The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-02-23


very engaging book, If one does not
gorge himself with it, is Stuart Henry's
Hours with Famous Parisians,' col
lection of impressionistic sketches of
Mines Adam, Bernhardt, Guilbert, and
NM. Sardon, Iola, Daudet, Coppee Noun
ct Sully, Massenet and other celebrities Of
contemporary France. The author, it ap-
pears, lived long enough in Paris not only
to get personal interviews with most of
the celebrated personagcs in its. artistic
world but also to absorb that volatile,
chervcscing style which seems to be char
acterstic of French journalism. He poses
his subjects before US with a tonguey
smartness and an entire absence of any
thing akin to reverence or even Difference
which prove readable in the extreme if
one does not follow it too far at one sit
ting, but which, like terrapin and alb
sinthe have to be judciously held in
check. The temptation to quote must be
resisted beyond this scrap from his pic
ture of the Gullbert, which, brief as 1t is,
shows well his super-Gallic manner:
Fancy NJ. Zoa, a woman, his hair dyed
a fierce, ferruginous blonde, his short
seeved arms rammed into long black
gloves, and his tuneess organ of speech
intoning rhymed epitomes of his novels
that's Yvette! Still we ask, how does it
happen that a woman who is not pretty,
who wears plain garb, who has no voice,
movements of legs, and who simply
stands on little stage for twenty min
utes each evening and recites four or five
songs-how does it happen that she earns
a 900 francs a month, even in Paris?' We
repeat these two dozen chapters of per-
sonal tattle are sure to entertain and even
to instruct if read any way but consecu-
lively, and moreover the book that holds
them is in point of mechanical construc-
q MI n
Way & Williams, black cloth, u mo, PIP.
22O, $l.25.
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In "Whcn Hearts Are True Fannie T..
Ostrander tells the story of young wo-
man who thinks her parents We're crazy
and therefore decides not to marry the
| man she loves. OF course she does marry
him, but not until Providence, aided by
| yellow fever, rids him of a previously ac-
uuired wife and she herself is revealed
| as not the daughter she thought she was
| but instead an heress to the vast estate
of which her wdower lover is sole admin
| istrator, and blood free from the taint OF
| hereditary madness Before this happy
| sequel is reached, the two lovers &C
through rather more than the usual rou'
| tines of woes, calculate ION, God"' a.
| intervals of eight or ten pages, and dc
| and say other things strongly suggestive
| of lO-cent melodrama. But as it is al
thrown in for so cents, along with severa
pictures, we don't see why anybody should
complain. [Chicago: Laird & Lee.
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To their handy Library of Useful In
formation the Appletons have added ''Th'
! Story of Extinct Civilizations" by Rober
| +. Anderson, NJ. A, who transcribes II
| untechnical language the message of th'
| hieroglyphs and puts before us practically
| all that is known of the early Chaldeans
| Babylonans, Egyptians, Hittites, Phoeni
clans, Hebrews, Arabs and Persians. Map
and pictures are given as needed, and a
the end is convenient index. The bool
fairly brings the life time researches o
many patient archaeoloSists into focu
which can be comprehended by the mos
| casual student.