The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-06-08
PERSONAL AND PECULIAR.

Miss Amelie Rives, the Virginia novelist is
to be married to Mr.. A. G. Coolidge, of Bos-
ton. MIR. Coolidge is of Virginia descent,
and is nephew of T. Jefferson Coolidge.
Matthew Arnold, according to report, left
but about $5000 Ii the report is true, the
Boston Transcript remarks, it shows that it
pays better to write puffs than criticisms.
Krupp is making the biggest gun in the
world for the Italian iron clad Sandegna. 1t
will be 52a feet long, with bore of 1871 in
ches. 1t will fire a steel shell of 1,630 pounds
with an initial velocity of 2,411 feet per sec
ond, or one of 2,3l4 pounds at 2,099 feet per
second.
M. Alexandra Dumas lives by measure and
weight. He rises at half-past 6 in the sum-
mer and at in the winter. His first break
fast invariably consists of glass of milk.
The second, which he takes at noon, is
very plain meal. Dinner occurs at exactly 7,
and at 10 he is in bed. He walks three miles
every day, and never works after 4 in the
afternoon.
General Sheridan's book of memoirs is
complete in manuscript form, and it publica-
tion was expected in few weeks. He has
been intensely absorbed in it, and was genu-
inely bitten by the writing fever as soon as
he begun it. 1t was new and unexpected
pleasure to him. He is a rapid writer, but,
like most men unskilled in literary work, he
had preposterous notion of the actual labor
demanded by a book. With the aid of
stenogTapher, and with his own rapid work.
his progress amazed and delighted him.
One of the strangest sights in Washington
Is an old man, very queerly dressed, accom-
panied by a middle-aged woman with for
est Of corkscrew curls hanging down her
back, and wearing an immense hat with
"a
in every direction. They never fail to at
tract attention whenever they appear upon
the streets. This old gentleman's name is
Weston and he is the uncle of Mr.. Melville
Weston Fuller, the future chief justice.
Inc. odd looking woman is Mr.. Fuller's
cousin.
Queen Victoria has entered upon her sew
entieth year, and has been for about ten
years the titular as well as actual empress of
India. 1t has occurred to her somewhat late
that she ought to understand the language
spoken by the largest number of her sub
1ects, and she has therefore taken measures
to import Hindu prince who has nothing
TO do at home, and no visible means of sup
port, who Is under contract to instruct her
majesty in Hindustani, at salary of $3.50
month, which Victoria has asked her loyal
subjects Of Great Britain and Ireland to pay.
Mr.. Labouchere regards this request as an
Illustration of the calm characteristic of the
British royal house under trying circum-
stances. He says there are very good schools
In London where her majesty might study
Hinaustani as much as she chose for fifteen
shllllngs quarter. If she prefers instead to
employ decayed Indian prince at an extrav-
agant cost, she might. as she is doubtless the
richest woman In Europe, pay him herself.
Ii Is impossible that any knawledge of Him
dustani which she can acquire at her age
will be of public use, and the radicals NAV
reasonably protest, as Mr.. LabOuchere says
they will, against making her teacher pub
lie functionary, with salary far beyond his
merits.
Hon. Beaman Brockway, the veteran edi-
tor and proprietor OF the WATERFOWL IN. "
Times, was at one time on the staff of the
Tribune under Horace Greeley, and for
many years before and after was in private
correspondence with him as friend. Mr.
Brockway thinks that during the later years
of Mr. Greeley's life he suffered, at consider
able intervals, from spells of mental depres-
sion amounting to arrangement, under the
heavy cloud of which his life went out. He
had letters from Greeley at times expressive
OF the most miserable despair over some po-
litical or social condition that aroused no
such feelings i'll other men, 1t is probable
that Mr.. Greeley's letter to President Lin
coin, written few days after the first battle
OF Bull Run, and published in the June Gen.
fury, in which he speaks Of himself as hope
lessly broken" was written in one of those
spells of mental prostration. Certainly there
was no such "funereel gloom" nor 'sullen,
scorching. blank despair" in regard to the
ultimate triumph Of the Union arms as he
depicts, after the rout of our army at Bull
Run, neither In New York nor elsewhere in
the North. The common phrase of the day
was an inspiring one. 1--WE Haven't BEGUN
to Fight Yetp And the song broke out.
throughout the loyal States
I've are coming, Father Abraham.
Three hundred thousand morel"