The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-07-19
Correspondence of the Press.l

Correspondence of the Pressl
NEW YORK, July 17.-Four books
now IN the press are going to attract
good deal Of attention. The first is
Ben Buffers memoirs" This life of
the hero of New Orleans will be more ex-
citing than fiction, for it will be the
truth as Butler sees it. Ben Butler has
positive ideas on all subjects. The book
was begun nearly year ago, buG only
after urgent solicitations by the publish
ers. At first Mr.. Butler refused to lis
ten to proposition to write the story of
his life.
81 am getting old, !" he said, "and have
fought all the battles l care to fight. IF I
should write what knew you would hear
howl from one end of the Union to the
other. For l shall tell the truth. no
matter who it hits, and when the book is
published, if it ever is published, there
VIII be more fur flying in the air than
any one man has ever seen before"
After much solicitation Mr. Butler de-
cided to take up his pen, and the result
is volume couched in strong, vigorous
English on the episodes Of the war, the
making and unmaking of presidents and
some facts about men whose condolences
he enjoyed.
Another book that is apt to attract
quite as much attention is the little vol
ume that the widow of Gen. Grant is
preparing.
81 make no pretense to literary fin
ish," she said the other day, "and 1 am
writing the simple narrative of my life
more for my children than for anybody
else. From the day when Gen. Grant
went a-wooing until the last scene of all
at Mount McGregor there was SO much
crowded into our lives that our children
never heard of that am going to tell
the story from the beginning in my own
way, SO that when am gone, as / soon
shall go, they will know things more
clearly than they do now. Perhaps this
little volume will not interest the pub
lie. hardly suppose it will, but it will
interest my children. Gen. Grants life
was such busy one and his privacy so
constantly broken into on account of
public duties that there are dozen
chapters in his career and mine that
have never been written. | shall at
tempt to supply all these deficiencies, for
/ have all the letters he sent me from the
beginning to the end, scores of stories
that have never been printed, barrel
full of letters on all sorts of topics from
all sorts of people, and these l shall put
together in narrative form, so that nv
children may read them and know their
nd hot
now. l do not mean of course to pub
hsh indiscriminately all the letters he
sent me when we were lovers and all
the letters that came to him while he
was a general in the army and president
of the United States. A number of these
are sacred. What do not print shall
destroy.
81 am doing all the writing with my
own hand; cannot dictate a sentence.
Occasionally my son Ulysses comes to
my aid, and then | get along faster.
Since it was first said that was writing
this book have receiveda score of offers
from publishers for other work, but I
have had to refuse them all. 1t was
physically impossible for me to write
more than few pages day, no matter
how hard l worked"
The third book that is going to attract
attention is DR.. T. De Witt Talmage's
life of Christ 1t is called ''From Man
ger to Throne" and in few weeks will
see the light of day. 1t is big volume
written in Talmage's best style. 1t is
filled with pictures of scenes in the
Holy Land, where the doctor spent four
months last winter, and it is likely to
upset tradition in more ways than one.
1t is one of the surprising things about
Talmage that he manages to do so much
literary work. The making of new
volume is no trouble to him. He had
the copy of this latest book in the print
er's hands few weeks after his arrival
from the Holy Land. Most of it he
wrote with his own hand. Occasion
ally he used stenographer for die
tation, but not often.
Still another book that is going to be
talked about is Ward McAllister's vol
ume on New York society. 1t will tell
of "the 400" who compose it, the usages
of good society and a lot of other facts
about entertaining, calling, visiting,
dinner giving and matters of like i'm
portance to those of social disposition
and blessed with large bank accounts.