Show LITERARY NOTES The young author who likes wearily to complain of AngloSaxon decorum and to pruinc Gallic vivacity has always im jresscd us as a very silly little person But there are occasions when oven his mpatlcure with the ways of his counto nen seem almost Jusllllable Could there icr example be anything more pondorous I y absurd Hum the manner In which Kng Ishmcn writing of the late William I2r icst Henley allude to that article Avhcre iii with all possible friendliness he told a few home truths about his dead friend Stevenson anti the loners Indiscreet admirers ad-mirers Everybody who knew Henley with many who never saw him has been writing about him and nearly everybody gives a doleful nhako of the head over what Mr Sidney Low lo name only one lot of several scores calls the savage itlack It was not an attack It was not savage It was merely a rational jrotest against a flood of twaddle It was ono of the best things Henley ever wrote and It I is probable that I It I will prove in Ihe ong run lo have rendered a unique service ser-vice to the memory of I a man who has been more persistently Insulted and hu nlllalcd by socalled friends limn any jlher writer of his lime The solemn lathos of Henleys critics over this episode epi-sode would be disgusting if It were not aughable New York Tribune Mr William Butler Yeats the Irish poet is lo visit this country next fall for the llrst time lie will be the guest of friends here and will probably have the pleasure of seeing some of his plays acted under the auspices of the Irish Literary society Mr Yentss recent volume of essay es-say Ideas of Good and Evil has iroused u good deal i of critical attention I n this country t The Mnemlllan company will publish within two or throe weeks the new volume of poems by l Mr Yeats In I the Seven Woods which is further lej cribcd as Being Poems Ohlclly of the Irish Heroic I Age In addition lo lie poenifi the volume contains a new play On Dalles Strand Special interest attaches at-taches lo the volume because it has been printed In red und black Ink by the authors au-thors sister Miss Klizabclh C Yeats at ier own Dun Euicr Press In Dublin There Is to be a new Dickens book one prepared by the novelist sometime Iriend Percy Fltzprerald It Is to contain lltlle known by i Dickens on ihrlstm topics and will be called Chrislnuis Days With Box The 1 house at Portsmouth Ports-mouth In which Dickens vas born on February 7 1S12 Is lo be sold shortly ai luctlou and It has been suggested that it should be purchased by tIme atit Imors ad inlreni and turned lulo a Dicitcns mu eim There are two sides lo the question of cheap books and they were recently pleasantly presented by l Mr Mdmuucl Gosse and Mr Augustine Blrrell Mr Costa argued that the disadvantage of extreme cheapness Is that people cease to realise the I dignity and beautv of a book All cheap things arc disregarded and tho less we pay for a thing the less we value It Mr Gosse declared himself no friend lo sixpenny books because they t directly tend to lower the respect for books lie would prefer to have books remain expensive ex-pensive or at least sufficiently so that some sacrifice and elfort would be re quired1 to possess them I Mr Plrrell on the other hand argued thai literature Is made for man It Is true t that the education educa-tion of taste Is a difficult problem It would be much simpler and better If everyone every-one were born with good taste but as It Is we must have cheap books Calculated to Improve the taste and every cheap copy of a masterpiece has a potonllallty for good beyond the dreams of the Imagination Im-agination The Maemlllan company will publish this month Sir Mary Antony Do Wolf Howes volume Boston The Place and lie People This Is described 111 a richly llluslrated t book similar in general character char-acter lo Marlon Crawfords Ave Roma Immortalls and Sir Gilbert Paikers Old Quebec The Fortress of New Prance Mr Howe has been for twelve or fifteen years associated with the editorial edi-torial management of the Atlantic Monthly Month-ly and the t 1oulhs Companion and has been literary advisor for various publishing publish-ing houses He knows the life and the atmosphere this hlstoVy the characteristics characteris-tics and the beauties of Boston life as few other men do Futhcrmore he IB a young man with a young mans spirit and Interest In-terest in life and In everything that la going on and Jn the futtue His I book will contain between eighty and one hundred hun-dred Illustrations The Nemesis of Fronde the reply of Sir James Crichton Browne and Mr Alexander Alex-ander Carlyle to Froudes poithumouK statement on the Carlyle controversy to be brought I out this month There has seldom been a literary quarrel more unprofitable un-profitable and ii muhigmml lieu than I this and we shall be glad lo seo It concluded Apropos of the overpowering love of books and what ll may leid to a wrlt < r in the London Standard tells this delightful delight-ful story of Don Vincente The Don who had set up as a dealer though he haled selling was outbid al a book auction In Barcelona for a most precious volume on which he had fixed his heart Threo nights after the sale Hie house of the successful purchaser was seen I to be on lire and his dead body was lEer wird discovered with money beside ll and wilh ti pipe in Its hand Verdi el accidental acci-dental I death I spark from victims pipe A chain of incriminating I tlreuinslancis led eventually lo the search of the shop of Don Vliicenle and lo I ihe ilmiii mug of Iho coveted book in a hidden recess The culprit confessed hhuiell I guilty of assassination assas-sination theft and arson At the trial prisoners counsel proved I haI I there I wns another copy of the work In limo Louvre therefore there might I bo more and so his clients prlxe might have bean lawfully obtained Al this tin t Don u I lured an agonized cry Ah my error wax clumsy Indeed 1 am the t most miserable of men Repentance observed the judge by h way of solemn convolution In splli of tin enormity of your sin Is not loo I late Ah Senor Alcade was the 1 answer of I tho bibliophile but my copy was not uilouc The Two Lit lie Siivngw ftrnosl t Thompson Seaionn now book iihh ho ought out In September by Uoubleday Pagi Co Tjiough Mr Seion has done il o much to make animals seem lilte personal per-sonal friends strain to say lie Is not fond of animals Ho I never makes pets of then himself and does not care about dornes llcatlnt or training I them his Inieresi being be-ing sekntlflc The Two Little havages tIn llrst long book Mr Scion has written ella us everylhing that boys of any ag S want to know about woodcraft our native animals and m the Joy of country I living I I Farloou the late novelist was a cousin of Slilncv Lee the biographer of Shakespeare Shake-speare lie Ju Maid to have heon a descendant descend-ant of a notablu Spanish family whose original name In the Hebrew I signified a i blossom In transliterating it It Is added thn first teller assumed two forms with I Ihoir variants viz Parchon Pharchon Vurchon FarVliou etc It funnily sollled Into the form Furjeou One of the Spanish Parchoiis In the t twelfth S century was a famous grammarian Mriuriee Maeterlincks grcit play Mou till Vauiia produced In I London and con demned by the ceupor many think rnont absurdly as Immoral Is published by llu llarpiis The translator is Alexis Irene I du Pont CoKnun of Ihe I College of The City of Now Yorki tn a recent descrip tion of Maeterlinck he Is said to resemble one ufthose mirthful Flemings seated at the I bounteous tables painted by for dacns in hla Dutch Interiors rut this It scorns Its only an outside appearance There Is an Indefinable gravity delibera thou and reflectiveness about him Ills I I eyes icinulu I for long fixed and atlentlve I I i his speech Is hesitating We feel that his thoughts have not entire conlldeneo Iu it but prefer another more docile and pa tient I Interpreter t the pen M h Jules Verne It appears IB not so badly oil as to his sight jus has been sup posed Ho hasi written to a friend slating thai I there are symptoms of culmact In the right eye but no more If I had to read mdi the letters addressed to aiti on the subject I should certainly end by going blind concludes the author cheer fully Mr Justus Miles Forman author of Journeys End has returned from a summer sojourn In Franco to mInd his new novel Monslgny hardly a week from the press of Dotiblcday Page Co yet one of lie best selling novels of the month m Mr Forman has originated anew a-new sort of International I novel Hint breathes the charm of birth and breeding of the present day at UK best Mr Forma For-ma u Is u Yule man of a few years back and comes of a wellknown Minneapolis family He has succeeded as a play wright I and also paints well enough to succeed In a professional way If he chose A refined shudder is said lo be the readers i gain from Vcrnon Lees new novel m Penelope Brandling It purports to i be written by a woman of gentle blrlli who is brought to a lonely castlo in Wales by h i her husband and theio discovers that I tho people about her are wreckers and murderers Prof Guy Carleton Lee has Just finished leading l lie lasi of the proof of his history of lie Civil war upon the preparation of which he has been engaged for a emir pant Tiiy work will bo almost unique In so far as the position of the historian toward the debatable Issues of Ito great I struggle Is conccriid and Is absolutely ln partial As a result the Northerner will llnd quite as much In the book lo astound him I as will the t Southerner to I surprise him Prof Lee who holds the chnlr of hngllFh literature I t and history I i at Johns Hopkins university has brought to bear m upon this work many years of laborious study and has drawn largely upon Hit authority of civil and military crtlicsi of the period The True Illstoryof the Civil War will contain over fX pages and will be Illustrated wilh a number of portraits and facslmlles Its publication day has not boon fixed but 1L will probablv bo early in October 5 It is said that MaJ Martin Hume when searching the I Spanish state papers In the English Rocord office for the t innposes of His book on the courtships of Queen Ellu beth discovered evidence that the activi ties and inotKes of Mary Queen of Scots must be regarded In a different light from that 1 which has hitherto been thrown upon them He 1 finds It Is added that t Mary is to be considered as a staleswoman and diplomatist representing a great cause and aspiring In imitation of Elizabeth to employ matrimonial Intrigue ns an Instrument Instru-ment of policy How 1 she failed by reason of defects of character which gave the advantage to her adversaries 7 IaJ Hume I shows In his forthccnilng volume on her love affalni The first fall book on the I list of Harper Brothers is Robert W Chambers new love story The Maids of Paradise pub Jlshcd September lib In I this novel Mr m Chambers has abandoned colonial Amer lea which lives so vividly in his Caidl gan and bite MaldrUArms and has irnnsferred his iicencs lo France A young French countess and an adventurouV American play the parts of heroine and hero The American while serving In tho French Imperial military police falls upon a network of plots and counterplots In the tolls of which he Is surprised to find a beautiful young French woman who has become Involved in prossing dangers by her own Ignorance of life Mr Cham bers carries the reader from the Idyllic village of Paradlbc ID thin most exelllng scenes of the t FrancoPrussian war In which his lovers and other characters of his siory arc Intimately Involved FOXETIC SPELLING Foiled Ic spelling T abhor And miwt can rowx ml bile Or ruffel up ml temper rnor Than Iak Pitmans style The Yankco theater and such As folio in Its trane Auoi my genii solo so much That I become profane A traveler with but wun 1 Will make muic simply foine For foke boo cannot lorn to spel Had beter stop at home Wun needs to be no nod agog To shun this horrid vojje Cood he boo rites down catalog 13e other than a roge rogeLondon Tattler In a Just Issued volume on Qunen Vic toria by Mrs Crawford there Is an anec dote of the fashion In which the children of the nobility sometimes met the little Victorias German pride of birth with ISngllsh hauteur It was related by h m actor In the scene Lady Wllhulmiua Slan hope whom the writers husband used often of-ten to meet at the housu of Miss Susan nah Thruls One raluy day she stayed In the parlor amid amused Miss i Thrsile by telling her how she put down the Princess Victoria who wanted lo be hoitylolty But rny dear observed Mitis Thrale who being a brewers daughter and brought up in Dr Johnsons principles did not understand Stanhope pride the Princess Is to be one day your Queen Oh dear Miss Thrale cried the other let her wall until she Is my Queen Meanwhile she had better remember that 1 hho Is granddaughter of George ill who was what you know and that L am the greatsjramldaiiKhter of William Pitt The possessive pronoun says Mr Crawford illS sirongly cooled in the Queens head from childhood Capl Cou roy In giving traits of her character said that she never allowed any other children to play with her toys The e tune niy tots and you are not to touch them1 was the prefatory remark to an exhibition iiI them ii-I In old age when the toys had Iwen u discovered In a press and sent to Kensington Ken-sington It I t was My army1 My navy My empire Gossiping upon Ihe nullity of literary controversy In I general Mr Andrew Lang affirms that I Matthew Arnold professed never to reply to anybody and he once d told I Mr Lung tho I he lines I hIs bookcases with copies of replies to his books placed nldeways to I keep the damp from his own volumes Yet when breaking ihrouuh I his general rule ho did Indulge In rejoinders what he uroto was entertaining to others an extremely vexallouu lo his assailants ITpon 1 the general Improvement Iu controversial I contro-versial manners Mr lang says Poke would no longer call I Jr Cowel his adversary Dr Cowhcel When Coke found that ho could not hang Cowcl for ireason says Issue Dhiraell 1 It was only a small I disappointment I foi he had hopes to Hccuri ins prey by Involving him In felony Tho author was imprisoned impris-oned and the book burned Even iiI Huxley ii-I would not on the occasion of the Mlrncfc of Gadara have desired Mr Gladstone to be Imprisoned fou felony or hangiid for treason at least I hope not We wish our enemies no worse fate than that they should be compelled lo read our books or llacul proposals before they crlll clae them Yet even this may ueem below the level of Christ Inn charity The law In Its wlddom declIner to inlcrfere MARLJS XKST JN PLAGIARISM To be charged with plagiarism aocord Inc to Mr Tiobirt II h I Sherard Is an experience ex-perience which hilt come the i way of itliUL writer Everyoii remembers a rcceill eousplciuMw case In which a Mr Grose of Chicago challenged 11m I originality of M i Kdmoml Rostands Cyrano de Ber jcerac J and we mm me reminded thai suimc fifteen i years ago a similar accusation was brought afalurl M Vlctorleii Sardou by an d American playwright Mr Shtrard believe l be-lieve that Ihla charge which IH level In turn I acraliuit every prominent writer Is much loo lightly brought The sources from which poetn novei hits and pUiy wrlghls ali Imaginative I writers in I short draw their t Inspiration he urges should bo admitted lo bo conimBn property Most writers he states have borrowed at times consciously or unconsciously from the t work 01 others yet It Is possible to1 Incur h tho charge although of the beat of good faith We read further In T 1 Ps Weekly London as follows incident even phrases aro often supplied sup-plied lo Imaginative writers nut by Imagination Imag-ination i but by iicmory There uro nt leant 1 two linos In two of Tennysons poonip which aro almost literally translated tho ono from Schillerthe other from Horace I and which are glvon as original bolh In thought I anti expression Indeed I thero Is not u one prominent writer who 1101 not borrowed bor-rowed from his predecessors Hai I any malevolent orllle ever charged Charles Dickens wilh plagiarism It would be no very difficult I task to back up such a charge with a fair semblance of proof He himself has admitted how filled was his head with the novels of the cighteenlh century It I might be established that he not only went lo them for construction but for churaclcrs Smike In his fidelity nnd attachment might be shown to be the replica of Strap Aa to the Immortal Mt cawbcr it could be asked how much In his creation Dickens owed to Hosiwells I Life of Johnson Mlcawber says things which Dr Johnson had said before him in slit hhcur words Let your imports exceed your exports and all be well with you In a piece of ndvleo which he gave to Boswell when pleaching frugality It suggests Illicit also to otic that Mleawhers craze for letterwrit ing was Inspired by lie abuudani proofs which Uoswcll gives of his eminent friends epistolary itch Some of Johnsonu most stately compositions composi-tions have If we read them by the light of a Dlckensonlun appreciation a decided Micawberian flavor especially in the point of pompous peroration And what answer lo I u charge of de liberal e plagiarism could be mad when before the eyes of the reader of Tho Pickwick Papers Is laid the following passage from Roswells Life chapter xlix Mr nenuclcrk said No for that very wise man vho intended lo shoot himself him-self took two pistols that he might be sure of doing It al once Lord s cook shot himself wilh one pistol and lived ten days In great agony Mr who loved buttered muffins but durst not eat t them because they I disagreed with his slomach resolved to shoot himself and then he ale u three i buttered muffins for breakfast biforo shooting himself I knowing that he ihould not be troubled with indigestion etc Why that Is one of Sum Wallers good stories would be the cry of the rcjuler of Pickwick Of coinse the right answer to make i here as In ninetynine cases out of a hun dred charges of plagiarism would be thai Dickens had read time story forgotten Us I source and that when he put It Into Sam Welters mouth he had no Idea that It was standing elsewhere In cold print CHANGES IX ENGLISH ORTHOEPY It Is not the conflict which goes on be IWLin what he calls LIme common and what he considers ihe proper usage which alone vexes the soul I of the urlhoeplKt ith variations I already existing and others steadily coming to exist he finds himself iu constant perplexity Tills condition con-dition of things Is with us Inevitable In LS L a i language which ha > more than forty pounds to be represented and with but a few more than twenty characters to rep 1USC lit them pronounclallon is always liable S lia-ble lo partake of a certain degree of lawlessness law-lessness here I are always Influence at work which lend to t produce u diversity I Thcv act not only upon the Individual Ii I words bur upon whole classes They are i operating also at all periods and In all I piacts Of two of these it is desirable to I lake some notice THE SHIFTING OF THE ACCENT The llrst concerns the shifting of the accent Mlth us the tendency Is regularly regular-ly In the I direction of placing It as far from the I end as possible The practice Is occasionally carried 10 such an extreme that it almost requires a training In vocal gymnastics to uller the word without giving giv-ing the Impression hint part of it has been swallowed by the speaker Excesses of this sort are apt In the long run to cure themselves I for pronunciation like every tIming ohse lends lo follow the L line of the least resistance When the accent Is tin own back to the fourth syllable from the end vlth no secondary accent to aid I utterance for Instance In the case of Indisputable and Inexplicable wo may be confident that I men of Independence who find the I word difficult lo pronounce will I take It upon them lo pronounce It to suit themselves In general It may be said that in our longtie I victory in most cases Is likely to rest with ueh as place the accent ac-cent upon lie Elm hid syllable from the end SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGlAGIO i the secondary agent producing constant changes in ptuiuuiclntlon Is time ullcmpl going mi increasingly with the extension of education t to accommodate the spoken to I the I written language In I early I linos i knowledge of lie speech was gained almost al-most exclusively thiough the ear at present U Is learned largi throuyn the eye He 1 who In reading meets a word I with which he Is not familiar Inevitably tries lo pronounce It as near as possible lo I the t way In which It I Is spelled This of Itself has a tendency to produce variation The phonetic sense of the JSnglishspcak lug race has been rendered so defective by Ihe confused orthojjrnphy of Ihe I tongue that to different men the same combination combina-tion of letters will coney different sounds With such Influences at work with facts like I hose Marine us In the face it Is no woider that I users of language as well as oithoipisls should be constantly hesltal Pig as to the I proprlely of their own pronunciation S pro-nunciation They find themselves at scum tossed about bv winds from every quarter quar-ter and vllh little appareul piospccl of reaching any 1 secure orb hioepleci i haven The standard of authority Is what they ate clamoring for m they I are ready to i submit sub-mit to U the moment It has established Us I rlirht lo rule Wilt whore ire they I to I looL for this infallible guide The question ques-tion luis constantly perplexed nrlhocplsis It seem never lo I have occurred lo u any of the t compilers of dictionaries and lo but I few of those who consult them that the simple solution of the whole difficulty i u Is that t In the mailer of urommolniton iheie Is no standard of alilhorllv at all Nor as thlags now are cnu there be Pronunciation Pro-nunciation must and will vary widely among persons of equal Indulgence and cultivation A dictionary which tots out to establish on a solid base aa authoritative authori-tative nlandaid is bound to take Into account ac-count the pracllce of the t whole body of educalcd men the t world over who ate en tilled to eonslrtciallon How Is that lo be ascertained The mere statement of the i fact shows Itr physical i Inipopslblllty t It is a taslc beyond the power of any our person or any number of persons to accomplish ac-complish The truth Is that the I pronomi clallon of every dictionary expresses the preferences of the poisons who havo been L concerned In Us coniullation Thomas R Lounslniry In the September Harpers i Magazine |