The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-02-11
AUTHORS LIKES AND DIsLIKEs.
Tastes Of Some Well Known Writers al
Seen from Their Avowals.

Tastes of Some Well Known Writers as
Seen from Their Avowals.
The Book Buyer has been sending out
to literary people some blanks winch
they are required to fill out, telling who
are their favorite prose authors, poets,
painters. etc, their favorite books, heroes
of fiction, what they most enjoy n
most detest, and SO on. Some OF the re-
suits are amusing-none is very instruct
i've. 1t would be more amusing than
ANYTHING else, for instance, to see Mr..
Brander Matthews attempt to reconcile
his favorite prose writer, Hawthorne,
and his favorite poet, Dobson, with his
favorite musical composer, Wagner; but
when, opposite the sentence, "Where L
should like to live" he writes New York
Of course" we begin to comprehend as
well as to be amused. Mr.. Joel Chandler
Harris makes a very frank and cheerful
avowal of his preferences; it is odd to see
Uncle Remus including Lander among
his favorite authors Of prose; but one
would expect Shakespeare and Burns to
be his favOrite poets, and it is consistent
and significant that he should write down
1.-THE People as his favorite musical COM
posers.
Mr.. T. Russell Sullivan writes the best
lot of answers in the lOt-which is as
much as to say, of course, that the Lis
tener is most in sympathy with them.
His favorite authors Of prose are Sterne,
Sir Thomas Browne; his poets, Shake
speare, Heine; his painters, Velasquez,
Rembrandt; his composers" Dinner
and Sleep, which is a 'goak;;" his favor
tie play is "Othello," and his favorite
heroes in fiction are Mephistopheles and
d'Artagnan; his favorite heroines in fic-
ton, Juliet and Beatrix Esmond; his
favorite h~eroines in real life, 1.-The I'm
complaining Poor" He mostly enjoys
travel, and most detests an electric
street car, while the "historic event at
which he should like most to have been
present" was the interview between Eve
and the serpent!
Miss Agnes Repplier's answers are IL
Illuminating as to the character of that
gifted lady. Naturally Scott is one of
her favOrite prose writers, and Keats
goes with Shakespeare in poetry, while
her favOrite composers are Gounod and
Verdi. That "Marius the Epicurean'
should be her favOrite book is rather an
odd thing to some warm admirer of Mr..
Pater, who doesn't share Miss Repplier's
general romantic and sanguinary tastes
in literature. The exquisite civilization
Of "Marius" seems very far away from
the silly barbarism of "Ivanhoe." But
whether it is she who is inconsistent or
whether they are, each party probably
would not leave it to the other to de-
eide. OF course Miss Repplier's heroine
in real life is Mary Stuart, and the his
toric event at which she would most like
to have been present was the battle of
AgincOurt. No circular need come from
the mails to find that out.
The literary ladies, by the way, who
have such an unwomanly taste for gore,
and who pour out S o much tardy ink in
the praise of thirsty sword, illustrate
anew the tendency of their sex to come
briskly in expressing mems thoughts
just after men have ceased to think
them. All, well, at the same time that
Miss Repplier avows these things she
avows that she would rather live in
London than anywhere else, and de-
clares that the gift of nature she would
most like to have is health, which is as
much as to say that she has it not, and
illness, and life in Philadelphia, and a
liking for London will account for a
great many backward and morbid things
in ones understanding.-BostOn Tran
script.