PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2167, 5 September 1895, Page 45

PERSONAL NOTES.

♦v' Of all tho parliamentary debaters of the flay, it is eaid that there is no man loss dependent upon notes than is the Marquis of Salisbury.

* .'. ' Marcus Clarke, the famous Australian novelist, who wrote " For the Term of His Natural Life," was a cousin of General Sir Andrew Clarke, R.E., late Agent-General of tbe colony of Victoria.

*.• Sir Arthur Sullivan is not the only composer who receives his inspirations in tbe train. Mr Cjwen composed the music to " The Better Land " for Madame Antoinette Sterling while flying through the country at about 40 miles an hour.

<.* Tbe poet Swinburne is 58 years old, and in tbe prime of physical condition. He is impressive in appearance. While of diminutive stature, bis face' is peculiarly pale, and bis bead, which is of massive proportions, is covered with a thick Bhock of dishevelled hair.

* . * General Maceo, the leader of tbe Cuban Insurgents, is tall, modest, and reserved, commanding great popularity. He was prominent in the struggle for freedom made by Cuba 20 years ago. He dresses neatly and well, and he owcb hie position to bis remarkable will-power.

•.• Lord Salisbury offered the post of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Lord Dufferin, says the Realm. Lord Dufierin, whose sympathies are personally and traditionally Liberal, travelled specially from Paris to London to intimate bis regret at bane: obliged to decline the offer. •.• W. Ferrars Auburn, whose "With Lance and Pennon" is just published by Messrs Ward, Lock, and Bowden, and whose earlier military stories and sketches brought him considerable notoriety, is really Captain Random, a name which closely approaches the pseudonym of another writer, whose specialty is humour. • . • The Due d'Orleane has a wonderful collection of sporting trophiep, numbering some 3000 stuffed wild animals, birds, and reptiles, together with coßtumes, arms, and ourioßitles gathered from all parts of the earth, and a great array of heads and horns from Central and South Afiica, representing the produce of many a hunting expedition. • . • Miss Isabel Florence Hapgood (Count Tolstoi's "Boswell"), whose "Russian Kambles," recently brought out by the Longmans, give such an insight into the personality of tbe great novelist, is a Boston lady, born In 1850. Her first bock of note, " The Epic Songs of RuFßia," oame out about 10 years sgo, and since then she has published a vast number of translations of Tolstoi, Gogol, Victor Hugo, and Verestchagin. • . • In the life of Richard Owen, recently published, an illustration is given of bis trained keenness of observation. He pointed out that in the bronzed head of Hypnos, in the British Museum, the wings springing from the temples are those of a night-bird which flies noiselessly. It was a beautiful idea of the Greeks to give the God of Sleep wings which would enable him to visit his patients without a murmur of sound." • . • Mrs Beardsley, the mother of tbe artist Aubrey Beardsley, is a gentle, old-fashioned English lady, who lives entirely for her son and his beautiful young sister. They keep house together in South Kensington, London, and bis mother entertains his set with great hospitality. She is sure her son is the greatest genius of the age, but people who know him say he does not take himself so seriously, and that he is a very nice boy. • . • A Chicago architect, Mr J. Sidney Villere, bas received from the brothers Da Raszke, the famous opera singers, a commission to build them a princely lodge at their country seat in Poland. Every part of the structure is to be completed in Chicago, and sent to Poland in sections. This is believed to be the first Instance in wbfch Western ideas of architecture and comfort have been adopted by any foreigner of artistic tastes. •.•Mr Albert Gallatin Riddle, whose ••Recollflctions of War Times 18G0-1865 " the Putnams are about to publish in London, first came into fame for defending the famous Oberlin slave-rescuers in 1559. Since the war, in fact in the last 12 years, be has written many novels. He is now " Law Officer " of the District of Columbia, the little kind of county attached to no Stale in which tho United States capital, Washington, stands.

• . • Sir John Hayter, who died in June last, was as old as the century, and eight years the junior of bis more distinguished brother, the late Sir George. He waß a son of Charles Hayter, poor Princess Charlotte's drawing master, and the friend and fellowBtudent of the late Sir Edwin Landseer. Like his father, Sir John Hayter obtained much royal patronage in his day, and is remarkable for having produced one of tbe earliest pictures of her Majesty, as Princess Victoria, and a child of 12 years of age, in 1831. \ Mr Frederic Breton, whose •' God Forsaken " met with exceptional praise from the reviewers, is still quite ayoungm&n, although, as with all authors who at length succeed in finding an audience, he has had at least an average experience of the repeated disappointments and rebuffs that are tbe fate of the literary aspirant. His earliest encouragement came in the fcrm of a letter from Robert Browning, who said that his work showed promise, and testified to tbe possession of very considerable general faculties. • . • Colonel Henry Edward Oolville, 0.8., tbe British Commissioner in Uganda, whose •' The Land of tho Nile SpriDga " Mr Edward Arnold is bringing out, is not new to authorship, for as far back as 1880 he brought out «• A Ride in Petticoats and Slippers " (about Morocco), and in 1884 an account of a journey in "The Accursed Land— First Steps on the Waterway of Edom." He waß born in 1852, and, like others of his family, is in the Grenadier Guards. He must not be confused with' Colonel W. J. Colville, the Duke of Edinburgh's equerry.

• . • The brilliant author of " Timothy's Qaest," Mrs Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose " Summer in a Oanon " is about to be published by Messrs Gay and Bird, was married again the other day. She is now Mrs John Christopher R'ggs. Unlike other American authoresses, she calls herself simply by her present husband's name, and does not drag fn the Douglas or the Wiggin. She Is one of the most fascinating women, has much perfc&O&l beauty, and her golden hair and blue

eyes have not been dimmed in the least since the first won the hearts of tbe ragged bairns of San Francisco.

■ . * The late Duke of Hamilton was a much greater magnate than he has been repreiented by his biographers in the daily papers. His agricultural rents, according to the return made some years ago, amoanted to £140,000 a year; bis mining royalties last year, notwithstanding the coal strike, amounted to £114,000 ; and bis revenue from feu- duties or ground-rents, and from minor sources, must have amounted to £100,000 or more. • Thus he was latterly one of tho wealthiest, of dukes ; and even 32 years ago he had about £157,000 a year. Yet when about half way through his career ho was in debt to the tune of £1,500,000 1

• . • Not many know how Mr Bram Stoker came to be associated with the fortunes of Sir Henry Irving. It was in this wise. Sir Henry, when on a visit to Dublin, was invited to a supper party, and during the course of the evening was induced to recite in his thrilling way, " The Dream of Eugene Aram." One of bis auditors, a young man with a brilliant reputation at Trinity College, was so affected by the tragedian's delivery that he burst into tear*. Henry Irving asked the young man to call on him tbe next morning, and then and there made him an offer, which was accepted, to the mutual advantage of both. The youDg man was Mr Bram Stoker.

• . • Mr Maxwell, the celebrated publisher, and the husband of Miss Braddon, the novelist, was an Irishman. - When " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was the rags he brought out a large edition, but its success was threatened by a rival house. The night before the issue of the Maxwell edition he advertised in the journals that a £50 Bank of England note had got into one of the volumes of bis edition of "Uncle Tom," and offered a reward to the finder. But this was not entirely a ruse, for a note to that amount was really placed in one of the volumes and mixed with the rest. It was never returned to Mr Maxwell, whose regret was softened by the knowledge that his edition had gone off like wildfire, while the rival bookseller's stock hung on hand. *• . • Manuel Garcia, the famous Cuban revolutionary chief, whose death has been recently reported, was a curious character. He was more like a character in a novel than a man in the nineteenth century. His home was in the mountains, and he led a regular bandit's life, now and then "holding-np" Spaniards on the road or carrying them off for ransom. Ha would write to a planter, " Send me £1000 or I shall burn your house," and if it were not forthcoming ho would carry his threat into execution. He would even write to Government officials, signing himself "King of the Mountains," and demanding tribute. He never preyed on the native Cubans, only on the Spaniards, and gave moßt of his moxey to the revolutionary party to buy arms. • . • By the retirement of Professor Masson from the Chair of Literature in Edinburgh University, there disappears from public life an eminent and conscientious worker in the literary field. His monumental "Life of Milton," his " Drummond of Hawthornden," his " British Novelists and their Styles," and other works, easily place him first in the ranks of living literary Spotsmen. Professor Masson, it may be recalled, was the first editor of Macmillan's Magazine, to which he contributed in the early sixties the series of papers, " Dead Men I Have Known, or Recollections of Three Cities," which were published in book form in 1893. The Professor's increasing resemblance of recent years to Thomas Oarlyle — with whom he was on terms of personal intimacy — is a subject of frequent remark among his numerous friends.

'.• Miss Florence Montgomery, whose new novel, " Colonel Norton," is published after far too long an interval for the wishes of her immense public, took the world by storm with " Misunderstood " when she was 22. That was only just over a quarter of a century sgo, and that was not her first book, for she published "A Very Simple Story" when she was only 20. ° Thrown Together," with which she again captured all hearts, came out three years after " Misunderstood." Miss Montgomery was born in the purpleshe is tbe daughter of a baronet. She conceived the ideaof writing books, says To-day, from poor Mr Gaorge Whyte-Melville, the. great sporting novelist, who broke hia neck (and brought an ancient line to an end) in the hunting field. He hoard her lelliDg stories to her younger sisters, and told her that she must put them into writing, jost as Dr Nicoll Is said to have beard lan Maclaren telling stories, and made him write them «down. •«• Monsignor Gilbert, who was a wellknown and most popular man, npt only among his own Catholic follower?, but in Protestant circles, and justly eßteemed because of his truly Christian benevolence and charity, bas by his will left a proof that he did not forget the London Lirazus. Durirg his life, " Mr " Gilbert, as he was generally called, concerned himself actively in trying to alleviate the sufferings of the homelesa poor of LondoD, and with that view established a night refuge, which he maintained at his own expense. His will has now been B*orn at nearly £24,000, and, with the exception of a gift of £1300 to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster for the time being, and a few small legacies to relatives and others, the residue of his fortune has been left for the maintenance of the refuge and increasing its usefulness. It would seem that the benevolent act is at the same time an appeal to the kindly-minded to carry on similar Bchemes to that which Monsignor Gilbert had so much at heart. • . • M. Hector Malot, the popular author of " Sans Famille," " Pompon," and a host of other stories, has taken farewell of his readers through the columns of Le Temps. On this occasion he reviews his career, and incidentally raises an interesting point of disputed literary canons— viz , whether it is better for a young writer to submit his work for correction, or whether he should trust to his own inspiration, and learn to fly alone. Like most writers of bis period, Hector Malot was ambitious of figuring in La Revue, which then was in the hands of its founder, Buloz. Bnloz was, as most students of French literature know, a terrible tyrant. Not a comma escaped him, and his most highly-placed contributors— even those of royal blood-had to (submit; to bin dictator-

ship without demur. In this way he built up the Review. An enlightened despotism has often been called the beat government, but it does not suit everybody, aud such a control did notaccard with tho free spirit oE our departing novelist. " You do not, I suppose, consider yourself above correction 1 " growled the autocrat of the university. " No; but I like my freedom," retorted the ruffied romancer. " You do ; well, let me tell you it will be your ruin. Look at Georges Sand ; since she broke with the Review she has done no good— in fact, gone mad, quite mad." Undeterred by this fearful example, Malot returned bis MSS. and kept his freedom, which he never saw cause to regret, though he lost La Revue.