spencer may before then add some papers to the little Volume of his writings which consists of Various Fragments M u O A stationer Is thus quoted In The Philadelphia Record Just as the nineteenth century brought the steel pen in place of the quill so will the twentieth century see the typewriting machine take the place of the pen I The effect is already very noticeable I Last year we didnt sell half as many I I pens as wo sold five years ago and the decrease has been steady each year 1 Some large business houses have a system sys-tem of keeping books with typewriting typewrit-ing machines and when this becomes more simplified It Is bound to be universal uni-versal I shouldnt be surprised to seethe see-the pen manufacturers go out of business busi-ness within a few years Indeed it js not beyond the range of possibility that a hundred years from now handwriting hand-writing If not exactly regarded a a lost art will be at least looked upon as a relic of antiquity and specimens ot handwriting will be treasured as curiosities < S It Is not unnatural for the grave student of human affairs to look with more or less disdain upon the speculations specula-tions of those buoyant individuals who take it for granted that the new century cen-tury Is bound to produce new things in literature It is Justly observed by I one of the skeptics that man does not develop by the calendar But Is It altogether unreasonable to suppose that the transition from the nineteenth I century to the twentieth must have a n Lu uuiiimc euecL upon me inner consciousness con-sciousness authors The mere sense of public expectation must play Its fruitful part here as In other matters mat-ters The demand for fiction for scientific literature for war books and BO on has a distinct relation to the supoly that we have of such things If cery one Is looking for apeculiarly twentieth century product In literature litera-ture may It not after all get itself produced Of its value It would he dangerous to say anything cordial In advance Poetry or prose made to order has a way of turning out insuf ferable New York TribuneS Tribune-S S S The critic of The Athenaeum Gas 01 Mr BIchardLe Gallienne He sees a truth and in the expression embroiders embroid-ers It I Into an absurdity For direct and convincing utterance he has always al-ways substituted a diversion on a penny whistle The Literary IDra asks the question Can any one punctuate properly Our contemporary gives uo answer to the question but In the course of its article gives these Interesting facts We find In print the statement that throefourths of the candidates for ad mission to a TVciStern college have failed to capitalize and punctuate properly the fOllowing test lines Few high schools in the west give sufficient attention to elementary eng llsh having received a pupil from the grammer school many teachers as sume that he knows how to spell punctuate and capitalize correctly It is true that authorities might differ as to the capitals required by this paragraph for there are Intelligent and estimable people who would never write the word west with a big AV The reasons are not entirely local either for who could do less after ab sorbing Theodore Roosevelts The Winnings of the West 1 Quite pos sible too the test exercise Was given orally so tho aspirants to matricula tion did not grasp the true significance of the sentence A case In point was the dictation of a verse of scripture for a similar purpose theverse VelllC read Ing a follows Tho wicked flee when no man sucth but the righteous Is pur as bold a lion as The school was in the sandy cattle ranch district of Arizona und presum ably none of the Bible society colpor teurs had yet visited the town for on the blackboard one of the pupils wrote and punctuated is follows The wicked flea when no man pur sueth but the righteous Js s as hold as a lion But it should he admitted by all I I readers ns it already has been by l pub Ushers and printers that there Is no general and infallible system of punc tuation Authors of prominence differ radically regarding punctuation and 1 are allowed to have their way with their own work unless perchance they relegate responsibility to their pub ushers There IB no similllllt similarity between the punctuation of Mr Henry James and that of his steadfast admirer Mr Howclls and this is for the very good reason that different styles arc abso lute requiring difference of pointing S UNAWARES I A song welled In Up the singers heart Like a song In the throat of a bird Ami loud he sang and far It rang For his heart was strangely stirred And he sftngfor the very joy of song With no thought of one who heard Within the listeners wayward soul wanlr A < heavenly patience grew patence lie fared on his way with a benison On tho singer who never a knew How the careless song of an idle hour sonl hlo Had shaped a life anew Allcp Vllllauis AlcQ Brothcrton WIlams in Poets and Poetry of Iu lana 15 o o u Mr George r Smith continues his reminiscences in the Cornhill with a I very agreeable account of his founding o that magazine says the New York I Evening Post WIth Thackeray to at tract and Mr Smith to pay handsomely j all corners of literary parts the Corn hill hi prospered greatly Mr Smith I j offered Tennyson a guinea a line for 3 continuation of the Idyls of the King not to exceed 5900 lines This Tennyson Ten-nyson refused but became a contributor contrib-utor sending Tlthonus to the second sec-ond number For the serial rights oC Romola Mr Smith offered 10000 but George Eliot preferred 7000 and saving sav-ing her book from serial publication in what seemed to her too many parts Mr Smith must have been on the best of terms with his contributors 1C Trollope who resented the little remuneration re-muneration he received as compared with Dickens and Thackeray for his novels was willing to toss him for a thousand pounds I One little anecdote may indicate the somewhat unconventional manner in which the business of the Cornhill magazine was occasionally treated Trollope came to me in Pall Mall where we now had a branch bfllce to arrange for a new serial I told him my terms but he demurred to my offer of 2000 and said that he had hoped I for 3000 I shook my head Well he replied let us toss for that other 1000 I asked him If he wished to ruin me and said if my bankers heard of me tossing authors for their copyrights copy-rights he would certainly close my account ac-count and what about my clerks How I should demoralize them IC they suspected me oC tossing with an author for his manuscript But I felt un com fa 1abl C1 felt meanI had re fused a challenge To relieve my mind I said now that is settled If you will come over the way to my club where we can have a little room to ourselves for five minutes I will toss you for 1000 with pleasure Mr Trollopo did not accept the offerS offer-S Sin S-In the January Bookman Brander Matthews talks of tie perennial youth of romance Romance Is not a being that lived yesterday and is dead belnS toca although it blossoms in the twilight atmosphere of Once upon a Time Romance Ro-mance has no more to do with the tilting at Ashbydela5Souche than it has to do with a corner on the stock exchange it has to do with men me diaeval or modern no matter with 10 i men as they go forth to do their duty to be tempted and lured tho conquer r me mat ot tiie ilesh to fall into sin I and to pay the penalty to make the brave fight be the end of the strug 11e gle what it may i Romance where men are with the passions and stilv ings of men and It takes no account of costume and of furniture and of the accidental accompaniments hu man existence 1 Romance Jived with the Cavemen and the Lakefolk with the Norseman and the Crusader with the Cavalier and the Puritan with the Minutemen I 1Inutemen of Lexington and with the Young Guard at Waterloo with every man who is stout of soul and has an eye for a pretty girl with every woman who la I 01 hopes to be a wife and a mother Where heartblood beat or hearth smoke curled there Romance wove his spell S e I The twentyfifth anniversary of liter ary activity of Henryk Slenkiewicz the author of Quo Vadls has just been celebrated at Warsaw During the ceremonies the distinguished novelist was presented with a large noelsl Iorle Friends in America send warm con gratulations to the man honored abroad as well as at home hono1d long sojourn with us almost led to Jiim counting an American Coming to us in 1S77 and thinking to find Utopia on the Pacific coast the little community or Polish artists of which he became a member soon met the fate which over took Brook farm Doubtless it was best that Slenkiewlcz did not llnd a haven of peace and harmony His genius is of a type that is developed by knowing material wants by coming Into close sympathy with plebeians as well as patricians by realizing the ad vantages of civilization and at the same time seeing its degrading effect degrndlngefect when estimated by luxury alone Slcnkiewlcz is cosmopolitan but he Is also 0 Pole In every Jlber of his be ing His ancestors knew the horrors devastating waits and the patriotism that comes from the sharing countrys wretchedness No wonder that the novelist writes of war In the reddest tones and no wonder i wondelUat his sym pathies extend to all the oppressed yr lie has suffered and his people have suffered and this deep pain finds J a large place in his books sometimes as a tender melancholy sometmls sometimes sOI tmes as a fierce outburst against the Iron hands a of despotism But moralist that ho i It is as an I artist that Slenklcfvlcx has won his laurels In these days of hurry and hustle when the short story Js hastily lmsU matched and there is no lime for In tellectual food except of the piecemeal kind Henryk Slenklewlcs long im mensely long novels are read i because the charm of the artist UUlt his dramatic situations his brilliant bllla colorings and above all his deep human instincts ap Instncts peal to an age not yet so far given over to E1en gain materialism and the greed fQr that it cannot listen with pleas ure to a voice full ful of earnestness to earnetness rght tho wrong and to future hope for the ture when nations as well Indi viduals lons wel as hal see even from a sellllsh L point of view thc sclfsh desirability of lov ing ones tleIablt 0 neighbors as himself Chi cago Chronicle a aIn discourses a-In the Forum Oscar Roved Triggs I dltcourtes Tliggf American pleasantly of A Century of mal 8 the Poetry and incidentally he t following I remarks concern ing the ripe old InE age attained atained by follow I ers of the muse in this country fOlo A most striking fact Is the of our poets The typical longevity American I poet when one thlnls of it I the faces and notices that look down from brary walls is found to be an the aged li hoary man Of the eight poets o1e tured on the frontispiece six arc pic beards gray and inclined to baldness IIa of the blackhaired and I heads Lanier to be 39 and Poe to be 40 No lcd I can poet has had the AIICll John Keats of dying advantage of enough accomplished young to be compared with still I j with Shakespeare on the ground of his I promise Many fair hopes centered In Cora Fabrl ccn te1cd i 1abl Anne Aldrich antI Wini I fred J Howell Howels the youngest of the sis terhood to lay down their pens but their work was too incomplete to give prophecy o their maturity Joseph Rodman Drake at 25 Stephen Crane at 23 James Bern Bensel at 30 and Francis Brooks at 31 had hardly begun their poetic career Probably our literature liter-ature sustained its greatest loss in the death of Richard Hovey who was destined des-tined to accomplish great works and to l win high renown at 36 he was just prepared pre-pared for bolt adventure Tlmrod and Emma Lazarus had fulfilled much of their promise at 3S Edward Rowland sill and Bayard Taylor whose prema I ture deaths were much lamented had I j yet time at 16 and 03 to accomplish not a little wellrounded and wellpropor I toned work Longfellow Lowell Vhlt man Story and Ilallcck entered the J seventies Emerson nearly cached the eightieth mark while Freeman Whlt tier Holmes and Bryurtt passed beyond be-yond It Dana led on Into the nineties nine-ties There Is something stately and splendid in this procession of age revealing re-vealing as It does a large harmonious life In league with sril and health I I The historian notes also the comparative compara-tive small number of tragic lives Some few sensitive natures like Poe and I Richard Kcalf suffered pain and tri vail largely the fault of their peculiar temperament illhealth affected the I output of some the Civil war cut short I the lives l of several accident closed a few careers and four suffered violent death at their own hands But for the groat majority the currents of life ran the ordinary Incidents smoothly and save l1c dents of change they lived in serenity of spirit S S G The editor of The English Dialect Dictionary Prof loseph Wright is engaged in an Interesting work He Is < collecting phonographic specimens of English dialects partly to enable him to check the material fora comprehensive compre-hensive comparative grammer of all the English dialects in the United Kingdom 1 and partly to hand dowji to posterity a faithful record of n the n dia I lects as spoKcn a < me cut 01 Ie nineteenth nine-teenth century Dr Wright hopes to get about live hundred phonographic specimens and with this end in view he has prepared a list of sentences containing the most salient points 1 wanted with full directions for turn lug the sentences into genuine dialect I In the case of people who have no I knowledge of English grammar Dr AVrJght sends the specimen to some educated person in the district from which the dialect Is derived and induces in-duces him to practice 1 the specimen with some dialectspeaking oh until un-til the latter can rtad the specimen in good genuine dialect When this has been acomplished Dr Wright goes to the place and phonographs the result himself By selling about the matter In this way the professor has been most successful and already he possesses quite t number of firstrate specimens I When specimens have served their primary purpose Div Wright proposes tohand them over to some public library li-brary or institution to bo preserved for all time for the bcnellt of future generations gen-erations A hundred years hence people peo-ple arc sure to doubt ome of the statements made in the grammer and I skeptics will be able thanks to the phonograph to hear what any particular parti-cular dialect soundcdllke at the time I the work was written 1 G 1 I Since the returns of Mark Twain to this country he lias been the recipient reci-pient of universal adulation and has been known to express the desire that i solne discriminating American would lint some occasion to express an opinion I opin-ion not entirely laudatory That discriminating dis-criminating person llnds voice in the current number of The Bookman and delivers himself of the following Putting aside all prejudice and look lug at his work in a purely achromatic way a critical and truthful judgment upon Mark Twain can be summed up In a very exiguous space Shirk Twain is first and last and all the lime so far as he Is anything a humorist and nothing morcle Wrote The Jump lag Frog and Innocents Abroad and Roughing It and these are all the real books that he ever wrote He set forth the typically American characters char-acters of Col Sellers and Tom Sawyor r and Huckleberry Finn and these ate nil 1 Mll vonl I rilini > nr > nc tt h I drew His later publications that I are humorous In Intention contain many gleams of the old Mark Twain but taken as entities you cannot read them from beginning to end Some unduly optimistic persons who are fond of literary l cults grown under glass have tried hard lo make the world believe that Mr Clemens has great < gifts asa as-a serious novelist and romancer By dint of iteration the world perhaps has temporarily come to think that this is true but all the same It will not read these novels and romances and It thereby shows that commonsense common-sense rind real discrimination may exist in practice even while they hold 1etee hle 11ld no place in theory Athtindred years from now it Is vev likely that TIre Jump Ing Frog alone will be remembered just ns out of all that Robert Louis Stevenson composed the world will ultimately keep in memory the single nemur tle slnElo talc of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Mr Clemens ho ld read this critical I critcal summary of his limitations with a keen relish New Xork Commercial 1 Advertiser S The thoroughness with which Tolstoi carries out his theory of nonresistance is Illustrated by thU anecdote Some lime ago he was the subject oC an In terview at the hands of an American journalist whom the Count asked to Ills country home and who put him under prolonged and ruthless examination I examina-tion At last the visit came to an end and the gentle sufferer saw his ques tioner Into the carriage As the part Ing greetings were being exchanged the guest hinted that after all ho had not learned everything he wanted to know Then you must come into the IrcMse again and stay another day with us was the Counts reply and he would tale no denial > i I O A new use for literature A cul tured grocer in London gives away novels lo purchasers of his tea and I varies the gift according to the quan tRy purchased nccoldlng tt a it I is now definitely known that an dent Babylon wuv In possession ofa worLdug alphabet more than D thiu sands years before Egypt says the Chicago Record The old contention was that the Phoenicians had learned their method o writing ioiit Egyptian cursive script in use among the com mercial Interests at the Egyptian sca EEJlan pprls But when Dr Schliunmnn be I gal digging on the site which was sup I i posed to be that of ancient Troy ho discovered a series of cities set one on top of another the eldest among them being without any trace of writ I Ing Yet man at that time had un doubted arts and knew how to work i the metals understood the beauties of J sculpture architecture and the decora tive arts in general building palaces that were nothing less than magnifi I cent in ad their manlf Ilal appointments and carry car-ry on an extended commerce on one COllelee hand and great wars for conquest 010 on the other without the slightest knowl slshtet 1001 edge of reading and writing as we un derstand the words The British an thority D C Hogarth Is quoted by Dr Clodd as saying In this connection that the human race in old Greece was more highly civilized before history be I gan than when the knowledge of re cording deeds made history POSSible statement the more significant 1f the Inestimable value of slgnlIcnnt ltclac be 1 con I sidered for even a moment I GREATEST BOOKS OF TH CEN TURY What books have had the I greatest in te fluence 1i ucnce upon the thought of the nine teenth nllo teelth century Answers to this ques tion appear from James Bryce cg Henry M Van Dyke Arthur T Hadley I Uhernias Wenlvortif cHJgKlnsoii Wil l HIg ITson liam De Witt Jydp 1 Kdiiartf Wll Everett I Worthm Hale and G r StarileyTIall TtJs note I jxorthy that they agree upon but one f 1 book as of hit 010 I undoubted t1d preemlnonec I Darwins Origin of Irecmlnence lists Hlcjdnsons list being of authors lsts HJnsons thors not of books are as follows The American By James Bryce author of t can Commonwealth Darwin 1 Origin of Species I KituBt Goethe 1 t History of Philosophy Hegel 4 1 The Kxcurslon Wordsworth 5 The DutesM Man Mazzlnl C Das rnpliarf Karl Mar 7 10 Pape Do Malstre S Democracy In America Ttocquavillc 1 PopiffiUlori Malthus 10 Ie MIsornblcs Hugo1 By Henry Van Dyke professor ofEn 1 gUsh literature at Princeton I Slsh Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth I L1 Wavcrtdy Scott j y Ardt lo Renectfon Coleridge I Sartor Reinrtus Carlyle It i 5 JJfHnys Emernon I PuliJlcrb RuskIn 0 i Modern I A System of Logic J S Mil 1 I S Works of Reid Sir W Hamilton i Origin of Species I Darwin 10 In Memorlam Tcnnywin By rthur T Dudley President of Yale I University L Civil Code Napoleon 2 Knust I Goethe I < Encyclopedia of Philosophical Scl cnce M liogel 7 CICC J World as Well Schopenhauer 5 Education oC Mail Jij1CI C I i Monday SjilntcJJcuvc 7 UiiclL Toms Cabin StoweM S Principles uT Psychology Spencer 9 Origin of Spqcks Darwin 10 Life of Jesus t Rcnan By Thomas WcnUsvorth Hlgglnsori J Scott t i Darwin 2 IleliiP 7 Emerson 3 Wordsworth S Toslol l J Ilogcl 0 1 Hawthorne i Robert Owen Vj Brownjng J By WDoWlttIIyde President of Bow doln College < Colerc 3 Logls I Ilydc 2 Positive Philosophy ComIc 3 Principles Geology Lyoll 4 I OrigIn of Species Darwin 5 Synthetic PhilosophySicnccr C Sartor RVtinitus Ccrlyje Emcrsons E snys i S Modern Painters Ruslclri I U i Uncle Toms Cabin Slowed 30 Browning Poems 1 1 < r By Edward Everett Hl c uI 1iII r 11 J I 1 i Origin I i of SpccTfcV Dnrwln 3 Democracy In AincrlcoDe Tocquc I vlllc le r I 4 American Commonweu thm Bryce f Modern Painters Ruskin 0 Emerson < 7 Scot 6 Hugo v 9 In I Momorlfuh I Tennyson1 1 Life of Jeyus Rcnan By G Stanley Hall President 4 of Clark University Ial t V V 1 Origin Species Darwin 2 Logic Hegel I 3 LIfe of Jesus JraiiHS Sauts L Ediicalioiuil Rcpprt Horace Mann i a Uncle Toms Cabin Stowo 1 11 Auditory Scnsnlfon nolmholtz 7 French Revolution Carlyle S Faust Goethe 9 Wngnor > M 10 Ibsen L x Commenting upon these lists editorially rially the Outlook says Time range of books named In these lists is too wide to make any detailed tabulation valuable or significant Two Impressive facts become clear however how-ever from any study of these lists the books selected are almost without exception ex-ception books of spiritual liberation and of the enlargement of human Interests Inter-ests and privileges The men of letters whose work appear In these lists are those who might have said with Heine Lay a sword on my coffin for i asa soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity Goethe Wordsworth Tennyson Ten-nyson Carlyle Heine Ruskin Hugo Emerson Browning Coleridge Tolstoi belong with the noble company of those who In the arts have striven to set men free and to Jut them in possession of a larger life IiVthis great company belong also Darwin Hegel Mnzzlni Kant Ilelmhpltz ijchleiermaaher and Spencer In different fields with diverse di-verse alms and with tools of many kinds these thinkers investigators and writers have helped to let men out Into a freer and a vaster world If books of distinctly religious aim arc few In these lists It I is because the Jsts religious spirit has begun to penetrate all human begn al activities ac-tivities and to heaP that ancient and atheistic schism wplph has broken mans life Into fragments by separat lag jvhat has been mistakenly called the secular from that which has been recognized as the religious |