The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-05-31
LITERARY NOTES.

LITERARY NOTES.
fraa San Francisco Argonaut handles
Mr.. Julian Hawthorne rather roughly,
blu with entire justice, saying: This
is .saeed the age of mediocrlty. III
Jul IA Hawthorne's a Fool by Nature,
for !, hich the New York Herald has
JUS given a ten-thousand-dollar prize,
is the best story chat was sent in. 1t
Us a fearful thought to consider what
the est must be like. In spite of the
praetised hand it shows throughout,
the story is a poor effort which will
speedily pass into oblivion after its
brief eminence as a prize-story is over.
The plot, the novel certainly, is queer
tumble of impossibilities, the charac-
tiers are in the main unattractive even
when the author intends otherwise, the
lhurnor is frequently a species of horse
play. and the style when it essays 10
be brilliant has pinchbeck glitter.
Literature furnishes many instances
of the one-poem man, and Julian Haw-
thorne seems to be a good example of
"a one-bool1 man. His one powerful
work. Archibald Malmaison, strik
ing and profoundly interesting story,
stands alone. The rest of his books,
including "A Fool by Nature are of the
ephemeral sort, and can hold no last
ing place in fiction. The catalog of
his writings includes more than a
score of novels, some two hundred
shorter tales, many poems and maya
zine articles, and drama which Mime.
Modjeska purchased, but has not yet
produced
1T is said that novelty in books is
to be issued under the title of the
Invalid's Library says THE Loung-
er," in The Critic. Each volume is
90 be printed on long strip of paper
covered muslin, so that patient can
comfortably unroll it and read in bed,
thus dispensing with the attendant
fatigue of holding a heavy book. Why
go 30 all this trouble and expense?
Why not buy from the publisher a
copy of a book before it is stitched
for binding? In this way a handful of
pages can be taken up at a time, and
they are so light that it would be no
effort for the weakest invalid to hold
them. Another advantage of these
anStitched sheets is that all the family
can read the book at the same time.
Let one get the start, and the others
can follow on, / gave some OF these
Bnstitchedspagesst TO friend once, and
she. was delightaas with the arrange
Gaeat. The pages open out readily, and
have little or no weight; and then she
said: 1T is so amusing for all of us
to be reading the same book at the
same time The suggested fnvaIid's liz
brary would be expensive, and / do
not think that it would be as practical
as the plan l propose"
Algernon Charles Swinborne dedi-
Gates his STORY of Bolen'' to his moth
er in verse:
Love that holds life and death in fee,
Deep as the clear unsounded sea
And sweet as life or death can be,
Lays here my hope, my heart, and me,
Before you, silent, in song.
Since the old wild tale, made new,
found grace,
When half sung through, before your
face,
II needs must live springtide space,
While April suns grow strong.
Robert Louis Stevenson dedicated
his weir of Hermiston" to his wife,
also in verse:
saw rain falling and the rainbow
drawn
On Lammermuir. Hearkening / heard
again
In my precipitous city beaten bells
Winnow the keen sea wind. And here
affair,
intent on my own race and place,
wrote.
Take thou the writing: thine it is.
For who
Furnished the sword, blew on the
drowsy coal
Held still the target higher, chary of
praise
And prodigal of counsel who but
thou?
So now, in the end, if this the last be
good,
If any deed be done, if any fire
Burn in the imperfect page, the praise
be thine.
In the recently rr'. Life and