people We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 21, 24 May 1900, Page 30

people We Hear About.

It will be remembered (pays the London Tablet) that some four or five years ago a Russian priest named Tolstoi, a relation of the well-known writer, went to Rome to preach in favour of the reunion of the two churches, and eventually came over to the Catholic Church. He was recalled to Russia, and by order of the Syuod of NijuiNovgorod was interned in a monastery at Moscow. It would seem that the Russian authorities must at length have relented, for Father Tolstoi is at present staying in a college in Rome. Father Constantine is the name of a monk of the Benedictine Congregation, who was once Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, and who has been lately ordained at Reckau. He is another of those aristocrats who belong to the Benedictine Congregation of Beuron, which has existed for scarcely thirty-six year«. In the course of that short period this branch of the Order has had an extraordinary development. The monks there devote themselves to art, painting, statuary, and architecture, and in ecclesiastical painting have gained for themselves a distinct position. From their ranks have come the Abbot Primate of the whole Benedicine Order, Father Hildehrand, once Captain Count Hemptine, a Belgian. He was joined by the Sax^n Major and Baron von Ocr, now Father Sebastian (the teacher of Prince Max of Saxony, who has himself become a priest), the aged Baron Drais (who died as Father Pius), and Prince Edmund Radziwill, of Kulturkampf fame (who died in 1895 as Father Benedict, Prior of the Portuguese Monastery, Cucujaps). The London Star gives some interesting particulars relating to Mr. William Jones, the Radical member for North Carnarvon, to whom Mr. Balfour in the Irish University debate paid the tribute of having delivered the ' most interesting and eloquent speech on an education Bubject he had ever heard.' Mr. Jones, who is a selfmade and self-educated man, has entered on his fortieth year. He was born in Wales, and began life as a pupil teacher in a little Welsh village. He then served as a schoolmaster in a country village, taught himself the classic?, obtained a scholarship at Oxford, which he immediately resigned and become an assistant master under the London School Biard. He is now a ' coach 'at Oxford and one of the greatest living authorities on the Aristotelian philosophy, whose pupils gain the very highest honors in a University in which their master has not yet a degree. It is, however, in the contemplation of the University authorities to mark in a very special manner their appreciation of Mr. Jones's geniuß. Mr. Clement Scott, the well known dramatic critic, in his recently published reminiscences of stageland, treatß of the split in the famous Savage Club and the cause leading thereto. Strange to say, it was the genial humorist Artemus Ward who was unwittingly the cause of the trouble. Mr. Scott says : — ' Artemus Ward (Charles Ward), a delightful American humorist and lecturer, and most charming companion, arrived in Bohemia land with the fatal word consumption written on his face. It was the death of poor Artemnp, the dear friend of us all, that raised the theological ire of the Savages. When death was almost staring him in the face, he had asked Arthur Sketchly, to whom he was deeply attached, if he could send him a priest. It was natural that he should do so, as his mother was a Catholic, and as we all understood, he had been bap-

tised in this faith. So Sketchly took steps to carry out bis friend's instructions. But other Savage Club friends of Artemus maintained that he was not a Catholic, and had never been one, and accused some of us of an unfair method of proselytising, which was certainly not the case. Anyhow, we were severely reprimanded, and, unwilling to accept the snub, politely took our departure with, at least on my part, considerable regret.' Cardinal Vaughan (says the Catholic Herald, March 16) visited Courtneld, his Herefordshire home, on Saturday for the purpose of ordaining his nephew and namesake, Herbert Vaughan, to the priesthood. The Vaughans of Courtneld are one of the oldest English Catholic families. For generations the sons have either been soldiers or priests ; the daughters mostly nuns. The Cardinal himself was originally destined for a military career, and as the eldest son would have succeeded to the family estate, but that he made over to his brother, Colonel Vaughan, whose son was ordained to the priesthood on Saturday. Another of the Colonel's sons ia with the army in South Africa. Two of the Courtneld Vaughans — the Cardinal's great-great-grandfather and a brother — fought on the Jacobite side at Culloden, and had afterwards to seek an a«ylum in Spain, where one of them attained a high military position. The lite Madame Carnot was a Parisian by birth, of English descent on the father's side, and had a dowry of 600,000 francs (a franc is about 9£d). Madame Carnot was an exemplary Catholic, and when, largely owing to her influence, her husband was elected President of the Republic, she had the chapel at the Elysee restored to Catholic worship. She was eminently charitable, especially ia helping poor women and children, was moderate in the matter of dress, and noted for the Bplendor of her receptions at the Elyse'e, at which no shady persons were to her knowledge ever permitted to appear. Towards the close of President Carnot's term she was in a constant state of terror owing to the threatening letters received, and was quite ill from worry at the time the dagger of the assassin Caserio left her husband a corpse at Lyons. After the assassination her charities and pious practices increased. She refused a pension of £1000 a year voted her by the Chamber of Deputies, and devoted the national testimonial presented to her to the work of relieving poor widows with children to bring up. The controversy on the relation between genius and stature is one of long standing. The prevalent idea is that geniuses are, as a rule, little men, and it is one of some antiquity, as witness the saying in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy concerning great wits with little bodies. It is easy to adduce instances in support of this contention, such as Balzac (nearly sft 4in), Beethoven (sft 4in), Kant (about sft), Keats (oft), Napoleon (sft IJin); but, unfortunately for those who hold the theory, instances can quite as readily be brought in opposition, such as Carlyle (sft 11 in), Darwin (about 6ft), Shelley (sft 11 in), Thackeray (6ft iin). These cases are a few on each side from fairly comprehensive lists compiled by Mr. Havelock Ellis in a recent magazine article, in which, discussing the question of genius and Btature, he cornea to the conclusion that the idea entertained by many that nearly all great men are little is absolutely incorrect. It seems to be one of those views hastily adopted by mankind without any scientific investigation. If any deduction can be made from the anthropometry of genius, it is that size has nothing to do with its occurrence.