NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1240, 23 September 1911, Page 9

NOTES.

The exigencies of the "Metro" have required tho destruction of the house in which Victor Hugo lived, from 1527 to 1830, at tho end o£ the Rue Notrc-Dames-des-Champs. It was there that, in tho early days o£ his prosnerity. he establish,;d_tho famous "C*nacle de la Muse.Francaise," whereat he, I.amartine, Alfred do Musset, Alfred de Vigny, and SainteBenvo recited their verses to each other, and laid their plans for '.he triumph of Romanticism. It. is said that the poet's landlord turned him out because the lato and turbulent sessions of . the Romantics caused annoyaneo to the occupants of tho other apartments in the house, who complained that they could get no sleep. Mr. Max Beerbohm has written' a novel of Oxford life. JefFcry Farnol, author of "The Broad Highway," is at work upon a new novel with its scenes laid in the same period. It will appear serially in one of the leading magazines, and will not bo ready for publication until the autumn of 1912. On tfca Pacific Coast (says the New York "Post") they still rail a spade a spade, and the book-reviewer refuses to sell his soul. The editor of a California mr.gazino that describes itself as "insurgent in literature, criticism, and taste." summarises the July number of a wellknown New York magazine in bold, manly, tones: " 's JPajazli(e''Wr July is an indefinite, inferior number, it seems to us. Most of the cuts are coarse, wocdeny, and unsatisfactory. . . . These muckraking article are indefinite, inconclusive, and rather worthless. They maka more for noise than they do for fact.' The editor shouts, but we think the authors have not made »ood. Editor 's Ttellections— such as they are—ought to ba kept out of tho magazine. They are wordy, poorly written, and illy conceived. Tho Magazine schemo for gettfnsc now subscribers by selling them its stock is the most effective and the best-scheme of. literary promotion we have read of. for one hundred years' for a very ordinary publication." ;

"Montaigne hated conviction of sin as a poisonous, disturber' of the peace, invent-ed-by presumptuous, priests and purists. To Pascal it was the breath of. life—a terrible and a fiery breach blowing from tli9 . wilderness, but sent by God as tho only scourge strong enough to drive us to Him. Without the conviction of sin, Pascal could not have believed in virtue To Montaigno it made virtue impossible. To Pascal natural virtuo was as bad as sin, while Montaigno thought it. the only virtue worth, having. .... In tho case o-f Montaigne, the sense of folly took tho place of sin—as it does for so many ironical thinkers. Sins of belief did not exist for him, only tho follies of believers. . .

After all, what is Montaigne doing whilo we-watch him, half-aghast and half-en-thralled? He is doing the impossible. Liko some tiger-charmer, ho is playing with tho wild beast, Nature. He has not only tamed her, or accomplished a feat in her den. He is getting on well with her, face to face. . . . This same Nature is no stranger to us; is she not tho wild beast that lurks in eaeh of us—sleenin-g in some, in most hidden, and dreaded by all? We know she is there; wo have always known it; but by a tacit freemasonry we. do not breathe the fact to one another.' Like children, we feel that if we do the bogy may le-ap out on us—and then? But here is Montaigne unconcernedly sporting her, car-suing her, treating her as a familiar. How can wo not stand amazed? This is a matter of personal import. If NatuTO is to be treated as no monster, but as a recognised inmate of tho house, what about our laws and traditions? What bccomes of accepted moralities? If we test them, how mny wilt remain? How much of the fabrio will crumble."—Eidth Sichel.

The publishers objected the other day to the extension of the presentations cc libraries under tho Copyright Bill. It is interesting, therefore (says the "Westminster Gazette") to find that in 1836 tho delivery of books to Sion College, tho four universities in Scotland, «ua tiie King's Inn, Dublin, was abolished, and a compensation from the public purse ordained instead. In the case of tho King's Inn Library, Dublin, c.nd tho library of Sion College on tho .Victoria Emuankment. the payment is made annually now, the former receiving JM33 Gs. Sd. and tho latter . n£3G3 los. 2d. These fr.cts should bo brought more prominently beforo tho public. In the case of Sion College some observations on tho use which might be made of it by the juiblic were made only some days ago. Seeing that the Treasury pays £363 a year in lieu of copyright i-oks to that library there should be easy access for the public to. the library.

Wells Hastings is an example of the business man in literature. He is director in four manufacturing companies— tho Phoenix Cap Company, the Metallic Dccorating Company, the Phoenix Cork Company, all of New York, and the Hampshire Paper -Company of South Hadle.v Falls, Mas". Mr. Hastings wrote in collaboration with Brian Hooker, his classmate at Yale, "Tho Professor's Mystery." Another mystery story, tho exclusive work of his pern, will probably bo rea.ly for publication late in tho fall.

Lewis Melville, an authority on Thackeray, has prepared a book entitled "Some Aspects of Thackeray," which is announced for early publication. The work will contain chapters on "Thackeray as a Reader," "Thackera.v as a Critic," "Thackeray as at Artist," "Thackeray's Country." "Thackeray's Ballads," "Thackeray aiid His Illustrators," "Prototypes of Thackeray's Characters," etc.

A Franch weekly, apropos of the rccent duel between journalist?, publishes this interchange of-letters between ati Italian (xlitor aiul a correspondent. The latter wrote:—"Sir, one does not send seconds to .1 cad like yon, so I box your ears herewith. Please therefore to consider your-

self slapped upon both cheeks, and bo thankful that I have not used my cans to chastise you." Tho journalist replied:—"lncomparable adversary. In accordance with your demand, 1 thank you cordially for having pi von ino two slaps by letter instead of by fist. Slapped by letter, I discharge six revolver shots into your brain and kill you by letter. Consider yourself a dead man after reading tho last line of this note. I salute your corpse."

A lady signing lierwif Leila Snragne Learned'pleads in tho " 'Now York Time*' Review of Books" for Iho move careful use of English. But she herself passes this sentence: "Talking and writing in this big-worded style is the fruit of a pitiful desire to scorn elegant when one is not so. and which (sic) manifests itself in tho choice of words as well as in the wearing of clothes, the buying of furniture, aiKl the giving of entertainments."

"No writer since Ben .Tonson has given plainer advertisement "of what he was about. And yet the Mmic method of Meredith was in some ways so new, ha used the word comedy in a sense so unfamiliar to contemporary English readers. that thev have not understood his intention. It lias not often occurred t" the critics to extend the anDlicntion _ of the word cmedy b e vond 'Evan Barring l ton' and 'The Emist.' Outside these novels, they find the comic mcrclv i'sueli drolls as Mrs. Chump and Jf-i'tor Gammon. I believe that, in -Meredith's own view, the comic snirit- has just, a* striking manifestations in such a serious character as Victor Radnor; that n" novel of Meredith is quite free from it. and that most of them if nervades like an atmosphere."—Joseph Warren Beach.

In October a novel bv Mr. Maurice Hewlett. "Tho Song of Renny," may be expected. It is understood to be in the style of "The Forest Lovers."

A writer to the editor of "Public Oninion" rejoices over the downfall of Mr. Bernard Shaw: "Sir,—A ye.Tr or two n;ro Bernard Shaw mannered to lo>? himself on the Hill of .Advertisement, this year ho has unwittingly taken the wren? turning on Pnrrn*stia. Tn referring to Bloke's immortal linnet that 'put all heaven in a raire' lie actually interprets 'rase' as 'anger'; otherwise his comment h»s no point. When Homer nods tho ordinary mortal sishs: hut when the blatant esrob'st stumbl'S the man in the street rubs his hands with i»Vn. Sum]j- the groat detractor has rend flnv's 'Eleev.' not to sneak of Bale's 'How sweet I roamed from field to field'? In both of ft" l ®" wns and in many other places, ho will find 'rare' used for poetic or mirstrel frenzy. The linnet's sets all heaven singi«<; jn sympathetic " ecstasv. Even tho flighted Shnlcrsnmrc could have tauirht Shaw this "*o of tho word.—Yours truly, Albert Donald."

A Manchester jury recently awarded a Miss Irene Chester, a loeal money-lender, £75 damages on the ground that she had lest custom through a paragraph in "Answer.*," in which a character described as "Hiss Chester, money-lender," was introduced. The defence, that the character was purely fictitious and brought in to advertise a novel, was unavailing. The occurrence serves to recall to the "Atlienaoum" Mark Twain's complaint that the' name of the colonel in "The Gilded Age" was twicc challenged. The hnmoii.it said: "The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accommodate an Eschol Sellers who rose out of the vasty drips of uncharted space, and preferred his request— backed by throat of. a libel suit—tlion went his way appeased, and came no more. Tn the nlnv (made out of the bsok) Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another mem-ber-of the race." One writer of fiction ha.s mado his plans as follow:— "In future I shall use a place-name, : liko Mrs. Humphry Ward's 'Wcndovor,' for my man; or I shall go to a churchyard with two witnesses, who keep diaries; select a (rood name from a gravestone, and call •their attention to the fact that previously that name was unlcnown to me. If T wer'o moTo famous, I might adverb'--, myself and my work in advance hy pointing out that the hero and heroins were to l>e named thus and thus, and anyone who objected .should apply to me early to make an alteration, or, alternately, pay me for the honour. My name is not precisely common. hut it figured as that of a drunken blt.ckruard in n recent novd. T am too rc'pfftsWo to mied thrt, course, and too unknown ta get damages."

German book-publishing and book-sell-ing methods (remarks the "Dial") easily maintain a conspicuous superiority over those of most other countrijs. and especially over thofc of our own btniglitcd land of literary piracy and imperfect acknowledgment of a man's right to the prod nets of his brain. A significant illustration of these morn excellent ways is the enviable record of the hou'e of Tauchnilz, known to Americans chitflv for its well-nigh faultier and inexpensive re-prints-of the principal modern classics in the English language. The growth of tlio Tauchuitz collection of British and American authors has been one of cumulative rapidity ever since, in 18+1, the r/uixolic Leipzig publisher proposed to the first English author on his list fit was Bulwer-Lytton. and the first Tauchnitz reprint was "Pelham") r« pay him an entirely voluntary royalty on a reissue of hi* works in Germany. as a "step toward a literary relationship" between the two countries, there bonis no copyright agreement between them.' Beginning with three books'a year, the venture was enlarged to two "bonks a w>ek, with a total of more than 4200 reprints. Among them are all the great names of the two literatures in English. In one room of the establishment is preserved e remarkable collection of autograph letters from grateful >authors who have expressed their sense of obligation to the honest publisher. They include Dickons, Thackeray, Carlyle, Macaulay, Tennyson, Browning, Disraeli, Gladstono, Stevenson, Irving. Hawthorne, Longfellow, and many others.

Next month a second volumo of "Essays and Studies," the work of members of t>.e English Association, will make its appearance. Edited by Dr. Beeching, thocontributions of the volume will include: "Richardson's Novels and Their Influence," by Profc-ssor P. S. Boas; "Jane Austen," by Dr. A. C. Bradley; 'Literary Drama,-" by Mr. C. E. Montague; "Description in Poetrv," by Mr. A. Glutton Brock; and "The Grand Stylo Again,' by Mr. John Bailey.