The herald., 1894-11-22
THE TIDE OF POPULAR FAVOR.
Books That Are Called For at
the Library.
Idols of Ten and Twenty Years Ago
On the Crest.
The Fate OF tho Erotic School and
Their Pestilent Brood - Captain
Kings Popularity-Uhas. II.
Lummis' Work.


cares for such things is to watch the
tide OF popular favor for light literature.
Atthe present time 1t 10 flowing out and
carrying with it the idols OF 10 or 20
years ago, and on the crests Of every in
coming wave there comes riding q new
hero for the fin de steele reader to wor.
ship. A trits critic thus rather snesr-
ingly refers to the reading done in New
York: II am occasionally very much
surprised to find the ardor with which
a good book is welcomed in New York."
apropos OF the success Of Trilby there,
but Immediately upon having given
this faint praise, he again clutches
thereat by announcing, but the equi-
librium is easi ly maintained by the
avidity with which the Green Carnation
is gossiped about and laughed over and
ad dmired."
The wave OF Trilbyism, born in New
York. has surgsd across the continent
and come to Los Angeles, whore it is
gurgling now in an eddy of admiration.
OF all the popular books of the hour,
Trilby is perhaps the most popular. Her
Venus de Milo figure, her phenomenal
voice and placid equsnimity are as dif-
ferent a. can be from the other heroines
OF the hour-Marcslla, the pseudo-suf-
fragist and political reformer, and poor,
little, storm beaten Tess Of the D'Urber.
villes.
The popularity for the first volume of
Marcella and the Prince Of India contin.
ues unabsted, while the second volume
of each remains on the shelves in all its
crisp and tell.tale freshness. This is q
very significant commentary upon the
long novel; and In passing comparison
may be made between these two writer's
in 80 far as they are both authors whose
regulations were made early in their
career by one-volume novels, which in
popularity have not been equaled by
any of their later work.
from the Madding Crowd is as popular
as ever. and at the present time even
supersedes the ill.fated Tess. This Tess
was the forerunner of that voluntary
crop of anonymous literature which
sprang up last year and the year before,
and is known chiefly by The Heavenly
Twins, The Yellow Aster and The Green
Carnation. The first and best modern
novel on the woman question, Tess. was
written by q man, and the mass that
followed were written by women, and
epeaking of novels written by women it
would be amiss to pass by the four
clever female fctionists, Mrs. Crsigie,
Mrs. Steel, Jane Barlow and Beatrice
Harraden. All are English women, and
the first, writer Of short stories, 10
very fond of eprinkling them with q
goodly measure of sober English wit and
asi-philosophy.
Mrs. + lora Annie Steele, resident OF
India, has given US some pictures oil
contemporary local life OF the Punjaub
district. that give the reader q clearer
and fsirer notion Of that country and its
people than the best books of travel do.
Miss Jane Barlow writes of poverty
stricken. potato.eating Irish folk, and
writes ex remedy we'll, too.
Mias Harraden every one knows, and
particularly the people OF Southern Cali
fornia, since she is . sojourner among
them.
There is, however, ono American
writer who fills peculiar gap in inn
aginativs literature. and that is Capt.
Charles King. His twenty or more nov
els are immensely popular, and with a
class OF readers who ordinarily disdain
anything 30 frivolous as as q novel, !. e.,
the young man of from Is to 18 years OF
age. By him King, and King only, ia
devoured nowadays.
There is q group OF novelists who are
pushing the unhealthy, bacillus.
breeding, erotic writer's to the wall,
and these are dashing Stanley Weyman
aud Anthony Hope, he OF the Prisoner
of Zenda; gentle Davy Crockett, who
fathers The Raiders, and The Stickit
Minister, and Hall Caine, who tells
Manx yarns and calls them The Deem
ster and The Manxman.
But aside from the novels. there is q
deal OF good book'making going on. and
aside from the scientific there are, per.
haps, no roads in the literary field that
are being travelled 80 much as those
which border on electricity, folklore and
| literary criticism.
Books on any phase of electricity are
al ways in demand, and the latest and
most important book on the subject ia
Hertz's Electric Waves, a book advance
ing new theory, and which will be o
interest to all advanced students.
In folklore We have Charles F. Lum
mis- The Man That Married the Moon, {
charming series of animal folk tales O
| New Mexico. The book is excellently
illustrated by George Wharton Ed,
wards, and gotten out by the Century
company.
In the way Of literary criticism there
is at the present time o very remarka'
BILE tendency to relate poetry and music
When Sidney Lsnier published his au.
thoritative book on prosody, and Par
sons his on versifcation, the field oil
English prosody was about covered
with the exception, perhaps, of the po-
cts Coleridge, Poe and Bryant, who
each published some essays on con
| structive verse, but. as O student re-
marked. none of them practicsd wha
he preached.
Professor Raymond Of Princeton, ane
for years professor of literary aesthetics
has just published volume entitled
Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry ant
Music, in which he endeavors to bridg,
/ over the chasm that has existe.
j between the sister arts. A recen
German attempt to do this i
Ambros' The Boundaries of Poetr,
and Music, very superior littl
book. So In classic John AGdingtol
/ Symond's last volume called Essay
/ Speculative and Suggestive much spac
is devoted to the musical form OF poetry
Is this perhaps an indication of a spon
taneous elevation Of the sense OF poesy
and are We of the end of the nineteent
/ century yet to De treated to the spec
tacle OF the founding OF new immorte
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