PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 41

PERSONAL NOTES.

Olive Schreiner's marriage has taken place, but in literature she will retain her maiden name, although, by the way, it was as " Ralph Iron," not as Olive Schreiner, that she attained fame. Her husband is a prosperous Gape farmer. Major Pond is very sanguine about Dr CoDan Dojle's success in America. The major has given ib as his opinion that " authors are driving elocutionists out of the field nowadays. People do not care for professional readers any more unless they are professional writers too."

Miss Beatrice Harraden, whose "Ships that Pasa in the Night " has gone through about a dozen editions, and whose new novel, " In Varying Moods," is being brought out by the Blackwoods, is said to be the daughter or niece of a bookseller in Bombay — the prototype of the bookseller in her now famous story.

Edna Lyall is one of the most successful novel writers of the day, and commands " top prices " for serial rights. She generally resides at Eastbourne, is unmarried, and is happy in never haviDg needed to write for bread. The proceeds of her first book were devoted to the purchase of a peal of bells for a church in which she was interested.

The early death of Mr Haydn Parry, the composer of the operas " Cigarette " and " Miami," has occasioned much regret. Mr Parry was a professor at the London Guildball School of Music and at Harrow School, and was about 35 years of age, He had composed a new work to be performed at the Cardiff Musical Festival in 1895.

Mr W. J. Linton, Mrs Lynn Linton's husband, whose life of John Greenleaf Wbittier is being brought out by Mr Walter Scott, lives in America, where bis rugged, long, white-bearded face, not unlike his engraving of bis idolised Walt Whitman, is familiar at literary gatherings, such as the monthly Saturday night at the Century Club in New York.

Mr Raymond Blathwayt, the well-known interviewer, lecturer, and man of letters, has been commissioned by Black and White to explore India, and starts shortly for Calcutta. Before leaving he will interview at least one ex-proconsul of that empire. Mr Blathwayt's recent lecturing tour has been very successful, financially and otherwise. Miss Matt Crim, the young Georgia girl whose short stories and character sketches have attracted much attention in the leading American magazines, is a thin, pale slip of a girl with grey eyes and blonde hair, and not at all to be suspected (says Harper's Bazar) of evolving such" powerful and passionate characters even in her imagination. She has passed several winters in New TjTork. Professor Robertson Smith, it is understood, has not left the manuscript of any unpublished work behind him. His last plan was to complete the second edition of his v Religion of the Semites," but he was not able to carry it out. The professor always took a great interest in any works by Jews or treating of Jewish life. Mr ZangwiU's " The Children of the Ghetto," for instance, elicited his warm commendation. When Dr George Maodonald was in England last year his health, never very strong, was in a less satisfactory oondition than usual, and he was unable to fulfil any public engagements. He has passed, however, the winter at his home in Italy in a somewhat Improved degree of strength, and has succeeded in completing another novel. This work, as has been the oase with all Dr Mao* donald'e later novels, will appear first in serial form. , One of the most Btriking peculiarities of Pope Leo XIII is tbe convulsive tremor of his hands which one sees on meeting him» This is not a result of age, as is generally supposed, but the consequence of typhoid fever, from which he suffered at Perugia some 25 years ago. So great is this trembling that he can no loDger write. When he has to sign a document he is obliged to hold the wrist of bis right hand with his left hand in order to be able to trace letters that would otherwise be unreadable, and even then each stroke is an infinity of tiny, light zig-zags. Dr Richard Garnett, whose sod, Edward, is beginning to make such a stir in literature, is librarian at the British Maseam. He is popularly supposed to read more books than any one in London, and certainly writes as many as most people nowadays. In person he is very tall and thin, with silvery hair, a florid face, and large dark grey eyes, shaded by spectacles. In spite of his multifarious labours, Dr Garnett finds time to go about a good deal in literary society.

Dr John Todhunter, author of " The Black Cat," the mo3t successful of all the plays produced at the Independent Theativ, and of a play which i* jasfc coming on at The Avenue, is an Irishman, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and a member of the Saville, Authors', Odde Volumes, and other literary clubs. His tall, slight figure, intellectual face, and flowing beard are familiar at

literary receptions, and his " Poison Flower ' and " Sicilian Idyl " have won him no little succes d'estime on the stage. He lives in a picturesque house at Bedford Park. One of the most painful trials of Kossuth's exile was his inability to be present at the deathbed of his mother. She lived in poverty in Brussels, and she expressed a desire to see her son once more before she died. The Belgian Government would not grant his request to visit her unless he consented to be accompanied wherever he went by an officer of police. He might have consented to this degrading condition for her sake, but no sooner did bis mother hear of it than she herself forbade him to come to her, and she died in the last days of 1852, blessing him with her dyins: breath.

Mr Arthur W. Pinero, the dramatist, has a remarkably fine head, and as he still follows the old habit of his actor days and shaves clean, the powerful lines in his face still show strongly. His debut as an actor was made at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, in "The Woman in White," in which, as a groom, he had to bring on a letter. Although he did not give up acting for playwriting until 1882, his first piece ("Two Can Play at That Game ") was produced at the Lyceum by Mra Bateman in 1877. Tbe queer names and titles which adorn Mr Pinero's plays are often picked up by searching for them on the tombstones in old churchyards.

Miss Ada Rshan, the American ec tress, who celebrated in April last her thirtyfourth birthday, was born at Limerick, but was taken to New York when only five yeara old. She made her first appearance at a theatre carried on by a brother-in-law at Newark, in the State of New Jersey, and owed this opportunity to a curious chance. An actress playing an unimportant part happened to fall ill during Mies Rehan's visit to her relatives, and, more as a jest than anything else, she was induced to go on in her stead, although she was only 14 at the time, and was still attending school. Miss Rehan's favcurite recreation is boatiog, and when in America she resides quite near the Hudson river.