LITERARY NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 21, 24 July 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

- — ♦ — Under date 4th June, our London correspondent contributes the following Literary Notes : — Dr. Conan Doyle was, according to the Academy, asked to finish Louis Stevenson's 'St. Ives,' but refused. The task was then handed over to Mr. Quiller Couch (' Q, '). Mr. James Payn, in the Illustrated London News, greets the announcement of the rounding off of ' St. Ives ' with considerable enthusiasm, and no doubt this approval of an old literary hand will be appreciated by Mr. Couch, more particularly as so many people have expressed their disapproval of this contemplated completion of another man's work. It is said that Mark Twain is strong in his faith as to the merits of the book of travels on which he is at work, a successor to the 'Tramp Abroad.' He affirms that 'he would not trade it for any book he has ever written.' Mr. Max O'Rell, whose lectures throughout Australasia three or four years ago seemed fairly successful, has been appearing in his own play 'On the Continong ' at Birmingham and Manchester. At the former place he camo in for considerable praise, and if one may judge by the following he is not doing so badly at the latter : — ' Those familiar with his platform efforts ' said the Manchester Guardian, * will not need to be told of the marked effect of his humorous sallies, and will not have failed to observe how subtly he introduces clever dramatic touches to adorn his tale. But few would be quite prepared for the extent of Max O'Rell's resources as an actor. That he should have perfect control of his voice might, of course, have been surmised. The surprising part was the discretion, the control and the certainty of his comedy method. His technique was as admirable as that of an actor who has gained his experience in the best schools.' 'Paul's Stepmother,' by Lady Troubridge, is in great demand at the libraries. I'm sure I don't understand why, for it is written on exceedingly familiar lines. As soon as we read of Paul Wallender's wrath at his old father's marriage to a young girl we know what we are in for. Of course, he and his stepmother will begin by quarrelling violently, and, equally of course, end by loving each other desperately. . The sole doubt one can have is which of the trio the author will kill to end the novel. The old husband and father usually dies, but Lady Troubridge prefers to wipe out her heroine with heart disease. The newest novelist discovered by Macmillans is Sir William Magnay, Bart., whose ' Fall of a Star ' I have just finished reading. The story relates in somewhat sumptuous style the misadventures of a rising political magnate named Carstairs, who is accidentally observed by a couple of casual visitors murdering with electricity an inconvenient youug woman. The horrified onlookers constitute themselves' detectives and endeavour to discover the full facts. Whilst doing so Carstairs sus • pects and endeavours to poison one of them. He fails, however, 'is finally hunted down, and, of course, commits suicide. Thiß sounds crude, but it reads better than it sounds. Probably Sir William, who is comparatively a young man, will do better next time. It does not seem to be generally known that the late Mr. William White, whose ' Pen Portraits in Parliament' is one of the most enquired-af ter volumes of Mudie's just now, was the father of Mr. Hale White (author of those remarkable works ' Mark Rutherford' and "The Revolution of Tanner's Lane '), and grandfather of Dr. Hale White, the famous Harley - street specialist. Mr. William White began life as a bookseller at Bedford, but, through the Russell interest, obtained in 1854 the post of assistant doorkeeper to the House of Commons. Soon afterwards he was promoted to be doorkeeper, and retained the post till 1875. Mr. White was an observant and intelligent man of considerable education, and made copious notes of what passed around him. These he contributed (of course sub roso) to the now defunct Illustrated Times, where they attracted considerable notice. Thus commenced indeed the system of descriptive parliamentary reporting now so common. I quote as a sample of Mr. White's method and style the following description of the late Lord Beaconsfield (then, of course, Disraeli) making a speech: — 'When he rises he generally starts bolt upright, then leans his hands upon the table and casts his eyes downwards. At first he not infrequently hesitates and stammers a good deal, shambling like an old mail-coach horse who has got stiff by standing in the stall ; but, like the said coach horse, he soon warms up to his work. He then takes his hands off the table, thrusts them, it may be, into his waistcoat-pocket, and turns his face towards the House, or else, if he feels well up, he folds his arms across his breast. Then he hesitates no more, but his sentences come out in stately flow. Disraeli's sentences are specially remarkable for their excellent English and for the peculiar appropriateness of his words, especially of his adjectives. If there is an adjective in the language specially suitable to express his meaning, that he will be sure to use. But still he generally disappoints, for the first threequarters of an hour, strangers who hear him for the first time. There is nothing witty, nothing specially brilliant, for it is his poculiarit3 r that he reserves his wit and brillianoy until he is about to finish, and those who are used to him well know when it is coming. He shifts his position, turning with his face towards the Treasury bench, and heralds the coming witticism by a slight curl of the mouth and twinkle of the eyes.' Mr. Clive Bigham, whose 'Ride Through Western Asia ' was pubb'shed last week by Macmillans, is a son of the famous Queen's Counsel. He formerly held a commission in the Grenadier Guards, but drifted into journalism, and is now one of the war correspondents in Thessaly. When he made the journey described in this volume Mr. Bigham was an Honorary Attache to the British Embassy at St. Petersburg. The ride covered Asia Minor, Persia, Turkish Arabia, and parts of Central Asia. ! Mention of war correspondents reminds me that Mr. G. W. Steevens of the Daily Mail has come out easily first amongst the journalists employed in Thessaly. Hitherto men selected for this work have invariably been old soldiers with fine physique (like Archibald Forbes and Chas. Williams) but no special literary graces. The idea that a young Oxford graduate fresh from writing smait articles for the National Observer and Pall Mull Gazette would answer in such a capacity could never have entered the average newspaper editor's head. But Mr Alfred Harmsworth is not the average newspaper editor. He made Mr. Steevens a big offer, supplied him with ample funds and assistants, iusured his life, gave him his blessing, and sent him off. In return Mr. Steevens soon despatched war news i whioh drove up the circulation of the Mail by tens of thousands, and turned even the Daily News green with envy. . The story of Dr Beattie Crozier, the initial volume of whose mammoth work on ' The Hisrory of Intellectual Development ' was published last week by Longmans, is sympathetically told by • Tay Pay ' O'Connor in the current Sunday Sun. He says: — ' More than twenty years ago 1 used to meet a young man of singular beauty of face and of figure and of equally palpable sweetness of disposition. He was very tall and very slight, and straight as an arrow. His face had that exquisite chiselling of feature which I used to remark when in America was one of the marked characteristics of the men and women born in the favourable conditions and in the reigning climate of the New World. But his eyes were the chief feature in the face— with a great brilliancy, united with et certain pensiveness, melancholy, and remoteness an of a man who might brood and dream and live in an inner kingdom of his own. He told me that he was a Canadian, that he had

just got his degree as a doctor, and that he had come to London to study and work and get his living. I did not see him after a year or two of pretty close companionship for more than a decade, it was perhaps nearer fifteen years than ten, for that is the way in which in this dreary desert and the vast distances of London men get separated after their youth has given place to the hard struggles of maturity. When I saw him again he was the same man in many respects, and yet how different ! The eyes were still the "prominent feature of the face, and muoh of their old brilliancy remained, but the face that I had known so young was deeply lined, and the look of brooding and inner communings had deepened. Here is a man, said I to myself, with whom the world has not gone merrily. What great task or what great sorrow has so transformed his whole expression ? The story was soon told. He had gone into an extensive practice, harrowing and worrisome and not especially well paid"— for the medical man who lives in the suburbs has a very different life from that of his brother in the heart of the West End. But that was not the cause of the change. He had been seized with the idea that one of the great philosophical problems of the world could be explained by him, he had taken up the work with the light heart and the glowing enthusiasm of youth, whistling in very joy as he went, and the end was that he found himself condemned to a task of encyclopaedic reading, of fierce and constant thought, and of labour at once gigantic and inevitable He had tied himself to the stake of a great intellectual undertaking, and there was no release for him nenceforth in this world until the task was done. What this means to a man those only fully know who have ever had ' to write a difficult and lengthy book. Of all obsessions and horrors such a task may be the worst If anybody doubt it, let him read the story of Carlyle while he was writing his 'Frederick the Great.' The old-time friend of whom I speak figures this week in my front page, for it is Doctor Beattie Crozier, the author of one of the most remarkable works published in our times. The list of authorities which the author of ' The History of Intellectual Development ' has had to read in order to write his first volume is enough to make one dizzy. And when one remembers that all this has had to be done in the intervals of heavy professional work, the wonder grows how any man could have had the patience to go through such a gigantic piece of labour.' * ■