The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1886-04-30
LITERARY NOTES.

tan, a new family magazine published
by Schlicht & Field in Rochester, New
York, is striking for the variety and
brevity of its articles, and the beauty
of its letter press and full page illus
trations. 1t contains four short stor es
and an interesting and humorous ac-
count of visit to Mount Nesuvius,
by VIM. 7. Hornaday.
FROM an account OF the interview
given in the st. Petersburg Historical
ReVeW, it appears that the rumors
which represented Count Tolstoi as
mentally deranged are without any
foundation whatever. The author of
War and Peace, and many other cele-
brated works, is said to be in excellent
health, Employing hi, leisure hours in
the Giligent study of Greek and He
brew, in taking bodily exercise, and in
writing series OF short popular tales.
GRN. FREMONT has taken house in
Washington for a year, and he and
his wife are no hard at work upon
his memoirs. Mrs. Fremont is nomi-
nally Gen. Fremont's secretary and
amanuensis in the work, but the bu'-
den of memory, arrangement and
composition is rather evenly divided
They found it necessary to go TO
Washington, where Gen. Fremont
could have access to the old papers
and reports, and meet his old COM
rades in scenes that would alone re
call many things by association.
THE South is greatly indebted to the
Rev. j. Max Hank for a series of well
considered articles on Southern terra
ture and literary men, which appeared
some weeks since in the Lancaster
Lnteljgencer, enc of the most notable of
the daily papers OF PENNSYLVANIA, and
one of the most influential. In these
Mr.. Hank is both fair and frank. He
contrasts Mr.. Gable, for instance, with
all of his contemporary novelists with
results in the highest degree favorable
to the Southerner. He regards DR..
Sewer, whether "from purely literary
point Of view, or from the higher one
of moral purpose and tendency, as re
naming the most artistically perfect
andethically wholesome novel yet pro-
duced by an American writer, not eX-
cepting either Hawthorne's or Harriet
Beecher Stoves. For strictly speak
ing, neither of these enter into COM
parison with Gable. Hawthorne's ro-
mances are not novels but rOmances,
and unquestionably without a peer,
scarcely without arrival, in the language,
while Uncle Toms Cabin is far more
than a novel, and therefore to be
Judged by other tests and according to
other Standards" Charles Egbert
Craddock, whom Tennessee may
proudly own, Mr.. Hank regards as
second only to Mr. Cable. "Neither
of these two," he says, "may vet be
IS ripe in their art as one or two of
the greatest of our northern authors;
but if they continue growing in power
as they have begun, their maturity
will bring forth fruit of finer flavor
far than American letters have yet
produced whether in the North or the
South. That a field which has been
under cultivation but few short
years, as has the field of Southern
literature, should already have such
an abundant yield, and of such excel
lent quality, as the few leading names
l have mentioned indicate, is some
thing which l regard as little short of
marvellous, and surely full of brightest
promise for the future" Joel Chand-
Ter Harris holds a place "apart and of
himself" for a gentle humor and
pathos and descriptive power all his
own. OF him Mr.. Hark speaks with
evident delight, and in words that the
million of lovers OF "Uncle Remus'
will say "amen" to. And of Sidney
Lanier who was taken all too soon,
just as he was ripening into a place as
es ayist higher than any Amer
lean has yet reached. Paul
Hayne, too, our finest poet-our most
tender and graceful, yet strong and
patriotic and Father Ryan, who has
Just passed away. These and many
Others that we cannot here find room
for are treated of with marked dis
elimination, and yet with something
like a loving hand. Mr.. Hark does
not fail to remember the journalists
of the South or the work they have
done in re-establishing their States,
and he makes it plain that in nothing
so much as literature has the South
revived or made more rapid strides
Whatever her place in the literature
of the English language before the
war between the States il is thous-
andfold increased, greatly to the credit
not only of our section but OF the
whole Union, for whose peace and
perpetuity the best pens of the South
continually labor.