PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2058, 3 August 1893, Page 47

PERSONAL NOTES.

Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett is expected shortly in London, where she will stay for some time. She intends to make a tour o£ Egypt and the Holy Land in the autumn. Consignor Oapel, the once distinguished divine and eloquent speaker, the original of Gatesby in Disraeli's " Lothair," is living in the capaoity of tutor in the family of an Italian lady, on a ranch 70 miles from Sacramento

Baron Nathaniel Rothschild, of Vienna, Is about to start on a hunting trip to Africa, to last six months. He has chartered a steamer for the use of himself and party Where possible. The baron v is an excellent amateur photographer, and purposes to bring back a number of photographs. Sir Edwin Arnold, it is not generally known, is a painter of much skill. He can manage a boat with any man, love,s fishing, and cannot sleep by daylight. He says he never means to spend another Match in England, notwithstanding the brilliancy of this year's spring. E. F. Benson, the author of a novel called 11 Dodo," recently published by Methuen and Go., is a younger son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who took a brilliant degree at. Cambridge two years ago. The chief character in his story is founded on. a well-known*.' member of London society, - . „ Thirty jears ago, when-Genera); Sherman* leading the Northern soldiers, was surprised) by an overwhelming force of Cpnfederates,. General Corse, of Massachusetts, sent this inspiring telegram: "Hold the fort, for I ami coming." The author of that telegram has jusfc died, and the event recalls the fact that the warrior's message was Moody and Sankey's keynote for their popular hymn.

M. Johannes Wolff, the great violinist, is the son of an official in the Dutch Home Office. When 10 years Old, his father took him to hear Wieniawski play ; from that hour he had a passion for the violin., He studied music in Dresden and at, the Paris Conservatoire. He is 30- years of age, and possesses a violin which is valued at £1500, but he saya he would refuse £5000 for it.

Landor was rather an uncommon man than a great one ; and a great deal of his fame is owing to that felicitous, haphazard and wilful wildness of thought, and to his learning and large-mindedness, making it dangerous to do anything but praise him, lest one betray his own ignorance. Bat after all, there was real stuff in him, and his style' was divine, having strength and beauty and delicacy and unexpeotedness,- and yet naturalness,— Dr John Brown.

Bonaparte was "the acknowledged master of modern warfare," but he was also the mosfc reckless of adventurers. All his mighty structures were erected qpon foundations of sand.' There is a fascinating splendour in the' desperate tenacity and the brilliant 'exploits by which, in bis later years, he held the world, at bay. The Napoleon of 1814 is more captivating to the imagination than, the Bonaparte of 1796. But .his career was 'of apiece: it was that of a prodigious power unamenable to the restraints of law.-— Atlantic i Monthly. The late Lord Derby waa a most affableman. " I remember,", writes a correspondent, " bis lordship sitti.Bg aezt to me while: I was reporting a meeting. I had no idea 1 , who the countrified old gentleman in a long,, light, driving ooat was, and rather impatienily answered tho questions he put; a.bout my work, for I wished to hear tha speakers. Judge of my.astonisbment to see my neighbour risa when Lord Derby w _ called upon. The meeting- took giac j ' Cannon Street Hotel,, and bad to tto " „ 1 speolar hospital.". _ S Sir Joseph Lister's proifsateair', rfltra i; ft fcfon maybe said to restik ito*' a i?. ffX he was t* to* * insi 8 >/ on m £ hheh e c "JgJ necessity oi perfect <a^ nlineßß Bargioal operations. Jt has aWr^ been his conten * tion that what such ©P^tionß failed or had fatal ttsujte ib-wurdne to the admission of bacteria into tae wound. Sir Joseph Lister has livea-io see the percentage of deaths from SPAgioal operations fall from 75 to less than 1Q per cen t , and although his curly hair la becoming thin and grey, he is not yet an fold man. Sir Joseph's bouse overlooks Regenfc'B Park, where he is to be seen taking hjis waits almost every day. In personal appearance Mrs Campbell Praod (one of whose works is nowranningia tbe novtlist columns of the Witness) somewhat resembles the Prinoess of Wales. Of AustraHan birth, the authoress's childhood was spent ia the backwoods of Queensland, and in one of her novels she has given a remarkable acoouut of tbe excitement constantly oreated in the homestead by depre--dations of the natives. All the time, hcjtru. eve*, the little girl was receiving anexcoffleufe. eduoation from ber mother; she w&s veryfond of writing— -not stories such as tine-wiM^. free life might well have suggeste^but the- : scores of pathetic and romantic melodies onthe piano.

Some of the feats of memory which Sir' George Trevelyan aeorlbes. to Lord Macaulay.have been accounted rather " tall," as the.Americans say. Bnt in Tbeopbile Gautier, ife seems, Maoaulay might have found bis matelh His thirst for reading, says-MaximeduGamp, ' was insatiable, and he consumed grammars, prospectuses, cookery books, and Blmanacs as greedily as woiks of scienoe and imagination. Whatever he read he remembered ; and bis friends, when on doubt on any point, used to say t "We have only got to turn over the leaves of Theo."

— Over 8000 women practice medicine in the United States. . . >■,-.- A purgative medicine shbuld>possess tonic and 1 curative, as well as cathartic, properties. This combination of ingredients may .be found in Ayer's Pills. They strengthen and stimulate the,* bowels, causing natural action,', ■