The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-05
LITERARY NOTES.

Shelley spent between one and two
years in writing "Queen Mab.'
Pope, when translating Homer, con-
| sidered from fifty to one hundred lines to
be a fair days work.
Nine. Sarah Grand is said to have re-
ceived over 900 on 10 per cent royalty
for the American rights in 1.-THE Heavenly
Twins"
Sixty-nine Christmases are a good many,
but the Youths Companion celebrated its
slxty-ninth last year, and is more vigor-
Gus than ever before.
Thackeray would produce, under pres
sure, novel in six or eight months. He
did not like to work, and, as be stated,
only did so under compulsion.
Mrs. Oliphant has written the volume on
Joan of Arc for The Heroes of the Ma
ton series. This leads the Tribune to ask
whether Joan is hero or heroine.
| There is but one collection of the por.
| traits OF Lincoln that pretends to be COM
| plete, and that is the collection made by
the publishers of McClure's Magazine.
The next volume in the "Rural Science
Series" will be an important monograph
on the spraying of Plants,' by E. G..
Lodeman, instructor in horticulture in
the Cornell University.
1t is said that Jules Simon's real name
is Suisse, and that when his first book was
written Victor Cousin advised him to
change it on account of the number of
Swiss acting in the capacity of concierge
in Paris.
Mrs Elizabeth Stuart Phelps has good
short story entitled ''Twenty-four: Four
in the January Harper's. 1t is a New
England tale of alternating humorous and
pathetic interest, in which the telephone
plays an important part.
Miss Marie CoreIli writes to the New
York Herald that she is a most modest
Il i IL
all requests Tor her portrait or to appear
before the public, though she might make
great deal OF money by reading from her
own works.
George Gissing, a novelist, now much
praised in England, is a young and very
accomplished man. He has travelled much
and speaks several languages. He lives at
EPSON and seldom visits London. He is
described as IAN extremely handsome
man, with auburn hair and mustache and
large intelligent eyes,
st. Nicholas recently offered prizes for
the best corrections of a misspelled poem.
More than 10000 answers were received
from all over the world-from Turkey,
Egypt and Europe; from little Countess
in Vienna and from the grandchildren of
Emerson and Hawthorne in America.
The committee reluctantly states that the
penmanship of the English and Canadian
children excels that Of Uncle Sans boys
and girls.
DR.. Edward Everett Hale is responsible
for this story: when Canon Farrar left
US some years ago-a most charming and
intelligent visitor-he told Phillips Brooks
that he was going to give farewell lecture
on his impressions of America. Brooks,
who was a thorough American and per-
son of excellent common-sense, said TO him
promptly: Don't do any such thing. In
the first place you have no Impressions
and in the second place they are all
wrong"
Some weeks ago Andrew Lang brought
down upon his head the wrath of Ameri-
cans by defending the action of an Eng
! lish publishing house in suppressing an
American imprint from book published
both here and in England. In his de-
Tense Mr.. Lang rang a change upon the
old-time query, and asked, patronizingly,
| Who cares for an American imprint?
! Lately, however, he is himself moved to
wrath by the flippant comment of the
| London Athen9um upon q volume of
Harvard Studies in Greek Philoloey."
! The Atheneum reviewer asks: "Who will
adventure himself to read an essay of
| eighty-four pages in Latin? Why not
| leave such things to the Germans?' Upon
which Mr.. Lang indignantly comments:
why not, indeed, bring us the Rag-Bag,
or Tid-Bits, and let our cousins, American
or Teutonic, do the scholars work of the
world? The classical studies of Harvard
are an example to US in Oxford and Cam
bridge, even if they are. necessarily, of no
| interest to literary rural spinsters and pill
lars of the circulating library" Coming
this generous outburst is compliment
ipdaad