Literary Notes.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1030, 27 November 1891, Page 13

Literary Notes.

Edited by T. L. Mills.

Readers of tho Mail who are interested in literary Bubjecta and who meet with auv dittiouUiei in ths study thereof, are invited to put their trouble into a queaion and send it to this column and an answer will be (liven herein 11s early as c jnvenient. Publishers end booksellers are invited to send books and publications of general in eres, for notice iu th s column, thereby enabling country retders to to bo in touch with thi latest tv irks in the O deny. As an enemragement to literary beginners t' e editor will fairly and honestly criticis, any writings sent to him for that purpose and short contributions irom roaden will be we'coined for publication. Address all communications for this column to Tue Literary Editor, New ZcAt.axd Mail.’ QUERIES. In what poem can I find tho following words, and who i 3 the author : 'The brands still rusted in their bony hands.’ A Napier reader sends mo the above query. If auy readers of the Mail have come across the quotation in their reading will they kindly send me the answer ? ANSWERS TO QUERIED THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Can 3 - ou give me any information upon the origin of the collection of stories known as ' The Arabian Nights ?’ A Reader. The idea of the ‘ Arabian Nights’ Eutertaiuments ’ had it 3 origin in a collection of Persian Ta’e3 called ‘ The Thousand Fanciful . Tales,’ which were known to be in existence in the 10lh century—yet the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainments’ 13 original, and was written daring thr 16th century by an Arab. TO CLEAN BOOKLEAVES. I have a book of which I am very fond, the leaves of which havo got very brown. Can you tell me how to whiten them ? Vep-a. If your bookleaves have turned brown from age, try the following treatment—its success will depend on the extent of the injury to the paper. Wash them with ether, and place each leaf between two pieces of clean white blotting paper ; then press with a hot iron, and all greasy discolouration will disappear. FATHER IGNATIUS. Who and what Is Father Ign»tu3, now residing in Wales ?' I saw by a paper I read some time ago * Father Ignatus replies again.’ Terutak. You probably refer to Father Ignatius, a disputatiou? clergyman of the Anglican Church, who some six or eight years ago obtained much notoriety through an extensive correspondence in the English press. He was an eccentric character, dressing and living after the manner of the monks, and was a very high Churchman. He has not been heard much of since the period named, and I am under the impression that some rumour recently reached me of his .death. ‘Father Ignatius replies again ’ was quite a familiar saying some years ago.

MRS A. IRELAND. Can you give me any particulars concernng Mrs Ireland, authoress of the ‘Life of Mrs Carlyle,’ whioh is just oat here? Carlylean. Mrs Alexander Ireland ia by birth and heritage, as well as by all the circumstances of her later life, a woman of letters. Her father, the late Mr John Nicholson, of Queen’s College, Oxford, and Ph-D. of Gottingen University, was a brilliant Oriental scholar and the friend of most of the literary men of his time. In 1865 Miss Nicholson married Mr Alexander Ireland, author of ‘The Booklovera’ Enchiridion,’ and otherwise well known a 3 writer and journalist. Mrs Ireland has earned some renown as a lecturer, especially upon Browning, having taken an active interest in promoting Browning S icieties, but she now devotes the grea'er part of her leisure to literature and journalism. Her life of Jane Welsh Carlyle has occupied three years of actual work, and much assistance was rendered the authoress by Mr Fronde, Mr D. G. Ritchie, and others. English. —You are wrong, after all. ‘Curfew shall not ring to-night’ was written b> T an American (not a British) poet, Rosa Hardwick Thorpe. BRONTE AND THACKERAY. A CONTRAST. Posthumous correspondence generally throws a strange light on the character of celebrated people. There have just been published some letters from Charlotte Bronte to a friend, and in them she writes of Thackeray. Which doe? one suppose would be the more generous of the two —the tender-hearted authoress of ‘Jane Eyre, 5 or tha satirist of ‘Vanity Fair V Hear, first, what Charlotte Bronte sa y 3 : —‘ Mr Thackeray i 3 a keen, ruthless satins'-. I had never perused hi 3 writings but with feelings of blended admiration and indignation. Critics, it appears to m*, do not know what an intellectual boa-constrictor he is ; they call him “ humorous,” “ brilliant”; his is a most scalping humour, a mo3t deadly brilliancy—he doe 3 not play with his prey, he coiß round it, and crushes it in his rings. I wonder wiiat the world thinks of him. I should think the faults of such a man would bo distrust of anything good in human nature ; galling suspicion of bad motives lurking behind good actions. Are these his failings ? They are, at aDy rate, the failings of his written sentiments, for ho cannot-find in his heart to represent either man or woman as at once good and wise. 3

Now listen to Thackeray’s monody on Charlotte Bronte' Which of her readers has not become her friend 1 As one thinks of that life so noble, so lonely of that passion for truth—of thoae nights and nights of eager .study, swnnning fancies, invention, depression, elation, prayer ; as one reads' the necessarily incomplete, though most touching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this one little frame—of this one amongst the myriads of ecus that have lived and died on this great earth this great earth? —this little sppck of the infinite universe of God—with wliat wonder do wo think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but darkly seen shall bo clear !’

PAPERS, BOOKS, AND AUTHORS. Mrs Henry Ward Beecher’s personal memoirs of her husband, under the title of ‘ Mr Beecher as I Knew Him,’ began in the October issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal, Philadelphia. Rudyard Kipling’s new novel, entitled ‘The Naulahka ; A Tale of West and East,’ begins in this month’s number of the Century Magazine. It is a story of America and India, according to the synopsis. The principal characters live in a 4 booming ’ Colorado town, where the story opens, bat the scene quickly shifts to the court of an Indian maharajah, whither the hero and heroine journey to meet with varied .experiences. Mr Kipling has written the story in collaboration with Wolcott Balestier.

The journalists of Paris have not forgotten the old ways of settling their disputes. The other iday Mona. D. Hubert, editor of Gil Bias, and Mons. M. Laurent, editor of La Jour, laid aside their pens in exchange for the sword—for once the Bword was mightier than the pen, Gil Bias’ editor being wounded in the face, which settled the duel. John G. Whittier is so modest that his niece, who is prepariug.a biography of him, has found it very difficult to obtain any aid from him t in her work. His strength is gradually failing, and he is forced to give up the long;walks which he formerly - took. - ' > The thickest book in the world is the book containing the., addresses presented to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her jubilee. It is nearly thirty inches thick, and weighs sixty-three po.uuds. Mr James Payn, the Well-known English novelist, recently told an interviewer that he works from 10 am. to 4 pm., and that from 4 to 6 he plays whist. In a sale of Wilkie Collins’ manuscripts recently ‘The New Magdalen’ brought L2l, ‘The Woman in White ’ Ll 4, and ‘ The Moonstone ’ LI 10s. Mr William Black, author of a goodly number of popular works of fiction, requires complete silence and solitude when writing a novel. When he is in the middle of an exciting part he has his meals in a room far removed from his study, aud even then the bang of a door will put his muse to flight for a time. ‘Life in the Royal Navy, by A. Ranker,’ which I see on our bookstalls, is a brightlywritten lecord of 20 years’ experience in the naval service of to-day, which will be eagerly read by all interested in the lot of Jack afloat.

Mr Woodberry, writing on the commercial motive in literature, says :— ‘ The reading public is now such, so far as can be judged, that the mass of readers is 100 imperfectly cultivated to impose such standards, either in metier or stylo, as would make a national literature of toe first order. Our national life has been rather of the Roman cast.’ He considers the first condition of success is to throw away all thought of money in the present and refuse to work for money unless it comes in the way of work. Another humourist has been discovered in England iu the peison of Mr Barry Pain, author of a recent work, ‘ln a Canadian Canoe,’ which first attracted attention as it ran through the magazine of Cambridge University. Mr Pain’s humour is of the quaint and quiet order very different from tho boisterous and ofttimea vulgar American humour. The columns of the Illustrated London News have lately been enlivened by Mr Pain in * Other People’s Letters.’