LITERARY GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 15

LITERARY GOSSIP

M!rs E. Ij. Voynich-, the novelist who won with “The- Gadfly’’ considerable reputation, has boon seriously ill. She went for a holiday to Wales, and bro-uglit hack typhoid fever. It is stated, however, that her health is now mending. Her new novel, “Olive L;dham,” which was reviewed in these col.-

umns not long ago, is being -translated into French, Swedish, Italian and Polish.

A book of Indian stories is presently to be published by a nature named Sarath Kumar Ghosh. In it he will describe the trials avliicli an Indian juggler is condemned by the king to undergo as punishment for his presumption in loA r ing the princess, each incident being founded on a traditional feat, of Indian magic. Mr Ghosh’s publisher tells us in advance that he “will assuredly be acclaimed as the Indian Kipling.” Ghosh ! Mr Austin Dobson* has contributed these lines to a volumne published for the benefit of a guild to help crippled children : “SURGE, ET AMBULA.” * ‘Arise and Avalk” —the One Voice said; _ And lo ! the sineAvs shrunk and dry Eoosed, anti the cripple leaped on high, Wondering, and bare aloft his bed. The Age of Miracle is fled; Who to the halt to-day shall cry—- “ Arise and Araik !” Yet though the Power to raise the dead Treads earth no more, av© still may try To smooth the couch Avbere sick men lie, Whispering—to hopeless heart and head—“Arise and Avalk!” The biography of Sir Charles Wy net* ham, which recently appeared in London,, was written by Mr T. E. Pemberton. who is a brass founder as well as an author. One of the stories told iu this volume is of Charles F. Browne, otherwise Art en:.as Ward: “Poor, kindly, gentle, and ever witty Artemas Ward! He eren jested on his all too early deathbed. Tom Robertson, the dramatist, who became his great friend Avhen he visited England, was with him during his dying hours, and, hoping to gu'c him some alleviation,, poured out medicine in a glass and offered it to him. ‘My dear Tom/ gasped tile in- \ r nlid, ‘I can’t drink that horrible stuff.* ‘Do/ urged Robertson, ‘it Avili give you relief, my dear felloAV. Do, now, take it for my sake. You know I would do anything for you.’ ‘Would your’ said the patient sufferer, feebly stretching out his cold hand to- grasp his friend’s for nearly the last time. ‘Of course I AA'culd/ he said. ‘You know I would/ said Robertson. “Then drink it yourself/ said the dying man, with the glimmer of a smile of his Avorn features.”

“Western Europe in the Fifth Century—an Aftermath,” is the title of the book which the historian E. A. Freeman left unfinished, and on Avhich Professor York Powell was at work when his dying hand let fail the pen. Unfinished as it is, some completed chapters and some voluminous notes make the material valuable.

Mrs. Somerville, the popular scientific writer, had a wonderful gift of concentration. She wrote her books dealing ■with the phenomena of the universe with the bustle of family life in full swing around her. Her husband once made & wager with a friend that he would abuse her te her face while she was writing, and that she would remain unconscious of it. Accordingly, one night, as she was absorbed in composition, he said to his friend: “Would you ever imagine that my wife rogues ? It’s a fact. What’s more, she wears a wig and her teeth are false.” Her daughters were in roars of laughter, but she went on placidly writing. At last her husband said: “Mrs Somerville” in a louder tone, and paused. Then she looked up and asked innocently, “Did you speak to me, dear ?”

The Scribners publish a new satirical novel by Mr Hilaire Belloc. Its title is “Emmanuel Burden,” and its hero* is a London hardware merchant. Mr Belloc is noAA* writing a book on Marie Antoinette, which will be welcomed, for she furnishes a subject of perennial interest to everybody. No matter wbat were her faults and follies, the fate of that most unhappy lady remains one of the heart Avringing episodes of history. She was only thirty-eight when she Avent up the steps of the scaffold —one wornout little shoe, they say, falling off as she climbed—but her shorn locks were almost white, and her holloAv eyes were purblind Avith months of Aveeping; she looked an old Avoman. The saddest relics of her in the Carnavalet are Prieur’s portrait taken during her last days in the Oonciergerie—the portrait of haggard Grief incarnate—and a little round collar of the cheapest, coarsest black net, one of the scanty bits of mourning permitted to “La Veuve Capet.”

Mr Hall Caine is said to have found the suggestion for the plot of his new novel in a letter from a stranger —a Russian .lady, who told him a tragic story of how, in a remote part of Russia, a prodigal son, “returning in disguise, and after many years, to the home lie had laid waste, was robbed and murdered by his own brother.” The novelist wrote a. little one act play on this theme, but was not able to get it proidueed. The plot, therefore, came in handily for the novel.