LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1610, 7 January 1903, Page 28

LITERARY GOSSIP

People who admire Walt Whitman' will smile at the effusiveness of the dislike of James Douglas for his poetry. Douglas says: “Walt Whitman is my pet aversion. I would cheerfully eat ground glass rather than listen to his horrible bowlings.”

“Matthew Arnold’s Note Book,” with a preface by his daughter, the Hon. Mrs Wodehouse, are now due.

Sarah Bernhardt’s literary work is in places very interesting. Of the French and the theatre, she says:— “The Latin races who are fighting against decadence are those which love the theatre least. Although France remains the first nation in literary achievement, the public in France goes to the theatre, but it does not crowd there. The better-class Parisian public has been frightened from the theatre by the nouveau theatre, or realist school.”

An English paper reports that Mr W. E. Norris, the well-known writer* ia coming to Australia*

Two thousand eight hundred separate sermons by Spurgeon have now been published. His publishers announce that they still have enough manuscripts in hand to continue the series for some years to come.

A well-known critic, W. L. Alden, places F. Anstey at the head of living English humourists, and makes a sort of apology for the remark to Jerome and Jacobs. Jerome occasionally apologises for himself. Recently he said: ‘The humourist has no honour in England. In America he is respected; here he is tolerated.” Poor wags!

Swinburne is now spoken of as “the venerable poet.” Alas for the youth that gave us “Atalanta” and the “Poems and Ballads.”

Maxim Gorky is getting rather a bad time at the hands of English writers. The “Times” says:—“The Russian novel has never in our experience been a field for innocent gaiety, but it is hard to imagine that it caii never become gloomier or more squalid than it appears in the hands of Maxim Gorky.”

Tho famous “Cigarette Papers” of Joseph Hatton is new published at (id.

John Strange Winter’s new hook, published by Hurst and Blackett, is called “Uncle Charles.”

Captain Donald Stuart’s book, “The Struggle for Persia,” is described as indispensable to ' any student of the Middle East. It should be especially interesting at the present juncture.

Taine, the author of the standard, “The 'Origins of the French ißevolution,” was not a keen lover of nature, but passionately fond of music. He was a good pianist, and delighted iu playing with a violinist and violoncellist Mozart’s and Beethoven’s trios.

The Duchess of Sutherland’s book of short stories catches it rather warmly in places. The keynote of the book is love ; its title is “The Winds of the World,” and Mr Walter. Crane has a picture as a frontispiece. It represents two lovers standing under a tree, and surrounding them are allegorical figures representing north, east, south and west winds playing upon the tree of love. At the foot is the following:—“The fierceness of the north wind and the bitterness of the east, the honeyed breath of the south; the pass of the west—in truth, all the winds of the world play upon the tree of love.” Some of the stories are scarcely upon themes that a young girl should give her mother to read; oin Miss Millicent Sutherland,. as one critic put the Duchess, is rather commended for her literary quality.

Cannibalism in civilised countries is the theme of a novel entitled “The Oven,” by Mr Guy Thorne, which Messrs Greening and Go. are publishing.

One of Mr Heinemann’s recent publications, “The Two Young Brides,” translated from Balzac, has a critical introduction by Henry James, “A Century of French Romance.”

Messrs Greening and Co. are about to. issue in the Lotus Library a new translation of “Thais,” the well-known and just popular story of old Egypt, Hy Anatole France. ~ The translation has been made by Mr Ernest Tristan.

There is probably no living Frenchman who has so wide and profound an acquaintance .with English literature and English history as M. J. J. Jusserand, who has just been appointed French Ambassador at Washington in succession (to M. Canxbon. Perhaps his most important work is his r“Literary History of the English People,” which is to be completed in three volumes. A translation of the first volume has been published by Mr T. Fisher Unwin, and the second volume is completion.

Miss Henfriette Corkran’s “Celebrities and I,” announced by Messrs Hutchinson, will deal with a large number of well-known men and women whom she has met —'Balzac, Thackeray, Dickens, the Brownings, Mr Swinburne, D. G. Rossetti, William • Black, Lord Leighton, Millais, Ruslcin, Cardinal Manning, Mr G. F. Watts, and others.

Of Balzac, the “Daily Chronicle” Ba y S; —.“In the French fiction of Ine nineteenth century Balzao stands alone, a rough, gigantio figure, likejais own statue by Rodin, solitary, commanding, majestic.” s . ' "

Thus Sydney’Grundy in “The New Woman” 7 :-—“The ' modern woman is prostrated by the discovery of her own superiority, and she is now engaged in one of those hopeless enterprises which men have regretfully abandoned. She is endeavouring to understand herself. I offer my respectful sympathy.”

Though Zola earned an enormous income, estimated at about £15,000 a year, he seems to have lived up to it. He enioved embellishing his homes at

Paris and Medan, which were crowded with art objects. He always needed money, and during the last few years was more than once financially embarrassed.

“The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”—“A Woman of no Importance.”