The Brunswick times. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 188?-1900, 1897-05-23
LITERARY NOTES.
Sherlock Holmes Fifty Years Ago-Authors
and Their Methods of Work.
OLIVE HARPER.
Especial CORRESPONDENCE

Sherlock Holmes Fifty Years Ago-ACtnors
and Their Methods of Work.
Especial Correspondence
BOSTON, May 1S.-It has remained
for one of the bluestockings Of the
modern Athens to spring the literary
sensation of the decade upon an unsus-
pecting public. Those remarkable de-
tective stories, THE Adventures of Sher-
lock Holmes, " which made the name
and fame of A. Conan Doyle, have ne-
come familiar to book lovers through
out the world No one has appeared as
yet upon the literary horizon to lay
charge of plagiarism at the door of Mr.
Doyle, but the Boston bluestocking de-
clares that Sherlock Holmes is not an
original creation. In that famous old
magazine, Chambers Edinburgh Jour
nal, for lS49, will be found a series of
detective stories. 1.-The RecoIlections of
Police Officer" by X. Y. T., that
breathe the very spirit of our latter day
Sherlock Holmes, or rather we should
say the Holmes stories breathe the spirit
of 1849
A private letter from England in
forms us that the dwelling known as
Rock House, where Mr.. and Mrs. Rud-
yard Kipling are living, at Torquay, is
ideally reposeful and secluded 1t was
the residence of Sir Thomas Colt until
his death a few years ago and is sit
uated between Torquay and Turnmouth
though nearer the former town. 1t is
off the main road and approached by a
quiet lane leading toward the sea- From
the house are obtained charming views
of sea and coast. Here the novelist will
not be troubled with the unwelcome at
tentions of excursioniSs
The poet Clinton Scotland, who is liv-
ing at Clinton, Hamilton county, N.
Y, is writing the concluding chapters
of his second historical novel. His first
long essay i'll fiction is being published
in The Chautauquan as serial.
Boston literary critics pronounce
Theodore H. Hittell's History of Cali
fornia,'' recently issued, marvellous
piece of workmanship. AS the author of
the only real philosophical history of
California, Theodore H. Eiittell occupies
an important place among writers. His
life ami early training throw much
light on the work that is sure to give
him permanent cputation. He comes Of
good Pennsylvania stock and was born
i'll 1880. The family moved west to
Ohio, and young Hittell after course
in several western schools and colleges,
entered Yale and was graduated i'll 1S49
In boyhood and youth his favorite au-
thors were Carlyle and Goethe. He was
devOurer of books, and when he began
the study of the law he carried into it
the same wide reading that had marked
his college studies. He removed to Cali
fornia i'll 1855 and has been since iden-
titled with journalism and the law.
The veteran poet, Richard Henry
Stoddard, believes that much of his best
work is accomplished in the secIusion of
his library at home after the hour of
midnight. my poems, said Mr.. Stod-
dard lately, ''are all composed i'll my
mind before l place them i'll writing. l
may work out particular subject in
my mind sometimes for weeks and
months before I attempt to transfer it
into verse on paper.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, while the
editor of The Atlantic Monthly, was the
first to notice Bliss Carman's poems,
and he began to print them in that
magazine. Since that time Mr.. Carman
has rapidly won distinction and COM
manded recognition from the most Sc
we're critics here and in England, yet he
seems curiously Indifferent to popular
lty, and persistently refuses all induce
ments to allow his work to be published
Ill book form. In person Mr.. Carman is
tall and of athletic build. He is about
30 years old and most interchangeable
worker. His manners are reserved and
gentle almost to timidity. He is Ca
madam by birth and education, coming
from one of the old loyalist families
that settled the provinces at the time of
the Revolution. While at school and
college he was passionately fond of Ca
noelng, snowshoeing and an outdoor
wandering life, much of his time both
IN winter and summer being spent on
the rivers and i'll the woods. He gained
the repute OF being as expert a canoeist
as an Indian, and today he is prouder of
his skill in that art than his literary
success. After graduating from the
University of New Brunswick Mr.. Car
man spent several years in further study
at London, Edinburgh and Harvard de-
voting himself especially to English and
philosophy, but going back every vaca-
ton to the wild, rowing life OF a half
woodsman, half dreamer, on his own
family streams The beautiful Evange-
line country i'll Nova Scotia is one of his
favorite stamping grounds, and he has
written much of the wide marshes and
the enormous tides of that peaceful re-
glon. ANDREW WILLARD.