LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 59

LITERARY NOTES.

— There is an undoubted taste with a considerable portion of the public for tales dealing with a life that is -quite unknown to them, fave through the medium of newspapers and books. Certain writers, of whom Charles Dickens is the emperor for all time, have made this kind of thing their specialty. We have Mr Arthur Morrison, Mr George Gissing, Mr Richard Whiteing, Mr Pett Ridge, who are one and all eminent in these days for stories of the lower classes. — St. Paul's. — " Russia in Asia : A Record in Growth of Empire and a Study of the Ethics of Ruseian Policy," a work by Mr Alexis Krausse, author of " China in Decay," has just been published by Mi" Grant Richards. It is in every sense an entirely new undertaking. In addition to comprising a history of the acquisition of Asiatic territory by -Russia, it includes a political examination of Muscovite policy as evinced in the political relations between Russia and England, Afghanistan, Persia, Turkey, and China. The volume contains 12 elaborate maps, including strategic plans showing the position and strength of Russia in relation to Ihe Indian frontier, theliussoAfghan boundary, and the present Chinese territorial dispute — To a recent number ol The Asiatic Quarterly Sir John Jardine, who joined the Bombay Civil Service in 1864, contributes a very interesting article on " The Indian Civil Service and the Philippines.' The conjunction of hese two names. is explained by the fact that suggestions have been made that the United States will have to govern the Philippines on some such system as that which has grown up in India. Sir John Jardine shows what a strange history the Indian Civil Service has had, and how widely it differs to-day from what it was a century ago. In those days the President of Council received only £500, and the lowest grade in the service £10 ! Yet the recipients of these sums retired earlier than the present Anglo-Indians and with fai more princely fortunes. —Mr Knowles has reprinted in the May Nineteenth Century a- letter he wrote to the Spectator ia 1869 on brain-waves. He does bo in order to revive his theory, then now, but now familiar to most people, in the light of

the recent experiments in "wireless tele* graphy." Mr Knowles insists that if a small electric battery can send out tremors or waves of energy through space, to be caught and manifested by a, sensitive mechanical receiver, the human brain may similarly act on -other human brains at a distance without the "usual channels of sensation." It is a good; working hypothesis; at any rate Mr Knowles is entitled to the credit of inventing in the phrase "brain-waves" a useful term to describe a psychical process which finds at least a striking analogy in these electrical phenomena. T ~ Ml " George Walpole, formerly editor of Hansard, read a very interesting paper on Some Old Parliamentary Reporters" at a recent meeting of the London'Phonetio Shorthand Writers' Association, and has done well to reprint it as a twopenny pamphlet. The first name he can trace in connection with SS^^ re P°?i»g » Bishop Jewel (1622-1571), who took notes of the great de?n ?h° UU w he Saor f amenfc of the Lord'! Supper n the House of Lords in December, 1848 But the most interesting part of Mr Walpole"* Ve p"|V aTe f and Dr Johnson with reference to Farl amentary reporting. How many he asks who quote the retort of Pitt to Horacl Walpole, who had accused him of "the atco* oious crime of being a young man ," are aware tion' -° nly in Johcs °n > s imaging — There is, says the Literary "World, an inleresting letter in The Author from one " x"' who, according to his own showing, "starcl* among the first 50 of fiction writers, if no! higher than that," has written 26 boji 3 none and who wishes to disabuse literary aspirant for 4e aut hat ". » Pa^& $*£- t.- , auth £r» whatever it may be for tMfe pwbwher. While most people credit "X* witii l making £600 or £700 a year he assures " 3 I th^^ 11 nn S ' best r ear in fourteen brought X -IW r x 5V M> ,J ttt tW ° ° n} y * 180 and *.U)I. bir Walter Besant replies at length Baying that he "could name at this moment nany more than 50 authors whose ' works the place of a popular favourite." rJSAUED FOR HER MS. George Eliot was conspicuous as a nerso» SlV VaS £! ndly "f. d "^Pathetic in ,gh degree. She was "ever ready to be a niu 4£ fri d nH«» reB Q? m a ", that seemed he?. »pf f v She Waß also S«ted with a keen * sense of humour, and Bometimes mad© her thS g Uly> a 8 We ", aS W«5 wig She was solicitous about her manuscripts and was afraid she should lose them. Mr Blaokwood the publisher, had occasion to sena her the manuscript of "Daniel DeronShe would not have it entrusted to tha post, and Mr Blackwood said he would send it by his footman the next day. Oh don't r the author said. "-.He might st °P at a pubhehouse and forget it !" - Mr Blackwood explained that this footman was a peneclly sober man of high character, ?£• w-jntw -j nt on t0 P raise the man's virtue 8 ; but ' this did not reassure her at" all. "If he is the sortof ohivalrous Bayard' that you describe she said "he is jupt the kind that would stop and help at a fire !" lhis was a contingency that Mr Blackwood could not bear to consider. He promised faithfully that Borne member of life family should bring the manuscript, and nex.f ■ clay, m fact, Mrs Blackwood herself drove, over with it. WRITERS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED RUDYARD KIPLING. iJ n hIS J.' R R ue L yard Ki Pling," which has jusf heen published by Messrs Greening, Mr G. ir. Monkehood gives many interesting particulars of this popular author's birfh and early cVl r . e V 0f , T t«e writers who have influenced Kipling, Mr Monkshood says: "Mr Ernesb Henley showed him the way to promotion, and pay, and helped him to chant ' The English Flag' and 'A Wong of the English'? James lhomson brought home to him the awesome things that exist in 'The City of Dreadful Nighfc'; Bre* Harte drew his attention to the literary picturesqueness of vagabonds; Macaulay flashed the spark that fired his genius for proper names; Defoe taught him the triok of using minute tietails and exact terminology to gain verisimilitude; Diokens inspired him to sympathisewith the lowly, and to see the humour that dwells in small things; the compilers of the Bible gave him a large share of his diction, and showed him the value of a cunning simplicity ; and Rudyard Kipling" gave him bis irony of the under-statemenfc, his flashing powers, his craftmanship, his industry, invention, insight, and ability to make a dream come true and a lie teem something else." Of Kipling's lieroea Mr Monkshood remarks : " Studying his powers of exhibiting charaotor, one discovers that his range is narrow. What he does treat, he treats well ; what he does know he knows perfectly. But. his sympathies . and observations are directed in so circumscribed a manner that he drawa from but two or three models only. The ma-, jority of his heroes are all alike. They are ironical, bru&que, and abrupt. They are strong, masterful, limited; they love work more than song, work more than wine, work more than women. Now and again the ecstasy of conviction is upon their author, and' then he extols their brute-force virtues with an insistence that comes near tc being tiresome. But although not wholly lovable, they are wholly admirable ; and they stand — adroit, alert, alive— always flat upon their feet, firmplanted as the men that they are."