The Portland daily press., 1880-01-31


ly we'll known, even in the space of a fortnight,
and she had taken notes for her brother until
she had reused him to sharing her own inter-
est in her discoveries.
81 am sure you will find great deal of ma
terial here" she wrote to him. You see how
1 have fallen victim to that dreadful habit
of looking at everything in the light of mate
rial. A man is no longer man-he is mate
riaP sorrow is not sorrow, joy is not joy-it is
material There is something rather ghoulish
in it. l wonder if anatomists look at peoples
bodies as we do at their minds, and if to them
every one is a Subject At present 1 am in
terested in species of girl l have discovered
Sometimes she belongs to the better class-the
farmers, who have great deal OF land and
who are the rich men of the community
sometimes she livesin log cabin with moth
er who smokes and chews tobacco but in either
case she is a surprise and mystery. She is
always pretty, she is occasionally beautiful,
and in spite of her house, her people, her edu-
cation or want of it, she is instinctively re-
fined and delicately susceptible young person.
She has always been to some common school,
where she has written compositions on senti-
mental or touching subjects, and when she be-
longs to the better class she takes fashion
magazine and tries to make her dresses like
those of the ladies in the colored plate, and, l
may add, frequently fails. 1 could writ~ a
volume about her, but wont. When your
vacation arrives, come and see for yourself"
DICKENs's LETTERS.
The Atlantic contains review of the
recently published volumes of Dick
ens's letters, presumably from the pen of Mr..
Howells. The reviewer says: Life in the United
States appears from these letters to have been
a struggle for three terrible months to see and
hear Charles Dickens; and the sound of Mr..
Dolby stamping thousands of tickets in the
room above the novelist's bed-chamber was a
noise that rose above all public and private
clamor in nation that was then settling the
terms upon which conquered empire was to
be readmitted to union and self-government.
Twice he is sure that half Boston will be
out to see his agent walk a match; and he is
perpetually astonished that, though people turn
and look after him. they do not follow him up
or block his progress on the street. He finds
the country much reformed in respect to him
self; and the nation at large seems to have
made vast advance is not intruding upon
him. But otherwise he did not find much to
surprise him. The tobacco-chewers and the
newspapers keep it up as badly as ever; and
there are furnaces and stoves everywhere that
discomfort him. There is disease, he tells US
known as the American catarrh; he has this
terribly, and he insists upon it a great deal.
But for observation of the country or refec-
tions upon 1t of the slightest value, the reader
looks in vain. Perhaps it was the professional
habit of exaggeration that had grown upon
him; perhaps we did not deserve the exact
truth; but he puts even unimportant facts con-
corning us little awry. His letters from this
country during his last visit are in fine chiefly
a shout of astonishment and exultation at the
success of his readings. He did not like US,
and small blame to him. We stood before him
in the attitude of pirates offering splen-
did ovation to their victim, and he naturally
found US ridiculous and contemplate. His
purpose was to get all the money he could get
out of us; and, if we would not legally grant
him his rights in his property, and pay for the
privilege of reading him, at least to make US
pay for seeing and hearing him. He did not
have any hope of the international copyright;
and he did not recognize the fact that all de-
cent American publishers now pay copyright
to English authors while American au-
thors seldom receive compensation from
English publishers. He was not a
philosopher, and it IS probable that the loss of
copyright colored his opinions of us in all re-
spects. He was not our friend during the war;
and even after the war he was sorry that
England had not joined the French usurper in
breaking us up. Tue letters relating to his first
visit to America are few and unimportant; but
philosophize,-by the same narrow horizon,
shutting down ten feet away from an observer
who saw superficial generalities with prefer
natural keenness within that limit though
even within that limit he did not see detail
correctly, or was unable to report it correctly.
THE AUTOCRAT.
The Easy Chair in Harper's pays the follow
ing graceful tribute to Dr. Holmes:
"Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting9
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name
Nor yet unknown to many joyous meeting
l n days long vanished: is he still the same?''
The same, and more than ever the same; the
same, and never so much the same as in the
tender and simple melody with which he ac-
knowledged the homage not only of the famous
and brilliant company that sat with him at the
feast, but the greater company beyond that
gladly owns its gratitude to Holmes. and hears
with smiling incredulity the story Of threescore
and ten. The breakfast to the Autocrat, "le
jour du rossignol," as Mr.. Stedman happily
called the sparkling poem that he read was a
beautiful tribute of affection and admiration
to the distinguished potentate, who has never
dared to write as funny as he can lest the
world should end in inextinguishabe laughter
1t was tribute to one who is known as o
humorist, yet his own poem at the breakfast
and the tone of all the other poems anG
speeches and letters, showed truly that the
humorist is the master of tears as of smiles
and that of all tenderness in literature his i.
the most tender.
1t is a very remarkably body of men and
women which has for many years made BoS-
ton the literary capital of the country. 1t has
81, = of
Irving, and Bryant, all the chief names in ou
literature, and breakfast to Holmes at which
Emerson, Longfellow, and Whittier sat, Low
ell being absent in Europe, without mention
ing another name, shows the literary distinc
tion of the city. The great literary day o
Edinburgh at the beginning of the century wa
not 30 brilliant in genius as the last twent.
wears OF Boston have been. Scott, indeed, wa
Inere, but there was only one Scott. When thu
famous Boston Rounu Table is finally dis
solved,
Which was an image Of the mighty World"
it will be remembered not only for the literary
lustre of its great names, but for the purity ane
dignity OF the literary life which gathered
about it. There has been no Bohemia at tina
table. Its chief guests have shown that geniu
is not another name for loose habits and shift
less and weak extravaganza and vagabondag
of every kind, but comports with the hishes
manhood and good citizenship. Thus the lif
of that one of
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights.
whom we all know as the Autocrat, has beer
devoted to science as well as to literature, an0
he says himself that he had fallen into kind o
| literary lethargy, when Lowell aroused him
| and he turned to the creation of what Howell
called new kind of literature.
The lethargy, however, followed the YER.
| brilliant beginning of career Soon after hi
| return from Europe, where he had studied
! diligently, DIR. Holmes delivered his famou
l Phi Beta Kappa poem, Poetry; a Metrica
l Essay" which is as noted among the chic
| Phi Beta poems, as Everetts or Emerson's dis
| courses among Phi Beta orations He had
indeed, already written some of the familia
| poems, fugitively published until included il
l the volume of 1886 with the Metrical Essay
The singular mastery of yersfication, the full
rich rhythm of the decasyllable in which at tn
| end he boldly and successfully challenge