LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14758, 30 August 1913, Page 9

LITERARY GOSSIP.

The latest recruit to the ranks of lecturers is ("Everyman" understands) Mr Yeats, who is contemplating a tour in America. Novelists long ago diecovered that it paid them better to talk about the way they wrote their books tlian to writo them, and it is a striking fact that the great master of the art of fiction, Charles Dickens himself made ten times the amount from the lecture-chair that ho achieved by the sale of his masterpieces. The readings, however, proved so terrible a strain that he broke down under the fatigues, and only resumed the work against tho reiterated warnings of his medical advisers, who told him that he must inevitably shorten his life if he continued. Up to tho present, poets have not been conspicuous as lecturers, and it will be interesting to see whether Mr Yeats is able to hold his audiences after their first curiosity has been satisfied. A well-known novelist is of opinion that, curiosity once satisfied, the author '"could not stay the course," uuless he had quite exceptional gifts as a platform man, and these few litterateurs possess. "Reading maketh a. full man, speaking a ready man, and writing an exact man."

Gur de Maupassant's name appears often in the familiar correspondence of Vincent van Gogh, published recently under the title-of "Letters of a PostImprcssior.ist." But it would seem that this ilt-fate<l Dutch painter never met the gre?.t Frenth writer. Yet they must- have been near each other many times between ISBS and 1890 without knowing it l ( 'or Van Gogh, like Maupassant, was an extravagant lover of the Midi, and lived both at Aries and at St. Remy. It was in connection with the women of the former .city, so much admired by "Francois" and his master, as the former has relatxi in his "Recollections,"' that Van Gogh, who wished to paint them, wrote "But—l do not feel that this is my allotted task —I am not enough of a 'Bel-Ami' for the work. But . . . i should be mightily glad. I say, if an artist could be born among painters, such as Guy de Maui>assant among writers, who could joyfully paint the beautiful people and things which are to bo found here." He adds: "I cannot imagine this painter of the future leading the lite I lead. He would not have to go to small restaurants, wear

false teeth, and visit third-rate cafes frequented by Zouaves.'' Here, doubtless (the New York ''Bookman" says), we get a glimpse of the real reason why the two men did not meet. There wa. Q a wide gulf between the prosperous, >'.oek, wou-groomeu author who went al>out everywhere, and the poor artist who, supported by his brother, lived once- for four days on twenty-three cups of cotfee, and often dined ou a cnift.

A list of the thirteen greatest nuxk'rn books of travel is given in "Outlines of Victorian Literature." by Professor Hugh Walker and Mrs "Walker, five of Borrows hooks are given, and those eight:—Sir Francis McClintock's "The Voyage of the 'Fox' in Arctic Seas": jfiss Amelia Kdwards's "A Thousand Miles up the Nile. ,, Livingstone's "Missionary Travels in South Africa." Stanley's

"How I found Livingstone.' , "Through the* Dark Cor.tineiit," and "In Darkest Africa." Sneake's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of tho Nile," and Sir Richard Burton's "A Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca."

The recent jubilee meeting of the French Socie'to dcs Gens u< , Lettros, attended by President Poincaro, has led to an enquiry a.s to the origin of that most important thing foi writers—:»'.ithor's rights. Tho first trace of it goes back, it appear*, to i!u> year 16-33. A playwright uamed Qiiinault had written a piece named "Le>s Rivales." It was his first play, and he offered it to a strolling company of actors, who wore not willing to risk more than rifty crowns on its purchase. Quinault then suggested that instead of receiving a sum cash down ho should be given a ninth part of tho receipts taken during the run of the piece. This bargain was accepted and it proved to be the beginning of what was at first known as "tho author's share," and subsequently "tho author's right*." All those who have road Sir Gilbert Parker's fine novel. "The Right of Way." will remember distinctly the central character of Charley Steele, the cynical, drunken lawyer. " There has been a_ good deal of conjecture as to tho original of Charley Steele, some saying that they have seen his prototypo in a certain American lawyer. They knew ho was the original, they declared, because he himself had said so. Tho matter is elucidated in tho new preface to tho work in the uniform American edition. Tho author states emphatically that he never saw this lawyer. The real Charley Steele he knew as a boy, and he died long ago. For over .twenty years before writing the novel, the author carried this figure in his mind, wondering whether, and when, ho should make use of him. Again and again he was tempted, but was never convinced that tho timo had come, for the life story of Charley Steele seemed to end with his death at the Cote Dorian.

"Thero came a day, however," tho author says, "when all that ended, when the doors were flung wide to a new conception of the man, and of what he might havo become. I was going to America, and I paid an angry and reluctant visit to my Lor don tailor, 36 h/irs before I was to start. A suit of clothes had-been sent home, which, aftcv am effective trying-on -was a monstrosity. I went straight to my tailor, put on the clothes and bade him look at them." Tho tailor scru-. tinised the ill-fitting garments, and then said ho would send for his foreman and bard them over to him for alteration. "Ho rang a bell. Presently, the door swung open, and in stepped n. man with an eyeglass in his eye. There, with a look at once reflective and penetrating, with a figuro at once slovently and alert, was a caricature of Charley Steele as I had known him, and of all his characteristics. There was such a resemblance as an ugly child in a family may have to his handsome brother. It was Charley Steele with a twist—gone to seed. Looking at him in blank amazement. I burst out, 'Good Heavens,' so you didn't die, Charley Steele 1 You becamo a tailor I"

In connection with the announcement that the "Saturday. Review" is ehortly to pass under the control of, a new editor, it may bo of interest (remarks the "Westminster Gazette") to recall that under its first editor, Join Douglas Cook, the famous weekly jumped almost at one bound into the first place in' periodical literature. Cook, according to the lato Sir Leslie Stephen, was a young Scot whose narratives of his' travels in early days in the East were generally thought to be "marked rather, by imaginative fervour than by a servile adherence to historic accuracy" ; but however this may have_ been, he wns in Ids right place as editor of tho ''Saturday." gathering round him a brilliant band of contributors, men. like Sir William Hareourt, Sir Henry Maine, Freeman (whose contributions, said the late Andrew I/ang. never added jTfiiefcy to its columns). Mairk Pattison, Viscount (then, of course, Mr John) Morley, and the late Lord Bowen. From the first, as someone has well said, the new journal was wanting' neither in ability or audacity. Since Cook's rdcrimo 'the "Saturday," like other papers, has had its vicissitudes, but it has always been noted for its outspoken criticisms on men and books. Under its new conductor we hope it will still retain its traditional literary flavour.

Mr Bertram Dobell, a well-known London bibliopole, in an interesting Catalogue of 'Browning "Memorials," relates the discovery, in a parcel of autograc-h letters he purchased at the recent Browning sale, of several unpublished poems by Robert Browning. iMost interesting are two pooms of Juvenilia —all his early poems Browning, as is well known, destroyed in later life —which extend together to nearly two hundred lines, copied by Sarah Adams (author of the widely known hymn, "Nearer, my God, to Thee"), and sent with a letter to W. J. Fox, whose judgment respecting the publication of Browning's early verse was desired. Mr Dobell hopes soon io pulbish these poems.