The Portland daily press., 1883-08-10
Authors and Books.


Monkish Museum.
The literary pet of the English is now
John Ruskin.
Land tenure in India is the subject upon
which Florence Nightingale issnow at work.
Giving London has been dedicated by
its author, George Augustus Sala, to the
Countess of Rosebery.
Mrs. Sara Lippincott (Grace Greenwood
is said to be in London engaged in writing
biography of Queen Victoria.
A memorial in the Church of St. Olaye,
London, is proposed in honor of Samuel
Pepys, ESQ.,, who has been immortalzed by
diary, which he kept for ten years.
"Ouida," Mile. De la Rance, is now strict
ly secluded, cloud having darkenei her
mind, it is said. Something darkened it a
good while ago, most people have thought.
A monogram on the comparative anatomy
OF the human and brute tongue by Prince
Louis Ferdinand, who lately married the
sister of the King of Spain. is in press.
M. Hector NARROW, the brilliant French
novelist. who has just put out charming
story, Poor Relations" is the father-in law
OF the Boston artist A. f. Oudinot.
The professors of the College de France
have selected NJ. Renan to succeed the late
M. Laboulaye not only as the administrator
of the college for term of three years, but
also as their representative on the Council
of Public Instruction.
The idea that practice in qualitative and
quantitative analysis has tendency to fos-
ter honesty was first developed in paper in
the Medical Record, afterward reprinted in a
pamphlet, by j. FL. Bell, now of Fort Oma-
ha.
Professor Hardy's novel, But Yet Wom-
an has within three months after its publ
cation reached the tenth thousand, and four
editions of it are already published in Eng
land.
Bjrornstjerne Bj0rnson never revises, or
reads, or corrects his manuscript. While he
writes visitors may chatter him, as he saws
nothing short of an earthquake can disturb
his flow of thought, which, if true. is not
great, but merely phenomenal.
DR.. Decaisne, the medical contributor to
La France, combats the notion that cholera
is contagious-a theory, entirely unsupport-
ed by anything worthy of the name of proof,
and which tends to create unnecessary and
mischieVous alarm.
1t is said by the classicists that although
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jun, has for
gotten his Greek alphebet, he has unconsci-
ously become penetrated with Homeric
spirit, for whenever the Greek heroes held
what answered for their Phi Beta Kappa
councils they always told all they knew of
their fathers and fore-fathers.
Prof. Alexander Graham Bell has devoted
great deal of time recently to the prepara-
ton of a photography of electricity. with q
view to facilitate the labors of scientific in
vestigators. He has gathered in the library
at the top of his handsome home on Scott
Circle, Washington, the titles of 10000
books, pamphlets, and short articles on cleo
tricity, and has only began the collection.
"Will New York be the Final World Me-
tropols@' is question W. C. Conant will
ask in the September Century and answer
in the affirmative with curious array of
facts and arguments. He predicts that be-
tore another century passes, New York's pop
ulation will surpass that of London and
that it will be the unrivaled center of finance
and commerce, of luxury and fashion. of art
and literature-the heart and brain. in
word, of the civilized world"
The anonymous novel, "The Bread-Win.
ners, which begins SO strongly in the August
Century, is said to be posthumous work of
the late Leonard Case of Cleveland. n. the
founder of the Case school of applied science.
de used to write great deal in verse and
prose Tor his own pleasure, and the manu.
script of this story was found in his naners
after his death, edited carefully and submit
ted to Editor Glider of the Century. who
pronounced it one of the strongest stories he
had ever examined. The personages are nor
TRAITS from real life; and Arthur Farnham
is recognized as Col. w. H. Harris, retired
army officer.-Springfeld Republican
The story that Mark Twain is at the verge
OF the grave wrestling with the malarial fe-
yer is afabrication. "Heis in goud health. y
says the Elmira Advertiser, Hand is working
nard ANY newspaper correspondent who
doubts this statement can satisfy himself re-
gardlng Mr.. Clemens's condition bv climb
ing up Quarry Farm Hill any morning at
half past O'Clock and knocking at the door
of the well known Mark Twain study-arbor
He will find the author at his desk IF he
chance to be something of an invalid. Mr..
Clemens will take him ont and show him
the woods, wherein, last year, by chopnino
wood, he cured himself of thirteen different
and distinct Diseases"
An interesting book of voltaire's. bitber-
to unpublished, has just been brought out in
Paris Voltaire, like most men of letters,
Kept commonplace book, in which. besides
making notes of his own. he entered anv
stories or sayings which struck his fancy.
and one such book he labelled s'Le Sottisier.''
Inc manuscript passed into the hands of the
Empress Catherine IL, who bought his libra
ry from his niece, Nine. Denys, in ITS.
and it was only in 1874, when the Beuchot
edition was already completed, that Prince
Looanoif sent the editors copy of most of
the book. M MI: GARNER Freres have now
inserted the whole of il in their new edition
OF VoItaire's works, and have also struck off
separate impression of it, uniform with the
well-known Carpenter SERIES
ID. Lothrop & Company will shortly pub
lsh new volume of Edward Everett Hale's
"Family Flight series, this one being an
account of actual travel in Spain. It is writ
ten Mr.. Hae's genial style, and is illustrated
by Two hundred original engravings AIfoth-
er juvenal book a holiday quarto, is Edward
A. Rand's GAN Aboard for the Lakes and
Mountains" Margaret Sidney, who wrote
the ''Pettibone Name" and 'What the Seven
DID,, has another story, "Who Told 1t to
Me-" which will also soon appear, together
with fairy story by David Colt, called,
How the Rain Sprites We're Freed,o with
full page Illustrations and an imaginative
cover by F. Childe Harsam. Geo. MacDon-
aid sent to d. Lothrop & Company the orig.
nal M s. of his late work. The latest one
aDonal Grant, viii be published late in
August or early in September. Other new
books to come are "A History of the Ameri-
can People," in one volume, by Arthur Gil
man, M. A., aud some cambridge Ser
mons" of special interest by DIR. Alexander
Mckenzie.
Mr.. j. A. Froude's latest magazine arti-
Gle is devoted to Martin Luther. He waxes
enthusiastic over the Reformer "The APP
pearance of Luther before the Diet of Worms
is one of the finest-perhaps il is the very
fnest--scene in human history. MANY a
man has encountered death bravely for
cause which he knows to be just, when he is
sustained by the sympathy of thousands, of
whom he is at the moment the champion
and representative. But it is one thing to
suffer, and another to encounter face to face
and single-handed the array of spiritual and
temporal authorities which are ruling su-
preme. Luther's very cause was yet un
shaned and undetermined and tho rninds