The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-12-07

Though this red night lamp looks
On nothing but papered wall
And some few rows of books?
For in my hand 1 hold key
That opens golden doors;
At whose resistless sesame
A tide Of sunlight pours.
In from the basking lawns that lie.
Beyond the boundary wall;
Where summer broods eternally,
Where the cicallas call.
There all the landscape softer Is.
There greener tendrills twine,
Tho bowers are rooted with clematis,
With briony and vine.
There pears and golden apples hang.
There falls the honey dew,
And there the birds that morning sang,
When all the world was new.
Beneath the oaks Menaicas woos,
Arachnia's nut-brown eyes,
And still the laughing Faun pursucs,
And still the wood nymph flies.
And you may hear young Orpheus there,
Come singing through the wood,
Or catch the gleam Of golden hair.
In Diana's solitude.
So when the world is all awry,
When life is out OF chime.
take this keg Of gold and fly
To that serener cline.
To those fair sunlit lawns that lie
Beyond the boundary WALL
Where summer brOods eternally,
And youth Is over all.
,.-- .-Harper's Bazaar.
-...-.. tit
Many, very many wearied readers who
have long been surfeited with the con-
ventional will. we fancy. join with Ernest
McGaffey In his cry, as uttered In the
poem, "False Chords In the December
Bookman, for truer and stronger tones.
We quote him below:
/ listen, but / listen all in vain.
Amid the jangle of beribboned Tyres
(The which or modern poets strum upon
For some heart-rote, some echo of great
thoughts
To thrill me and upllft me like the breath
OF sudden brine from out old oceans
breast, -r-
Fresh-dashing In my face kiss OF dawn.
But so II Is that all I hear-good God!
Is art, art, art, and sickly plaintive runes
OF flowers. and birds, and lovelorn sere-
nades,
In cunning form. fine-moulded for the ear,
Frail wOrd-mosaics of these lesser days;
Or, failing that, there comes a mystic
chant
OF dense, dull verse whose secret lies in
gloom
Swathed like mummy in his cerements.
And these are nothing but false chords 1
know:
For true-born singers smite Apollo's harp
With something of the spirit of a god,
And give their very lifeblOod to the song.
o, muse of mine. let not my Tyre sound
To such vain pipings; grant its varied
moods
a touch of tears--a voice of natures own
As lucid, and as free and undeilled;
And give 1t steel, and iron, like the
strength
OF clashing sabres and Of bayonets
And black-mouthed cannon, wreathed in
thunder clouds,
Whose music rolls u menace o'er the.skies
Where earth is shaking to the tread of
Mars.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS:
Balzac considered that he was wasting
time II he devoted more than six months
to any one of his longer stories. He fire.
quently finished novel in less than three.
Prescott. being almost blind, required
ten years to prepare Ferdinand and Isa-
bella" The Conquest Of Mexico" required
six years and the Conquest Of Peru
four.
= The manuscript OF "Trilby" Is on view
in O glass case at the Fine Art society
galleries In London. 1t is written in a
bold school-boy hand. and mainly in copy
books.
A Swedish translation of "Uncle Tom
C'Onkel Toms Stuga'D, has just begun
publication in parts at Goteborg, by Fors-
ten Herlund. There will be more than 100
original illustrations.
Rudyard Kiplings famous Jungle
stories had their origin in the suggestion
Of the editor Of st. Nicholas that he try
his hand at writing stories for the young
readers Of that magazine. This Mr.. Kip
ling was the more ready to do as he said
he had grown up on st. Nicholas" He
will write for It during the coming year
in a new vein; the Jungle stories are fin
ished.
r. Marion Crawford has arrived In New
York from Europe. He considers New
York q better place to work In than the
south OF Italy. He has two novels in
course of publication, and has mapped out
third, "A Rose of Yesterday" to be pub
Iished In the Century In 1897. He will not
write another Indian story because at is
not well to tempt fate or luck second
time. ! do not believe in trusting to luck,
and Mr.. Isaacs' was pure luck for me.
Yet his was in a sense true character"
Mr.. Du Mauriers manuscript of "Tril-
by shows that his writing Is as palms.
taking and conscientious as his work as a
draughtsman. There Is not so much ac-
tual symmetry about the caligraphy as
there Is accuracy of detail and certain
harmony Of aspect when the writing is
regarded as whole. You cannot see an
unnecessary line or flourish and yet there
is a roundness and completeness that must
have reduced the corrections Of his proofs
to q minimum.
The Funk & Wagnalls company celebrat-
ed on Nov. n the first anniversary of
the completion of It's Standard Dictionary,
by putting to press the ninetieth thou
sand of this work. The publishers
mathematician has figured out that, ii
these $1,000 sets were piled fiat one upon
another, they would reach nearly seven
miles in height; and the printed pages, II
laid end to end would extend over 1000
miles, one and three-fifths times around
the globe. Another feature of the anni-
versary was the forwarding from the
Pennsylvania depot for Michigan of a
big freight car loaded wholly with Stand