LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13876, 29 October 1910, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Goldwin Smith's reminiscences will be lively reading if the following froirf tho first instalment is a fair sample:— "Carlyle introduced Emerson to the British public as one who brought new fire from tho empyrean. But the two men in genius were leagues apart, and Carlyle at last found tho new firo' a bore. George Veuables, calling ono evening on Carlyle at Chelsea, found himself received with extraordinary warmth, the reason of which Mrs Carlylo explained by exclaiming, 'Oh, we were afraid it was Emerson.' I heard Emerson lecture. Now and then ho shot a telling bolt. Tho rest of his discourse to mo was almost darkness. I heard him read his own poetry aloud, but it remained as obscure to mc as before." i

The Late Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, Mr William James, who died last month at the ago of 68, has been deeply regretted in circles far from his own country. The following are recalled as some of his sayings:—"Habits aro the stuff of which behaviour consists." "The hell to bo endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than tho hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in tho wrong way." "Just as a bicycle chain may be too tight, so may one's carefulness and conscientiousness be so tense as to hinder tho running of one's mind." "Habit is tho enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent." "In some men theory is a passion, just as music is in others."

The following are the 2f> books most in demand by boys of from 12 to. 15 years ol ago at tho Children's Library, New York:—"Tom Sawyer," by Mark Twain; "Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain: "Cadet Days." by General Charles King: "The Adventures of Buffalo Bill." by Colonel W. F. Cody. "Robinson Crusoe," by Daniel Defoe; "ihe Adventure.- of Sherlock Holmes," by A. Co nan Doyle: '"Treasure Island," by Stevenson; "Crimson Sweater," by Barbour; "Behind the Lines." by Barbour; "Jack Among tbe Indians," by Grinneil: "Halfback. '' by Barbour; "Fast Mail.'" by Drysdalc; "Substitute," by Camp: "Pete. Cow Puncher," by Ames; •''lvanhoe." by Scott; ""Captains Courageous," by Kipling, "Redskin anil Cowboy," by Hentv: "Story of a Bad Boy." by Aldrich; '•■Robin Hood," by Pyle. "Yale Cup." by Dudley; "Oliver Twist." by Dickens; "Monte Cri.t.o." by Dumas; "'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under tho Sea," by ..Verne; "The Spy." by Cooper; and "Kidnapped," by Stevenson.

When the German Emperor took possession of the castle and estate of the Achilleion in Corfu one of the first." things he did was to have removed the statue of Heine, erected by the former owner, the Emnress Elizabeth of Austria, as his dislike of the poet is as strong as the murdered Empress's admiration of Heine was great. For three years the statue was hidden away in a shed, until it was bought by another admirer of Heine, Jules Campe, a rich Hamburg banker. He offered it to the city of Hamburg on condition that it should be erected on a suitable site. The Hamburg Senate shares the opinion of the Kaiser as to the poet, and rcfu.od the statue on any terms. Herr Cam re was determined that the statue should not bo wasted, and decided to place it in tho courtyard of a business house where it could be easily seen from the street, but even this solution has not satisfied the people of Hamburg, for the Imperialist party has drawn"ur> a petition asking the Senate to prevent the erection of the statue anywhere

within their city, as being "__< out " rago to their patriotic sentiments." As to the worth ot Heine's poetry tho IK* tit ion declares that ot>iinoi_s may differ, but the mo_t competent judges, among them Aucrbach and Mommsen, agree on this point, that the wnole nation and its institutions, and especially Prussia and the Itohcnzollerns, were attacked by Heine iv the most obnoxious and insulting manner. Iho petition goes i-n v,- declare mat Heme utterly tailed to understand the German mind, and ridiculed everything that was the forerunner of the country's future greatness at the beginning ot the nineteenth century, and "for a number of years he received -übsidies from a foreign nation t.o defend its interests against ours." But while official Germany hates Heine, his songs are sung daily by millions or Germans. Officialdom may refuse- him statues, but it cannot loose his hold on the hearts of the people.

Mr George Bernard Shaw made a characteristic contribution to the "length of novels" controversy, which is referred to in another column:—"ln niv opinion fiction should be sold by the pound, as Blue-books are. I attribute a good deal of the steadiness oi my own market to the fact that I have always thoroughly understood that people have to lav in a .household store of reading, just as they have to lay in a household store of tea or cheese, and that they expect four-and-sixpenco worth of it to last a certain time. I should like to take this opportunity of informing my customers that my next volume will" contain three- complete plays and three prefaces comparable to "Royal Commission Reports on subjects of universal interest. It will keep nil average man of business in active reading lor a fortnight, and will last tho family fully a month; and it will bear reading over again once every eighteen months for life. This estimate does not include reading in bed; but it will be found under rather than over the mark with fair reading. You save money by buying my books. Books aro like boots: if only they are readable and fit comfortably, those which last longest aro the best." I

Horace Walpole is very roughly handled by Mr J. 11. Ingram in his study, ••The True Chatterton." Loudon '"Truth," echoing the author's strictures, says:—"Mr Ingram is savagely but really not unduly severe upon Horaeo Walpole, who" cuts a despicable figure in his relations with the poet, and who, indeed, is chiefly responsible for the mortification of tho poor boy's pride and hopes. Walpole was himself so conscious of this responsibility that he lied freely and boldly about his correspondence with the poet and did all he could after the lad's death to blacken his memory. There never was a clearer or baser case of •odisso quern laoseris' than Horace Walpole's persistent and venomous depreciation of Chn.tcrton's genius, and blackening of his character •if-'jr the po.t's tragic death. His denunciation of the boy a.s a 'villain,' 'scoundrel,' etc., etc., been use ho tried to impose the Rowley Poems on the world, camo well from tho forger of tho venomous letter purporting to have been w-ritien to Rousseau by Frederick the Great. 'The King of Prussia's "letter to Rousseau" and the ''Memorial" pretended to have been signed by noblemen and gentlemen, were fabrications, as Walpole himself confessed, only to make mischief,' says Disraeli in 'his 'Curiosities ol Literature' ; and he adds, 'It ill bee. mo him whose hapmor invention, "The Castle of Otranto," was brought forward in the. guise of forgery, to havo so unfeelingly reprobated the innocent inventions* of Chatterton.' As for Walpole's critical disparagement of tho works of Chatterton. Mr Ingram should remember Milton's 'of whom to bo dispraised were no mean praise' and that Chatterton shared with 'trifling Johnson and piddling Goldsmith' tho literary disapproval of a critic who proclaimed Christopher Anstcy's 'New Bath Guide' ns tho supreme poetic work of tho day!" - f