LITERARY, NOTES,

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 37

LITERARY, NOTES,

- , .. — : — r— • '•. - The Gfraphio will in future issue editions of its, summer and Christmas numbers in French. The whole edition will be prepared and printed in London although published in Paris.

For the advantage of collectors a correspondent sends us (Athenasurri) a warning that an extensive fabrication of autograph letters of Scott, Carlyle, and Thackreay, as well as of some Scottish historical documents, seems to be going on at or near Edinburgh. Mr Clark Russell is engaged, says the AthenEeum, on a work which will be entitled "Betwixt the Forelands." It 1 will be sub-, stantially an anecdotic history of the Downs. The author figures himself as standing with a friend' on the summit of the South Foreland, or upon Deal beach, where he tells the story of the historic tract' of waters that washes that line of coast. The book will probably run its serial course through the newspapers, and be afterwards published by Messrs Sampson Low and Co.

Mr Gladstone was invited by a Western editor to contribute an article on " Washington." The English statesman declined in the following words, written on a post card : " I am much honoured by your letter. But I cannot act upon it. Washing-ton is a noble subject. I studied him 40 years ago with love and admiration. But it is not in my power now to renew the study, And I should not like to profane the theme by thin and slovenly work."

Mr Henry Blackburn has been prophesying to the people of Edinburgh concerning the journalism of the future. Nearly every book and newspaper in the future will, he declares, be illustrated ; and to his knowledge of- shorthand the qualifiedreporter will have to add the accomplishment of drawing. In view of this proposed addition to the encyclopaedic knowledge already required in the best journalists, it is a little reassuring to know that Mr Blackburn only expects the sketches of such to consist of mere outlines.

George Ohnet's last novel, "Drßameau," is based on a contest between materialism and spiritualism. Rameau embodies the former and converts his spiritual young wife to his views. She becomes an atheist, and, deprived of her chief support on the rugged path of duty, falls by the way, and through this example Ohnet seeks to prove that a woman who is not aEraid of punishment in the future will not hesitate to sin in the present.

Mr E. H. Didisr, of the New York Sun, ! has . come forth to vindicate Poe's cha.racter so far as it is involved in' the charge that he died from the effects of dissipation. Mr Didier claims to be possessed of information that Poe had but just arrived in Baltimore when he was, together with others, made prisoner by an electioneering party. According to the practice in vogue, they were kept locked up till the polls were opened, and then marched | round to every precinct and made to vote the ticket approved by his captors." It was p^rt of the game to stupify the- prisoners with bad liquor, and— so it is asserted by 'Mr Didier's informant, who professes to nave been with Poe at the time — Poe was so badly drugged as to necessitate abandoning him. He was therefore put into a cab and sent to hospital, where he arrived in a' dying state.' It is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies and gentlemenof a particular type that have ceased to care | for Dickens, as they have ceased to care for ! Scott. They say they cannot read Dickens. When Mr Pickwick's adventures are presented to the modern maid she behaves like the Cambridge freshman. "Euclide viso, I cohorruit et evasit." When he was shown Euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. Even so do most young people act when they are expected to read " Nicholas Nickleby " and " Martin Chuzzewit." They call these masterpieces " too gutterly gutter;" they cannot sympathise with this honest humour and conscious pathos. Consequently the innumerable references to Sam Weller and Mrs Gamp and Mr Pecksniff and Mr Winkle which fill our ephemeral literature are written for these persons in an unknown tongue. The number of people who could make a good pass in Mr Calveiiey's Pickwick Examination Paper is said to be diminishing. Pathetic questions are sometimes put. Are we not too much cultivated? Can this fastidiousness be anything but a casual passing phase of taste ? Are all people over 30 who cling to their Dickens and their Scott old fogies? Are we wrong in preferring them to " Booties' Baby " and " The Quick or the Dead " and the novels of M. Paul Bourget ? — Andrew Lang.