GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, 21 July 1892, Page 12

GOSSIP.

There is such a pressure on the space this week that No. 5 of 4 Writers of To-day,’ Walter Besant, must be held over.

Mrs Alexander, the clever author of the 4 Wooing O’t,’ has just recovered from a serious accident, met with some three months ago. Her new novel, ‘The Snare of the Fowler,’ will be published soon by Cassell and Co.

It’s lucky to be a popular author nowadays. Mr J. M. Barrie, of 4 Window in Thrums ’ and 4 Little Minister ’ fame, lias only published some four or five works, and yet he is getting £llOO for his now uovcL

The new book by Mr Walter Beaant, which I mentioned last week, is l’eally a collection of short stories, 4 The Doubts of Dives,’ 4 The Demoniac,’ and 4 The ©oil’s House and after.’ They were published in different pei'iodicals, and are by no means the author’s best work. Borrow tho book —don’t buy it!

The Idler for June is an improvement on the last numbers. Walter Besant tells the story of how he wrote his first book, 4 Ready Money Mortiboy.’ He begins a series of articles by authors on their first books, which should be piquant enough. Mr Jerome continues his 4 Novel Notes ’ ; Mr J. Bernard Partridge writes on and illustrates 4 The Artist up to Date ’ ; and Mr Barry Pain treats of 4 The Kindness of tho Celestial,’ whatever he means by that. Inside the leadings of 4 The Idlers’ Club ’ all the young humorists, as usual, assault each other and other people. This time George R. Sims is among the young humourists.

The Review ofjßeviews is, I fancy, falling off. Tho snippetty work is not so well done as it was, and everybody is everlastingly sick unto death of reminiscences of the G.O.M. Mr Stead is becoming spoilt by success and getting lazy. Still the Review is very useful.

Are you fond of essays, light, bright, quaint in fancy and diction? If so, you will appreciate Mr Augustine Birrell’a 4 Obiter Dicta,’ of which, I notice, a third series is to be published.

The first series of 4 Obiter Dicta ’ appeared anonymously in 1885, and its author suddenly found himself famous. The second series came three years later, and in the same year was also issued Mr Birrell’s admirable 4 Life Charlotte Bronte ’ in the Great Writers’ series.

M. Zola has just completed his great war novel, 4 La Debacle/ He wrote the first page exactly fifteen months ago, and has worked steadily at it for some hours every day. The manuscript is composed of 1030 pages of closely-written paragraphs, with scarce an erasure or edition. Both before commencing and during the period that he was engaged on the work he read an enormous number of military, social, end descriptive volumes dealing with the Franco-Prussian war, for, like most conscientious writers, he is always haunted by the fear of being inaccurate. Strangely enough, although 4 La Dbbaele ’ has certainly proved the most difficult of the Rougon-Macquarb series from the author’s point of view, it is not likely to be nearly as popular a success as Zola’s previous works.

In the new version he has written of his novel, 4 The Scapegoat,’ Mr Ilall Caine has eliminated the personal narrative, the English traveller has disappeared, the heroine remains in her own country, and her deliverer is the Mahdi.

Lord Salisbury has been reading Mr Joseph Hatton’s ‘By Order of file Czar,’ which is novr going into a thirteenth edition. A visitor to Hattield the other day noticed an open copy lying on the Premier’s table. Some time ago Mr Gladstone said his say about the novel. Mr Hal ton has reason to be well satisfied with the result of the boycott which the Russian authorities put upon his book. He is now engaged on a story the scene of which lie lays in Newfoundland. At one time he bad occasion to make a close study of Newfoundland and the Newfoundlanders. Now lie is turning his information to account in a novel, which he has decided to christen 1 Under the Great Seal.’ Newfoundland life has a certain touch of picturesqueness.

The Gladstones —father and son— botli appear in the June Nineteenth Century. Mr Gladstone contributes an article entitled ‘ Did Dante Study at Oxford ?’ ; and Mr Herbert Gladstone sends to the same number of the review an article entitled ‘ Ireland Blocks the Way.’

Arrowsmith’s Summer Annual, which was to be ready on June 6, forms a pendant to the Christmas Annual, in which Hugh Conway made his sudden leap to fame with ‘ Called Back.’ It takes the fairly familiar form employed with success by Dickens, of a series of ‘ Travellers’Tales,’ told by a number of writers of established fame. Mr E. A. Morton supplies the introduction, and Mr E. C. Philips, Mr William Westall, Mr Clement Scott, Mr Justin H. M Carthy, and Mr Richard Dowling complete the series.

A curious criticism on Renan is made by the London Spectator. It quotes a clever woman as saying in gentle depreciation of a friend : ‘ He is an intelligent creature, but he has a cork soul.’ Such a soul, the critic holds, M. Renan possesses. ‘ He has charm, he has pleasantness, he has on many subjects incisiveness of perception ; but he has a cork soul, one so light that it does not even perceive the topic he discusses. He talks of God, and he means some spiritual influence which corporate humanity is to develop when it is sufficiently far advanced ; he speaks of the soul, and only intends the mind when it is

moved by some hot emotion ; and he writes of sin, but he only thinks of a breach in a code of his own devising—nay, he hardly means evon that, for conviction of sin is a feeling he has not felt, and, if we judge him aright could not by possibility feel. Theology is for him as light a thing as literature.

A young lady with somewhat socialistic notions tried some time ago to raise her mother’s enthusiasm in the same direction, but met with such indifferent sucoess that she has since felt quite discouraged. ‘ I do wish you would make up your mind to read “ Looking Backward,” ’ she said to the old lady, referring to the book of that name. ‘lt would make matters so very much clearer to you. 7 ‘ ’Deed, an’ I’ll no’ bother myeelV replied the old lady, shortly. *lt may please you, an’ mak' maitters clearer to you to read looking backwai’d, but as it takes me a’ my time to read looking the natural way, I’ll just stick to the auld plan !’ And the young socialist felt too muoh annoyed at her mother’s obtuseness to explain matters.

The largest library in the world is that at Paris, which contains upward of 2,000,000 printed books and 160,000 manusorips. Between the Imperial library at St Petersburg and the British Museum there is not much difference. In the British Museum there are about 1,500,000 volumes. The Royal Library of Munich has now something something over 900,000, but this includes many pamphlets; tho Royal Library at Berlin contains 800,000 volumes ; the library at Copenhagen 510,000; the library at Dresden 500,000 ; the University library at Gottingen, Germany, 600,000. The Royal libi’ary at Vienna has 400,000 volumes, and the University in the same city has 370,000 volumes. At Buda-Pesth the University has 300,000 books ; the corresponding library at Cracow nearly the same number, aud at Prague 205,000.

An interesting article in the May number of Cornhill i 3 entitled ‘ Concerning Leigh Hunt. A letter from Dickens is perhaps worth quoting. It is dated Tavistock House, Fourth May, 18885, and runs :— * lam now, to boot, in the wandering, unsettled, restless, uncontroullable (sic) 6tate of being about to begin a new book. At such a time lam as infirm of purpose as Macbeth, as errant as Mad 1 om, and as rugged as Tiinon. I sit down to work, do nothing, get up and walk a dozen miles, come back and sit down again next day, again do nothing and get up, go down a railroad, find a place where I resolve to make a stay for a month, come home next morning, go strolling about for hours and hours, rejeot all engagements to have my time to myself, get tired of myself and yet can’t come out of myself to be pleasant to anybody else.

Carlyle presses Hunt to visit him at Craigenputtoch, and holds out several inducements to this end : * You shall have her (Mrs Carlyle’s) pony to ride ; she will nourish you with milk new from the Galloway cow ; &c., &c. In sober prose, I am persuaded it will do us all good. You shall have the quietest of rooms, the firmest of writing-desks ; no soul looks near us no more than if we were at Patmos ; our day’s work doue, you and I will climb hills or saunter on everlasting moors, now cheerful with speech ; at night the give us music ; and day will bo as and diligent as another. Why cannot you come V

Thackeray writes in January, 1847, thanking Hunt for a ‘ Jar of Honey,' but aaya lie lmd not tasted and of it, ‘ nor Tennyson’s Medley —having been so consuiisedly occupied with business and Y\v’;>h Jollification subsequently in these latter days.’ With the following lines, which be sent to Hunt on another occasion, o\w extracts from this very interesting article must conclude:— My dear Hunt,— Though we n«ver meet we should If you c.fjy.ld and if you would Wi;l you tike your dinner here On the last day of the year? And believe me Hunt my dear Yours for ever and a day Doableyouem Thack.ray.

Mr Ignatius Donnelly seems (says the Pall Mall Gazette) to be more successful as a novelist than as an elucidator of cryptograms. His bulky volume on the Shakes-peare-Bacon controversy had not, in this country at all events, a very large sale. his novel, ‘ Caesar’s Column/ which he first published under the noin de plume of ‘ Edward Boisgilbert, M.D./ considerably over a hundred thousand copies have been sold.

A reading of fiction which throws off care, or a reading of fiction which brings knowledge to men’s minds—as does much of fiction that is written nowadays—such a reading is beneficial. He who reads fiction to rest himself, to refresh himself, to lift himself above the dead-level of the vulgar zeal, reads it to his advantage and profit ; but he who reads it to abide in it, never giving back a better man to liis every-day household or business duties, is hurt by it.—Henry Ward Beecher.

Miss Katherine Macquoid, t.lio well-known novelist, has for the last two years composed her novels right off on a type-writer. She finds the method more agreeable than the pen, and certainly more healthful.

Edmund Yates, in recalling the visit of Hans Christian Andersen to Dickens in the summer of 1857, says that famous writer of children’s stories was a never failing source of amusement to all who met him, because of his Old-world gallantry, his pretty speeches and presentation of little bouquets which he plucked and made up himself, and his childish ignorance of everything that went on ai’ound him. Dickens, says Mr Yates, had one ridiculous story to the effect that when Andersen was being driven through the low portion of the Borough, to London Bridge Station he became bo terrified by the povertystricken and squalid look of the population that he hid his watch, money and valuables in his boots, expecting every moment an attack^

Mr Rudyard Kipling’s latest short story is entitled ‘ The Lost Legion,’ aud appears in tho June number of the Strand Magazine, the wonderful ‘ sixpenn’orth : magazine started by Mr G. Newnes, the proprietor of Tit Bits.

An English correspondent says that for ’ The Lost Legion ’ Mr Newnes paid £SO, Mr Kipling retaining the copyright. All the popular young writers are opening their mouths vei’y wide just now, especially for short stories. A sort of feeling pi’evails that this craze will presently go the way ofothei-s, and that it’s .well to make hay while the sun shines.

Messrs Sampson, Low and Son have a new volume oE stories by William Black in the press. The first and most important rau through three numbers of ‘ Good Words ’ last year, and is called ‘ Tho Magic Ink.’

‘ The Prig ’ (as the Hon Stephen Coleridge calls himself) has just completed a simple little story entitled ‘ Riches and Ruin,’ which is a complete contrast to the ‘ Life of a Prig,’ * Black is White,’ f The Prig’s Bede,’ and the other cynical studies for which he has become noted. I confess the book of the Chief Justice’s heir I like best is the volume of essays ‘ Dulce Domum,’ published some years back.

The cheap editions of Mrs Ward’s ‘ David Grieve ’ and Mr Rider Haggard's ‘ Nada the Lily ’ are said to be both ‘ dead frosts ’ at Home.

Messrs Cassell will publish Mr James Payn’s new novel ‘A Modern Dick Whittington,’ and the same firm announce a new volume of stories by Mr Quiller Couch, entitled ‘ I See Three Ship3.’ The title tale appeared in one of the Christmas annuals, you remember.

Nine editions of 1000 copies each have been issued of Mr Barrie's ‘ A Window in Thrums,’ seven of * Auld Licht Idylls,’ five of * When a Man’s Single,’ and four of ‘ Lady Nicotine.’ For a series of 6s books this is phenomenal.

A London correspondent says :—One of the most experienced publisher’s readers in London was praising the powerful passages in Marion Crawford’s ‘ Three Fates ’ on the tnania for ink-spilling. Ink (Mr Cx’awford contends) has killed more men and women than opium or alcohol. Once it enters a man’s soul he is practically done for unless he possesses real talent. ‘ There are no unappreciated geniuses about nowadays,’ said my publisher’s reader. *We know that. I get through honestly between six and eight manuscript novels a week. Once, perhaps, in three months I come upon a stoi*y which I think, after carefully considei’ing it, we may risk. This MS. seems so 'immeasurably supei’ior to the ruck I am tempted to believe it readable. When printed and dispassionately reviewed, however, I not uncommonly find this novel after all but a poor thing. By force of conti’ast a work of any real ability strikes you instantly. You remember we published Mrs ’s first book. I had not read six chapters before I l’ushed off to the of the firm. “ Secure this woman,” I BHed, “ she is a genius.’’ Well, she wasn’t quite that, but her book succeeded, and ran through three or four editions.’