The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-22
LITERATURE.

1
! been over to Paris to see the exposition,
but all seem to have returned disappointed.
Prof. Huxley will have published early
this fall a new volume of essays on the pre-
paration of which he has been for some
time engaged.
Senator ingalls, is said to be engaged on a
novel of Washington life. II is eagerly
looked for by those who know his keen,
trenchant style.
Rev Charles Edward Stowe has finished
1.-THE Life of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe,
and as the subject of the biography IS still
living, much of the work is i'll the first per-
son.
Max O'Rell has taken a turn at CRITICS
ing his own countrymen, treating them
much the same way that he did the English,
the Scotch and the Americans. Cassell &
Co. are the publishers of his new work.
which is entitled jacques Bonhomme."
An Efforts making to induce DR.. Holmes
to write his autobiography. He refuses,
as he desires to spend his remaining years
in comparative idleness. He says, more
over, that his works tell as much of him
self as he cares to have the public learn.
The most singular material for book max
ing is proposed by Prof. Castagnatta, and
partially carried out by Prof. Burkham, of
Brunswick His idea was to make book
indestructible by printing in gold or silver
letters upon thin leaves OF asbestos, the
binding to be of thicker sheet of asbestos.
Neither time nor fire could have any effect
upon volume of this kind.
The recent appointment of Miss Johanna
Baker to the chair of Greek at Simpson
college, IndianoIa, Iowa, is significant
fact as showing the progress of woman
since it was first permitted to her to acquire
the alphabet Miss Baker succeeds to the
position filed by her father, Prof. o. H.
Baker, seventeen years ago, in the same
institution HdIper'S Bdzdr.
William Black says, respecting his habits
of composition, that after breakfast he
writes steadily for two hours, and one hour
after dinner, which is all the time he gives
to literary work During the rest of the
day he walks, or reads, or writes letters.
He writes rapidly and makes few erasures.
He is engaged upon a new story, the serial
publication of which will begin next Jan
uary.
A large number of famous men were
once book agents. Among them were
George Washington, Longfellow, Bret
Harte, Jay Gould, eX-President Hayes,
Daniel Webster, General Grant, Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Prince Bismarck.
The latter sold a book called ''Blumen-
bach's Aufgeschichte die Wesselgung in
der Spiegeleisen." Nobody slammed the
door in his face.
Doubts as to the truthfulness of the in
cident upon which Whittiers poem of
Barbara F'rietchie'' was founded are in
dignautly repudiated by fellow towns
woman of the heroine. Although child at
the time the Confederate troops entered
Frederick, she recOllects perfectly the
bravery Mrs. Frietchie displayed on that
occasion, and asserts that Barbara's rela-
Of fhai
own.
UnfayOrable comments having been re-
Gently made on the fact that Lord Tenny-
son still draws his pension from the civil
list, although he is now rich man and
there are many poor and even needy
authors, the London correspondent of the
Leeds Mercury, writes: Though the Poet
Laureate receives the money he does not
use it for his own purposes, but spends it
entirely on the relief of members of u e
literary profession who are in distress"
At the last meeting of the American
Library association, Miss Mary s. Cutler
of the New York State library, presented
the results of an inquiry into the practice
of libraries having 10000 volumes and up
wards as to Sunday opening. Out of fifty
college libraries heard from, as many as
twelve are open on Sunday; only three out
of eleven theological seminary ibraI iss.
In Mount Holyoke seminary and college
only religious books may be taken out.
An exchange says: ''William D. Howells
believes with Anthony TrollOpe that
novelist should no more wait for inspira
ton in his work than a shoemaker or ta,-
low-chandler. They both act upon Tn
principle that writing novels is purely ne
chanical work, like writing lawyers briefs,
for instance, or book keeping" And Troll
lope's humdrum platitudes and HoWelfs
protoplasmic yarns, that remind one of the
country road that wandered on from wagon
track to bride path, faded to foot path, and
finally "dwindled to squirrel track and
ran up tree are just what might be eX-
pected of such wooden theory.