LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2425, 5 September 1900, Page 68

LITERARY NOTES.

— The last few issues of Black and White have co'itain^d some notable little literary skits by Mr Edgar Turner. There is one in the current issue on "The Book of 1900," in which, the author gives a unique recipe for making a "masterpiece" out of a sort of composite hero of ihe seven most popular heroes of modern fiction. This skit. Avith a number of others, is included in a volume Avhich Mi John Lone; is to publish shortly under the title of "The Girl Avith Feet of Clay." If the contents are all up to the level of "The Book of 1900'" or "The Raiders," Mr Turner's volume Avill be sure to attract the attention of those who steadily scan the literary firmament in search of rising stars.

—Mr John A. Steuart, whose new novel, "Wine on the Lees," is being much talked about, has written 10 or a dozen books during the last 10 year?. Mr Steuarfc has had a somewhat romantic career. Born in the Highlands, he lived for some years in Ireland, Avrote his first book in Wales, and settled down in London. At 21 he Avent to America and worked in a banker's office on the Canadian frontier, where the people were so wild that Mr Steuavfc Avorked all day with a loaded pistol on his desk. He was on the first engine Avhich went through the Rocky Mountains. On returning to England, Mr Steuart drifted into journalism,, and soon afterwards Avrote a book, "which Mr Gladstone noticed very favourably.

—Mr G-. S. Street, in Pearson's Magazine, discusser in his v/ell-knoAvn cynical fashion "Charles Fox and Charles the Second." He says : — Since the nobles of the later Roman Republic and the Venetian oligarchy there has j not bsen a ruling class so compactly powerful, so wealthy, or with such a free hand generally, in the world, as that into which. Charles Fox* was born. It Avas in truth "all kings." With feAV exceptions, Avhich Avere .succoured by Government jobs or the friendly generosity of a non-commercial age, its members Avere set altogether above the sordid., needs of life. They visited one another in their country houses and palaces ; they Avei c at home together in St. James's. street; ihey knew practically the whole of their class in a personal sense, and Avere intimate with all itprivate affairs, which they discussed with a reasonably justified air of discussing the aff.'jrs of England; so compact and secure was their society that its great ladies had 1.0 need to send invitations to men for thru 1 parties. — What do hardened noA'el-readers say to this extract from the gossip of Mr Street, in the Pall Mall Magazine?— Bocks? I believe I have read several new novels. But as one grows older one forgets what they are all about. For my part. lam choked and surfeited Avith novels, and read fewer every year. I almost regret that I ever Avrote one — especially since there was no delighted patron to reAvard it — and I shall hay? no heart to write another for a long time. There_are co A'cry many. The number of fictitious characters launched upon the world every year must qtiite equal its actual inhabitants. They make us long for facts, and send me, for example, to old letters and memoirs. Fine effects of art are one thing — when Aye get them. But, that apart, a few facts about real people are Avorth a million inventions about people Avho never Avere. I would rather hear that By.ron and Tom Moore supped off lobster and brandy together than th&t some

imaginary person committed a dozenmurdera or acts ,of heroism.^ I Avould -rather read lioav Madame dv Deffand insisted on taking Horace Walpole for; a drive at, midnight than that some ■heroine- of mediocre fiction went through a million perturbations of. her confounded soul.'

- — • There is no poet so greatly read and loved by English-speaking people as Longfellow. It has been said that the majority of his poems are not "for all time"; but evidence does not prove this. Everybody is, of course, familiar Avith "Excelsior," which displays in a scries of pictures the fctruggles of a man of genius ; but Longfellow's own illustration of the great poem is not no widely known. The?e are his Avords: — "He passed through the Alpine village, through the rough, cold paths of the world, where, the peasants cannot understand him, and where his watchword is an 'unknown tongue.' He disregards the warnings of the old man's Avisdom and the fascinations of woman's love. He answers to all, 'Higher yet !' The monks of St. Bernard are the representatives of religious forms and ceremonies, and with their eft-repeated prayer mingles the sound of his voice telling them there is something higher than forms and ceremonies. Filled with* these aspirations, he perishes without having reached the perfection he longed forj and the voice heard in the air is the promise of immortality and progress ever upAvard." — Some months ago it was announced fchafc a life of Leigh, Hunt was" to be written, in which there was 'to be. a very detailed defence of his career so -far as' he- was "supposed; to have, affinities to Dickens's, Harold- Skimp Ole:, No author was then' nientionedj 'but "I may; now state i?(writes Clement "Shorter, in • 'the Sphere) that ' that ' life was', to have been, written by Mrs Thornton Williams,, who. -has edited letters of Southey and of other friends of her family. As her husband's Christian. came implies, Mr Williams is a grand-nephew of Leigh Hunt as well as a son of Mr Smith. Williams, the friend of the Brontes. It has been determined to abandon the projected •"Life of Hunt," as calculated to give rise to much painful controversy. ' One of the principal sources of unpublished information with regard to Leigh Hunt is still happily living in the person of Dr Bird, of Hampstead. Dr Bird remembers Hunt well, and has an enthusiastic regard for his memory. He holds that much of the stigma which accrued to Bunt as a Avriter of begging-letters, and a person who possessed confused notions of property, was totally undeserved, and that Bunt allowed much of this odium to surround him in order to shield unworthy relations who u?ed his name.

— Sir Edward Fry, in his neAvly-published memoir of the late Mr James Hack Tuke, of York, has naturally much to say of the work cf relieving the distressed Irish peasantry, Avhich Mr Tuke carried on" at intervals for-" nearly half a century. Some of the kindhearted Quaker's experiences in Ireland were rather amusing. In 1881 he, was engaged in distributing seed potatoes. Application in writing Avas forbidden, as Mr Tuke desired to have personal interviews with the peopleBut the Irish peasants had. the most firm belief that v letter, or a "Avritin'," as they called it, was. infallible. Accordingly they resorted to all 'sorts of stratagems in order that their written communications -should' reach Mr Tuke, popping, "vrritin's" through, tha windoAV, under ' doors, and into every nook and "cranny where there' was. any possibility of their letters meeting, his eye: . \s ( hen lie took in his' boots from outside the hotel door in the morping he would, find them, stuffed Avitjji nrysterious missives ; and on one occasion a hen Avas thrust in at his window Avhich proved to be the unwilling bearer of about 30 "writin's." Mr Tuke had also some humourous experiences in his intercourse with the Irish priests. On one occasion he called on Fathei So-and-So, Avho, on becoming a teetotaller, had thrown aw,ay all his whisky. The priest was much distressed because he had nothing "moist" to give his visitor; and, at length, as the simplest Avay oixt of the difficulty, he offered Mr Tuke a seidlitz powder.