NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 336, 24 October 1908, Page 12

NOTES.

Mr. Austin Dbbson, in an interview, in " Great Thoughts," has something to say of his methods of work" I never Bit doWii tb write verse at my desk, or very Seldom (ho says), and thb difference between my prose and poetry is that the former I Write at my desk aiid the latter I make Up in my libaa aS I walk albhg. I do most bf my Work now in the morning, but When I was in tho Bbard of Trade I used to work every night from 9 until 12 b'clock. Like many other Government clerks—YateS, Trollope, and Rossetti, for instaiice-rl used to employ my-evbuings in Mr. Dobson, in his time, ( has written aoout many men, alld he sometimes doubts whether lie has been quite right in suppressing as much as ho has suppressed "The eighteenth century, as yen read of it in my books, seems entirely' given up to a life of puff and patch and fan ; and everyone who knows that it Was a time of sham patriotism, drunkenness, and brutal sports—of cock-fighting, bllll-baiting, and Bo njight Say that it is an improper view of the, ( eighteenth century as I present it! It is, however, an eighteenth century from which I have selected bnly the parts which I care fbr, which interest me, and which 1 find pic tiiresque and pregnant." It is a bookman's life that Mr. Dpbsbn has lived. My travels have been Chiefly ill books," he says, "and a great deal of my poetry has come from them and not from personal experience."

Jane Austen would doubtless have been surprised by muck of tho comment of later generations on her Writings, but she would probably have been Astonished most of all if she could have foreseen that ill tlie twentieth fiehtury her novels would be drawn upon for weapons in tho contest for pre* eminence between the Occidental woman aiid the Oriental. A Japanese author, Shingoro Takalslii, has 1 recently alleged that the Women of his oWn country are "the shyest beings in the world," and has explained their bashfulneis as due to thb moulding of the national feminine ideals by a moral teacher Who lived two hundred years ago. Whereupon the New York "Evening Post" reminds the Oriental critic that Occidental ladies, too, have delicate and refined traditions. If he will turn to "Pride Ahd Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility," or "Mansfield Park," the Japanese Writer "will find embalmed in amber somo groups of . English ladies Whose hearts palpitated as exquisitely m their day as ally heart berteath kimono." The American journalist further calls to niihd another character in English fictitjh though not 1 ill Jano Austen's—namely, Pamela Andrews—who on the mernmg of her marriage Compiled a list of forty-eight Ways to please her husband. The " Book Monthly " for September fcdrttams an article embodying tho gist of it talk which the writer had with Mr. John Buelian, the London niembpr of the Edinburgh hub! lishihrf house of Thomas NcMi and Son, in regard te their SeVcnpemiy issue of popular i ftbtfcls. Mr. BUchaii expressed tho view that the "Sevenpenliy " has cbme to stay as a I form for the cireulatibn of English literature. that they had sold well 6v6r 100,000 copies of tmG of the * 4 6fevenpe^nics, ,, and that others had also a very largo sale. Tho returns tor the first year showed sales of two million copies, and Mr. Buchan pointed out that the gross profit earned by. the book trade on this return Would be about. £20,000.. To earn as much on six-shilling novels some 300,000 of these would have to bo sold.

H&w old is Mr. W, W. Jacobs? We ask (says the "Westminster Gazette") because the literary gossip of a contemporary tendered his birthday c&iigratulatiohs Oh Saturday—Mr. Jacobs being, he assured Us, fortysix on that day. "Who's Who," however, gives Mr. Jaeobs's date as September 8, 1863, thus making liini forty-five to-morrow; and tho records in "Who's Who" are undorsto&d to be authoritatively furnished. In oither case, it appears, birthday greetings aro due to Mr. Jacobs, and they Will not be grudged by tho many thousands who have found delightful entertainment ifi "Many Cargoes'' nntl its successors. Mr. Jacobs hns been publishing for a dozen years, and lias How just nbgut tho sat&ti number Of volumes to his name.