The herald., 1895-07-15
F}QgES !l!E;! S,:s!E' AAR 51Ssg!:'TH!E|M StE's;!
EDITED BY ENocH KNIGHT

A new factor has come into the pub
| fishing business in England. and mani
testify come to stay. 1t is the recognition
| and employment of the literary agent.
who takes manuscripts and disposes of
them in the open market. 1t Is claimed,
upon evidently the best authority. that
this new agency is working the highest
| good both to authors and publishers, and
| the prediction is made that the business
will soon be under way here. 1t is hard
to say why it should not be a success, and
the wonder is that what has been occas-
ionally done, on a small scale, should not
have become an established practice be-
fore this. There can be no DOUBT that
honest and capable men have Ii fair field
in this new line. and that many credita-
Bile literary contributions can find mar
ket which now have no show for even
reading by the ordinary publishing house.
4 4 q
Miss Edith Thomas, it Is said has a
pretty resentment at being considered
nothing but poet She is described
as brunette. frail of form, and having
large brown eyes. very brillat but very
sad. One never feels quite like forgiving
the dreadful person who first gave her al
legged likeness TO the daily press. Her
touches of nature in her prose essays are
so exquisite that it is uncanny almost to
see a plan, pinched face representing this
charming writer, OF her literary habits
a friend writes:
she writes q great deal. She asks no
carefully constructed secluslon for the
woIk. In famiiiar circle, when others
are talking or singing and playing cards
she Will be making notes ON the back OF
letter or bit OF writing paper-what-
ever comes handy. She is perfectly free
from any literary affectations or poses
unless, indeed, it has come to be little
of an affectation to assume prosaic tone
abo 1t her work and refuses 20 admit in
words the pleasure she takes in It, She
would rather tell you what time she had
straig ghtening out a line than anything
about the rapture of creation. She is
probably more frequently represented in
the best periodical literature OF the coun-
try than any of our writers, but there is
nothing about her of the airs OF greatness
that are so familiar in various small fry.'
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A very unhappy but not strange thing
has come about in the way OF ready made
examinations and commencement essay
writing in the country-happening at
several points at the same time, as some
epidemics are wont to do. An enterpris-
ing literary concern in st. Louis and an
other IN New York propose to furnish to
graduates and others suitable ESSAYS and
dscourses for all occasions and publish
scale of prices according to length and eX-
cellence. This will hardly be taken SER
iously by the reader, at first sight, but
that it is an undertaking of a most
serious kind is now we'll understood. 1t
has long been business to furnish ser
mons, and this is only one re move from
that literary venture; and that it will be
pushed as fast and as far as possible there
is no doubt.
Ex.Congressman Riddles new book,
''Recollections of War Times" has some
very interesting mention OF the city OF
Washington. OF the appearance OF the.
city wien the war came on, he says: 1T
was then as unattractive and struggling,
soddeu town. wandering up and down
the left bank of tie yellow Potomac, as
the fancy can sketch. Pennsylvania av-
enue, twelve rods wide, stretched drearily
over the mile between the unfinished cap
tol and the untinihed treasury building
on Fifteenth street, west, where it turned
north for a square. and took its melan-
choly way to Georgetown, across the real
ly once very beautiful Rock creek. lily
paved with cobblestones, it was the only
paved street of the town. The other
streets, were long stretches of mud
or deserts of dust and sand. with here
and there clumps of poorly built resi-
dences with long gaps between them,
passing little deserts of open lands where
Their lines were lost, wandered from the
highlands north toward the Potomac.
and from the eastern branch (Anacosta)
to Rock creek. Not sewer piessed the
town, nor off of PennsylvaNia avenue was
there paved gutter. Each house had an
open drain from its rear out across the
sidewalk. As may be- supposed, the cap
jtal of the republic had more mal-odors
than the poet Coleridge ascribed to an
cient Cologne" Many OF our readers can
realize the truth of this picture from per.
sonal remem berance, but to thu mass OF
the people now it seems almost absurd.
OF McClellan's first appearance at the
capital to bring order of chaos, MIR. Riddle
makes the following just estimate: NC
Cellan's coming to the capital was like
the advent of beneficent prince. We
awoke one morning to find the Streets
the city. seIenely free of the wandering
gangs of brass and blue: Ihey had all
disappeared IN night. In his presence
order and quietude at once found them
selves every where established. AS by
potent magic obedience, discipline.
neatness, and the air military, ruled the
camDs to which the soldiers we're confin-
ed the awkward citizen began to assume
the buarlng of a soldier, preparing to take
his place in the finely wrought mechan-
ism of the company, regiment, brigade.
division, and army corps. Never had we
a superior organizer, with the skill to turn
out the completed regiment. Had his
enoerprise. his dash, mis- elan, and his
tactics in the field. equaled his art as a
constructor and artihcer OF soldiers, his
genius would have approached some OF
the renowned commanders OF history.
x \ =
very entertaining and instructive bit
of literary history has Just been given to