Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-23
The CRITICS REVIEW.
English and American Humor-Our Fun
Highly Appreciated Abroad-The Mys-
tory of Ibsen's Dolls House-A Pretty
h. A.t

tory of Ibsen's Dolls House-A Pretty
French story by n Noted Astronomer.
T ORD DUNDREARY has written book. There
is a picture of him on the cover with his
lone eveglass in his eye. The name of the book
is The Idle Thoughts Of an Idle Fellow Henry
Altemus, R. R. Davis Coz jerome K.
Jerome is the author. Mr.. Jerome is the rising
English humorist. He is the man who wrote
1.-Two Men in Boat" and several other things.
Several publishers were anxious to reprint this
| book, looking for large sale.
| Somehow humorists do not seem to come to
| perfection in England. There is humor of
course, plenty of 1.-THE most charming humor
| In the world-in English writings. But 1t is
humor which comes in by the way The
| Englishman who deliberately sets out to be
funny seems to make failure OF it Even
! Burnard's Happy Thoughts" is no exception.
The idea was funny. but after a little the reader
| grew weary. Punch is a conspicuous example
of the sort of thing which passes for humor in
England. We find it very heavy. Whether it
is that the English mind is slower than the
American, or that he persists even more than
we do in taking his pleasures sadly. something
| is lacking
There Is nothing in England SO good as our
humorous papers, and no man in England who
can be funny for the sake of being funny and
really succeed in being funny. Mark Twain
cannot be approached in England. The Amer
me tired"
| .
ing Hard Up" is the first meditation in this
volume. 1t begins thus: ut is a most remark
| able thing. sat down with the full intention
| OF writing something clever and original. but
for the life of me I can't think of anything
| clever and original-at least, not at this
moment The only thing can think of now is
my pockets has made me think about this. l
always do sit with my hands in my pockets, ex-
| cept when l am in the company of my sisters,
my cousins or my aunts, and they kick up such
|
quently upon the subject-that l have to give
in and take them out-my hands, mean."
he rs the
mistake. And for people who like that sort of
thing, that is the sort Of thing they will like
| It HE preface is pretty good. zone or two
friends to whom 1 showed these papers in
| MS. having observed that they were not half
bad, and some of my relations having promised
to buy the book IL it ever came out, feel
have no right to longer delay its issue. But for
this. one may say, public demand, l. perhaps,
| should not have ventured to offer these mere
idle thoughts of mine as mental food for the
English speaking peoples OF the eartn. w nat
| readers ask nowadaySin book is that 1tshould
| improve instruct and elevate. This book
wouldn't elevate a COW. l cannot conscien-
tiously recommend it for any useful purposes
| whatever All can suggest is that when you
get tired reading the best hundred books you
may take this up for half an hour. 1t will be
| change"
| Hendrick Ibseu left THE Dolls House. un-
finished. After the fashion, popular nova
days by which the novelist, having wrought up
his plot to the most interesting situation, either
decides the matter in the most disappolnsing a
to the imagination of the reader. so the much
talked-of romancer, whose "Dolls House is
sad picture of matrimonial infclicity, sent the
wife away at the end of the book, and quietly
laid down his pen.
Did she ever come back again? the reader
wants to know. And so importunate is the ques-
tion that some have taken in hand to solve the
problem which Ibsen simply stated without
solving. Among others, Mr.. Walter Besant
in Macmillan's Magazine essayed to show how
solution did not commend itself to Mrs. Ednah
d. Cheney. He rather made bad matter
worse. Mrs. Cheney in NoraS Return lice
& Shepard H. Watts d Co., so cents) under
takes to set the question straight.
THE difference between Mr.. Besant's solu-
ton and Mrs Cheney's lies in their interpre.
tation Of the character of Nora and Helwar.
Helwar, in Ibsen's drama, is a selfish man who
loves his books more than he loves ms Wlle-
Nora is fly-away creature, who has never gwen
two serious thoughts to any subject IN her lie.
Ibsen leaves it in doubt as to the sort OF nature
which underies these two manifestations OF
temperament. Mr. Besant makes them oul
radically bad, both of them. Mrs Cheney
thinks on the other hand, that they were each
honest and well meaning. but blind.
|
Cheney and she comes back very different
kind of Nora indeed. She goes to little seashore
town. where she learns the blessedness OF ser,
vice. Little by little in sight Of the sorrows OF
Others life comes to have deeper meanings 1ol
| her. She becomes a nurse In a terrible vista
tion of cholera. One of the patients is Helwar.
Nora nurses Helwar back to life. He learns the
value of unselish love; she learns the meaning
| of truth and duty. Thus a new life begins.
Mrs Cheney has written good story with
foundation OF profound truth beneath II. Ine
, | Of ha hook teaches.
that ''in service for others we secure our owl
, development and happiness" note ln1ormi
that the % Of +ts TINS Ns, %a Ds
pital Fair. to he opened at horticultural hall
Boston, December !, 1890
uIIRANIE" (CasselI Publishing Company; H
Watts & Co.; so cents) presents severa
points of interest upon its title page. 1t
published by the Cassells. which pretty gener
ally means careful selection. 1t is translated
from the French by the translator of ''Mari
Bashkertseff." and it is written by the distin
guished astronomer Camille Flammarion. Their
is picture of the author for frontlspiece
The book is romance, a dream, in whicl
philosophy astronomy and imagination pla
equal parts. The hero falls in love with Uran1e
But Uranie instead of being some young AM
| fair maiden, is the stately muse OF astronomy
| Uranie takes him on a journey among the stars
Down looks the hero upon the earth In
r mensely distant. His perceptive faculties ar
I supernaturally keen. He seeks out his nativ
: land of France. 1t is unbroken forest. Th
: France which he sees is the Gaul of:the time o
julius Caesar. I'VE are SO distant from tn
: earth" said Uranie. that it would take he
!, light the same length of time to reach us her
{ as has passed,snce the days of julius Caesar
We receive here now only the rays of light re
r flected from the earth at that period. Yet lign
= travels through space with velocity Of BUG, ,OO
kiIometers second. This is rapid, but not In
Simultaneous. The astronomers of the eartt
who are now observing the stars in the region
| where we are. do not see them as they ar
| now but as they were at the time when tn
rays of light that reach US now wer
n reflected from the earth. That is I
g say, as they were Is centuries ago.
l. That is one of many curious and suggestiv
a thoughts which appear in this book. ,,TeleI
athy" comes in, with many singular illustrs
Y tons. The planet Mars appears in this accoun
b to be kind of heaven. A postscript sums u
n the volume thus: "The preceding episodes. tn
researches recorded, and the reflections accom-
panying them, are here brought together in
sort of essay to serve as beacons IN the solutio
of the greatest of the problems which can intel
est the human mind. 1t is as such that til
. present work is presented to the attention q
" those Who as Dante says. occasionally paus
r 'smi,lway in the path of life to ask themselve
what they are, what their aims, thei
thoughts, their dreams"
d Where Ice Machines Would be superfluou
- u-o,, +ho pbiIodelnhia Record 1