Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 353, 12 February 1903, Page 7

Personalities.

THEY WERE POORLY PAID. :«2«REDERICK STANFORD, writing jkHl on *k o P a y of early American jaS» authors in a recent issue of the New York ' Times-Review/ name Washington Irving as the first who made any notable pecuniary success in literature. His ' Sketch Book' brought him about £l2O, his first earnings of any account in his own country. During the forty years he lived afterward, his writings, from sales and copyrights, brought him, if is estimated, £41,077. Prom 1842 until 1848 his works were out of print in his own country. No other American author of the first rank could make such a showing. Mr. Stanford says: * Irving was the one author wk o could be offered as an example of what a prolific writer might hope to gain if he captured great popularity on both sides of the Atlantic and retained it forty years.' Mr. Stanford believes that Bryant received no compensation whatever for Thanatopsis, published in tha North American 'Review* in 1817. It was not the habit of editors to pay their contributors. The honour of seeing one's, work in print was considered sufficient reward. Willis was the first magazine writer who was tolerably well paid. Hawthorne was offered £BO to write a book of 600 pages on the manners, customs and. civilities of all countries. His college friend, Horatio Bridge, wrote to him the same month : ' I have bean trying to think what you are so miserable for. Although you have not much property, you have health and powers of writing. You can with economy live upon that, though it would be ad —-d tipht squeeze. You have no family dependent on' you. Why should you borrow trouble ?' Edgar Allen Poe appears to have been the one writer of real reputation who got the least remuneration. No single production of his brought him over £2O; only two Beem to have reached that figure. He sold 'The Raven' for £3, ' The Bells' for the same, though he afterward received £2 for a lengthened and revised copy. Longfellow's executors estimated that the piates and copyrights of all his works were worth about £6,000. ' The Hanging of the Crane' brought the poet £6OO, of which he gave £2OO to a friend who negotiated the sale, certainly a liberal commission, ' Kermos' brought him £2OO, and these two were the culminating prices for his single productions, though he was an industrious worker for more than fifty years. » ... ...-■.,± '% While Hawthorne was hoarding the £360 he received for ' TheiScarlet Letter' Mrs. Stowe was counting her thousands from ' Uncle Tom's Cabin/ which brought her £2,000 in the first four months after ' its publication in book form. For. the serial rights she received £6O. Emerson, at 74, found his last volume the only one that approached a remunerative sale. Bryant in his 83rd year, could not buy a modest home with all he ever received from his poems. Think what books these men, wrote! What is there in the literature of to-day to compare with them. Yet compare the pecuniary returns of the authors of today with the modest rewards that were theirs. It would almost seem as if better pay had resulted in poorer books. ANECDOTE OP WELLINGTON. Cspt. W. Gordon McCabe, of Virginia, in his personal recollections of Tennyson, in the ' Century.' relates that the laureate said to him, referring to the lines in the ode:

No it ore in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street 'I never saw the duke but once; that was in St. James' Park as he rode oat of the Horse Guards. ,1 lifted my hat, and he saluted me in quick military fashion. Once at Bath House where I was for a little while at some sort ef entertainment, Monckfon Mimes wanted me to stay and be presented to the duke, who was coming cq later. Bat I said: ' What the devil do you suppose the duke wants to see me for ?' and went away. That reminds me/ he continued, with a chuckle, ' when the duke was a very old man, president of the privy council, he had walked up one day from Downing Street, instead of riding, as he usually did. He walked up the lefthand side of Piccadilly, along St. James' and the Green Park, and when he came to a point opposite Apsley House, the old soldier couldn't cross the street safely owing to the number of carriages and hansoms that were whirling past. At last a weil-dresaed man recognised the duke in the crowd, and fUvining his trouble walked up to him and said,' Will your grace allow me the honour of escorting you across the road ?' ' Thanks/ said the old hero, laconically. This was safely accomplished, and ' Thanks/ said the duke again. But the patriotic Baton standing uncovered, said: 'My lord duke, this is the proudest moment of my life. I shall tell my ehildren, and they shall tell their children, that I once had fche distinguished honour of escorting across the street the hero 'of Waterloo/ The old duke, with an aristobratic beak • and military whisker, glancing down at his effusive friend with hia eagle glance; said dryly, ' Now, don't make a d d fool of yourself/ and forthwith vanished/

AN UNHAPPY QUEEN. Caroline died in less than three weeks after the coronation. Her body had not even a peaceful journey to its last resting place. She had desired to bs buried in Brunswick. It is a wonder that George did not defeat her desires' in deaths as he did all through life. He ordered that the funeral cortege should not pass through London, but the populace decreed otherwise. Pavements were 'torn up and barricades formed in the streets to compel the cortege to pass through the city, where marks of esteem and affection were freely vouchsafed. Caroline had desired the plate upon her coffin should bear the inscription, ' Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England/ This was torn off by the king's agents. Brunswick received the body of its injured daughter with every ceremony befitting her rank, and it was laid to rest in the vault of the ducal family, being borne thither between long lines of whiterobed maidens who scattered flowers on the coffin. Such was the life of one queen cf England! That her long unhappiaess was largely due to the malice and jealousy of a sister woman there is no room to doubt. - *

MAEK TWAIN'S FINANCIAL STATUS Mark Twain has grown wise in his old age. He has become financially very strong again, and has not only recovered his lost fortune, bnt added thereto until he can correctly be described as a * rich man.' For this happy condition he owes thanks to his friend and ardent admirer, Hnry H. Eogers, the Rockefeller understudy and Standard Oil and Copppr multi-millionaire. He began several years ago making Mr. Rogers the custodian of his surplus cash with a prayer that the multi should invest it safely and profitably. The great capitalist accepted the charge in the right spirit and put, the humorist on to auadry and divers good

things, alao not neglecting to lot him oat at the right time, a formality too of tea omitted in Wall Street. The Twain account was nursed from a email beginning into formidable proportions, and today stands a gratifying monument to the oil king's unselfish regard for a ;friend. To such a degree is Mr. Sogers interested in tho, temporal welfare of the famous author and lecturer, and so determined is he that no financial misfortune shall again, overtake him that he exercises a close personal supervision over receipts and disbursements. He is bent oh making the sunset of the Twain life rosy and smooth. In this world's goods Samuel T. Clemens was never so well fixed as now.