LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 46

LITERARY NOTES.

• . • " The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wsndell Holmes," ia one volume, with a steel portrait of the "Autocrat ol the Breakfast Table " and engraved title-page is announced for early publication. * . • Learned men do not always appreciate the achievements of their fellows. It i« said that a friend brought Milton's " Paradise Lost " to a great Scotch mathemat.lciac, who remarked, when he had finished it, "It's verra pretty ; bat, mon, what does v it prove 1 " ' . • What is understood to be a remarkable stady of contemporary religion by a distinguished public man will bo issued in one volume durii g the autumn season by Messrs Sampson Low and Go. It will be entitled "Walden Stanyer : Bay and Man," and the author hides hia identity under the now de guerre of " Hugh Koleon." • . • A beautiful edition of Gilbert White's " Selborne " will shortly be published in the United States by tbe Appletons. The text and the new letters are from the Buckland edition, and the illustrations are from sketches and photographs taken by Mr Clifton Johnson at Selborne, where he stayed for some time. • . • " Trilby " se9ms to fall into two parts, the natural and supernatural, which will not join. They might possibly join if Mr Dv Maurier had not made the natural so intensely natural — had he been less successful with the Trilby, and Little Billee, and Taffy, and the Laird, for all of whom he has taught us so extravag-mt a liking. Bat his very | succcbk with* these dorne&tic (if oddly domesticXfigures, and with'the very domestic tale of Little Billee's affair of the heart, proves our greatest stumbling block when we are invited to follow the machinations of the superlative Svengali. That the story of SveogaJi and of Trilby's voice is a good story only a duffor would deny. So is Gautier's "La Morte Atnouruse," perhaps the best story of its kind ever written. But suppose Thackoray had taken "La Moite A-nou-reuse" and tried to write it into " Pendennis " 1 This is as much as to say that "Trilby," the raost chararing book written for a long while, would have been yet more sharming had it been two books — a novel and a story.—" Quiller Oonch," in the Speaker. • . • The second instalment of Messrs Blackwood's edition of the works of John Gait Is "Sir Andrew Wylie," which, Mr Crockett tells us, has the reputation of having been the most popular of the author's works in KDgland. This, however, probably doaa not mean very much in the way of popularity.

Had it been more widespread, Mr Crooked suggests, " Sir Andrew " might have been regarded as the original of the Scot of lowcomedy popular jest—in fact, " the 1 Bang-went-saxpence'Scotchman." , , , "Never," he iay», " has tbe type been olothed with suoh kindly flesh and blood as in the adventures of the quaint ' auld-farrant ' boy, the uncouth, keen-witted lad, the poshing, provident, kindly man, whose progress Gait has so sympathetically described in Andrew •Wheelie.'" Undeterred by the assaults on the position he has taken up, Mr W. R iberts, author of the article in the New Review, adheres to his point that the Free Library is a failure. With the principle of free libraries Mr Roberta declares he ia in perfect accord; but doei^ anyone, he asks, venture to asasrfc that tfib pioneers of the movement;, desired or ev*r contemplated the Issuing of fiction to tbe extent' of 80 per cant. 1 "I regard notion as one of the greatest blessings of the nineteenth century, and- novelists sach as Scott, Dickeni, or Thackeray as benefactors by tbe side of whom the princely philanthropist cuts indeed a very small figure. Bat all this is no justification for the presence in free libraries of every flabby work of fiction, every volume of sickly and probably indecent 'impressionism.' If tbe free libraries are to achieve the good which is rightly expected of them they must weed out of their shelves a largo percentage of fiction. . They might take a bint from the British Museum and issue no fiction until it is fivo years old, when probably most of it would not be inquired for, and therefore would not need to be purchased. The present system is distinctly unfair to novelists as well as to booksellers." * . * An unacknowledged publication of Oliver Goldsmith's was a translation of a French work bearing the following voluminous title: "The Memoirs of a Protestant Condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion. Written by Himse-lf. Comprehending an Account of the Various Distresses be Suffered in Slavery ; and his Constancy in Supporting almost every Cruelty that Bigoted Zeai Could Inflict or Human Nature Sustain ; also a Description of the Galleys, and the Service in which they are Employed. The Whole Interspersed with Anecdotes Rulative to the GrfueralHi&tory of the Tiraeß for a Period of Thirteen Years, during which the Author Continued ia Slavery, till he was at last Set Free at the Intercession of the Court of Great Britain." A very attractive reprint of this translation has lately been issued by Messrs J. M. Dent and Co., and almost simultaneously Messrs Blnckie and Sons have added to their " School and Home Library " another translation of the substance of tbe same work by Miss Betham-Eiwards. These new editious will do much to revive interest in a narrative that had great popularity with a past generation, and deserves to live as a true picture of that heroic endurance of persecution for conscience sake to which the present generation owe so much. • . • The value of an " interview " is instanced somewhat in the following oJguificant fact told by " Lounger " iin the New York Critic : I r< member reading, some tim-j ago, that alth "Ugh Mark Twain bad a. be.tuld'ul lihrhi-yia his hou.*e at Hartford, he did his writing in an unfurnished room in his stable. There were too many distractions for the eye in his library, whils in the stable, with no other furniture than a deal table and a chair, he could get his mind down to work. Some time ago I saw a picture of "Mr Howells at Work." It r»prcgeuted him sitting in a sumptuously-furui»hed apartment benide a massive carved oak taole. I called upon him one day, and at once recognised the room. " This is your workroom," said I. "I recognise it from the picture." "This ib the room of the picture," he replied, "but it 16 not tny workroom. That is a very unpretentious little room at the back of the house. It gets the sunshine, however, and is a pleasant enough room, though it would nob look well in a picture." Htrc was the Matk Twain thing again : a (sumptuous library, but a simple workroom. My faith ia the workrooms of distinguished authors has been severely shaken siine these discoveries. Now I be^ia to tbink that Zola does nob work in that ornate, ovnrlos ded library in which ho is represented sitting on a high-backed ohair becide an enormous writing table, almost lost behind a huge ornamental inkstand. And as for Pierre Loti, he never could work surrounded by sach Orif rital magnificence a* he is pictured amid. I dnre 8b y that, if the truth were known, both of these authors have sin; pie little decs, out; in a stable or ah the back of the houip, where they do their work. But when the* iuh:rviewer comes along he induces them to 1 c photographed iv the room that will most imprtss the public. •. • According to the New York Critic, Max Nordau told Mr R. H. Sherard the other d'iy the reason why he wrote " Degeneration " was that he was eick of always hearing himself spoken of aa the author of " The Conventional Lios of onr Civilisation." Now that he is beir.g apoktn of universally as the author of "Degenerat'on," he is writing a novel — his third — and will not write the philo'ophical work which he has in his head until he has disassoc'a'ed himself from the specialty of philosophical writing. Dr Nordau lives a very quit t, simple life with his mother aud s : sfcer, whom he has entirely supported sinco he was 16 years old. He takes pleasure in nothing but work, and neither drinks, smokes, nor go-s out into society. He speaks E 'glisb, French, Italian, German, and Hungarian with equal fluency, aud can converge in Russian, Spanish, and the Scandinavian languages. Ho is, moreover, an utbane aud most amiable raau, and works from 8 30 p.m. till midnight. In addition to this he is a firm friend of Lombroso, and exhibits as a feature of bis home a bookcase in which figure presentation copies of moat of the celebrated professor's works. With this author and scientist Dr Nordau keeps up a constant correspondence, and prides himself on being one of tbe very few men in Europe who can decipher his handwriting, which appears to moat people entirely illegible.

— The worst of climbing the ladder of fame is that the seat at the top is so insecure. Now that the banks have amalgamated, probably some of the clients of the Colonial.will be politely requested to place their accounts in credit. They will ask for time They may get it, but everyone should take time by the forelock and buy a Waterbury Watch. The utw and improved watch " The Tromp " is now is tin