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Show LITERARY NOTES. Owen Wistcr's "Meinbors of the Family" Fam-ily" stood high oil the list of six best sellers In Boston for last wcok. This is tho second Macmlllan book to attract wide attention In the Hub within a fortnight, fort-night, for Mary S. Watle"8 "Tho Legacy" Leg-acy" is also numbered among those- which are. much in demand. One reviewer of "The Grain of Dust" ays thai ho docs not bcliovn that Mr. Phillips bad finished It before his "death, and calls It "the- first rough draft of tbe Etory he'd have done If he had not been murdered. ' As n. matter of fact, however. how-ever. Mr. Phillips was In the hobit of writing each of ' bis stories nlno times, and "The Grtln of Dust" was no exception. excep-tion. The tory began its serial run the v.f;ck after the author was shot: and the Applctons, who have now published the book, say that it was in type in their office of-fice four months before that. time. Fifty yearn or 50 ago an Austrian Monk named Mendel made experiments with plants and animals in an endeavor to deduce tb principles of heredity, publishing publish-ing obscurely ills observations. For almost al-most forty years these observations wore ignored, until in 1S9G do Vrlcc rediscovered rediscov-ered Mendel's work and brought It forcibly forci-bly t the uttentlon of the public Where. 11 few years ago, comparatively speaking, Mcndcl'y theories were practically unknown, un-known, now overy gardener, poultry breeder or breeder ol pmnll animals realizes re-alizes that .-1 knowledge of them Is the first essential of uuccc:6. ft. C. Punnell. Fellow of Gonvlllo and C'alus Collet-c and Professor of Biology In tin- University of Cambridge, Mis lit his WlondellHin." 11 new. thoroughly revised re-vised and greatly enlarged Million of which has been recently published, just what those laws of Mendel's are. presenting pre-senting them in sueh a way tlmt Mvy will bo of moKt service lo the practical gardcnei or breeder. From n study of tho lawn s appllod to plants and animals, ProfCFfor Punnell turn." to a ounsldern-tlon ounsldern-tlon of them as applied to the human species. Messrs. l-lniv Holt and Company Issue, in connection with Messrs. Melliucn of London, Dr. Joseph McCalv-'p "The Empresses Em-presses of Rome. The work Is sold to gnther Into n vivid and continuous story nil thnt is known of the Roman 'impresses 'im-presses down to the fall of the Western Empire. II reproduces the most Inter-estlnr Inter-estlnr phases of the luxury an 1 decline of Roman society, and offers ti remarkable remark-able .cutlery of tyres of Roman women, with a careful character-study of the more uromlncnt. The study s based on the original authorities, but is writton so as to convey a picture of Roman life and character to the general render. There will be somo two dozen Illustration:?. Illustra-tion:?. Two volumes of "The Great English Kovebats" hnv. just been added by' the Harpers lo "The Readers' Library," which now contains seven volumes In all: two each of the "Great English Letter-Writers." Letter-Writers." "Tho Great English Short-Story Short-Story Writers." and one- of "The Grcal English Essayists." All of the books are furnished with prefatory essays, tracing the history of the- nowd. essay, short story and letter from Its origin in Ihu Bible or classical literature, down to characteristic specimens In the literature of today. Somo of the most brilliant passages of English literature are Included Includ-ed within tho compass of this library The two editors, William J. and Conlngfl-by Conlngfl-by Dawson, father and son, show a curious curi-ous parallelism In theJr literary tastes, having both produced, in addition to theso boohs of literary criticism, volumes of poetry and fiction. Among the brilliant men who figure In tho pages of Lleutcnant-Gcnral fir W. F. Butler"? Autobiography ("Sir William Blltler; An A 111 nlilnnnnlii- .- flint-lna Scribnor's Sons) Is Parnoll. The writer tells of visiting him on his estate, in Ireland Ire-land during the shooting season, nnd gives this summary of his character: "Parnull was quite unlike any other rnan that I bad ever met. Tall and strikingly strik-ingly handsome, there was in him something some-thing beyond definition or description. It was power utterly careless of Its possession, posses-sion, seemingly unconscious of its own strength, unaggressive In its mastery, unstudied, impassive, without one touch of haughtiness. lie was usually silent, but saying what ho wanted to say In the straightcst words: never offensive, always al-ways fair; always thinking, but never absorbed ab-sorbed In his thoughts: thoughtful of others: alive to everything around him; entirely without pose or pretense, cvon in temper; showing breeding to his llngor-tips. llngor-tips. You say aU these things, and you might say fifty other things about him. and yet you aro conscious that you have said nothing; and the reason Is this, that you might Just as well attempt to describe the flight or passage of a Marconi Mar-coni telegram through spape as to set down . In words tho secrets of this man's preeminence." |