The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-09

taken by any woman. Miss Hall was accom-
panied on her tour by her husband George B.
Mcclellan, Mr.. and Mrs. Harrison and Mr.. and
Mrs. William Trevor. They sailed on the
American line steamer New York in the early
part of last May and arrived back in America
on the Goth OF August, their tour embracing
sixteen weeks.
At Friederichsruhe. the home OF Prince Bis
marck, Miss Hall had the honor OF appearing
before the Prince and his family and singing
several selections from various operas, con-
Guiding the reception at the request OF the
Prince by singing "Die Wacht Am der Rhein."
The distance covered was 237S miles according
TO the average OF the cyclometers.
George Nagle sat in the Office of the Palace
Hotel yesterday evening reading a copy OF the
Review of Reviews. Suddenly he closed the
magazine with bang, and turning to the in
dividual who dozed on his right burst out:
atmosphere! Book atmosphere! Ridiculous
rot! Everything you pick up nowadays in the
shape of book review has something to say
about the atmosphere of a certain popular
book over which the public seems TO have gone
particularly wild. Did it ever occur to you
that the man who wrote the book couldn't
help putting the atmosphere into it. Take
for instance James Whitcomb Riley's poetry.
You hear some old fossil say that it takes him
right back to the neWmown hayfelds and the
doors of the orchard. Well, why in the devil
shouldn't it? Riley up to his nineteenth year
used to get out at daybreak and milk twenty
six cows, pitch hay until the NOW was full,
and he then took little wedding exercise till
lunch was ready. In the afternoon he packed
spuds two miles to the cellar, and by night,
after taking another whack at the cows with
milking stool and eating vegetable dinner
with the farmhands. went to bed in the top
story OF the old homestead and snored holes
in the piIlow-sham. That's about the size
of it.
Suddenly he discovered that he could write
particularly delightful brand OF verse that
everybody liked and that the papers were will
ing to pay for. so he cut his boots off at the
ankels, creased his pants and headed for the
city, where he has been ever since. OF course
his verse has the farm atmosphere around it.
How can he hel lit. He couldn't do anything
else If he tried. Atmosphere Boshl'
This burst of indignation seemed to relieve
the critic for q few moments, but he stroked
his whiskers a little and let drive again.
''Now, there's Marion Crawford, the writer
with such delightful Italian air about his
stories. Well, he went to Italy as soon as he
was old enough and lived on spaghetti and
macaroni until he couldn't get along without
it. He wallowed around in Italian society,
drank strong claret, smoked Italian tobacco,
fell in love with the country and created old
"Saracanesca" Italy is all he can think about,
and that's where we get the Italian atmos-
phere.
"Kippling lived in the jungle for eighteen
years, Tolstoi never had anything on but peas
ants overalls and plowmen's jumpers. He
gets up when the early bird is roosting in the
tree-top kicking about the internal low tenn
perature of Russia, and by sun up he has har-
rowed a three-acre field and laid the plot of
two novels. That's TolStOis regular gait and
he can't help it. Of course his books show
just slight touch of the son OF the soil, and
his statistical information shows that he
knows the prevailing rare of wages in the land
OF the Gear. That's the way it goes. Writers
can't get away from the things they live
among, and this rubbish about atmosphere is
q little Overdoue -