The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-21
LITERARY NOTES.

The estate of Mrs. Margaret Oliphant.
the author, who died on June %, is under
$4,000. 1t was left to her adopted daugh-
ter.
Maurice Thompson has three books near
ly ready for the printers: Stories of Indi-
ana" a novel, and collection of out-of-
door papers.
Students of Michael Angelo will be inter
ested in the news that eight hundred let
ters written to the great artist, and never
printed, will soon be published.
The movement in favor of the memorial
to Felicia Hemans at Liverpool is making
considerable progress, and a substantial
sum has already been subscribed in its sup
port.
English admirers of Thackeray are now
to be treated to cheap editions of Henry
Esmond." The copyright has just expired.
In this country we have not had to wait so
long, thanks to pirates.
Bret Hartes new novel, 1.-THE Partners"
is his thirty-third volume. which bears wit
ness to an active and industrious literary
l1re IL there were half as many, however,
his reputation would be safer.
The late Francis Turner Palgrave, editor
of the Golden Treasury" was student
of music, playing on the violin with some
skill. He was, in fact, a cultivated anna
teur in everything, and one of the few men
who have won fame by good taste rather
than by positive achievement.
from Paris informs us that the Comtesse
De Marte nee -Riquetti, has been
able with the proceeds of her pen to pur-
chase the ancestral mansion of her family
"Gyp," as she is known by her nom de
plume, is great-grandniece of the famous
revolutionary orator, Mirabeau. She seems
to have inherited some of Mirabeaus irony
and malice, which is shown in her novels,
In which she holds up the mirror to aristo-
cratic frivolity.
Dr Nanaap Soaros &c not 10 ho tba
only famous bearer of that name. The Re-
vue DIES Deux Mondes reports the discov-
cry in Germany, Russia and Holland of a
Norwegian novelist, who is expected soon
to extend his conquests to the French and
Anglo-Saxon worlds German critic,
of our day has produced work in which
there is such unity in that of Peter
Nansen,, or which renders SO profoundly
the evolution of a SOUL" This claim, the
Critic thinks, must enrage every Ibsenite.
Advancing years have not pruned Swim
burne's extravaganza, says the New York
Times, and apparently he still clings to the
belief that 1t is the special privilege Ct lib
erty to insult his neighbours most sacred
convictions. This is what makes it pleasant
for him to say, in the current Nineteenth
Century, that allegory is "a singular branch
of medieval literature which finds its con-
summate utterance in the Pilgrims Prog
ress the work of a half-inspired, but
wholly demented and demoraliZed Christie
maniac"
The French academy is to welcome a
new immortal in Andre Theuriet. This lat
est literary star to be included in the galaxy
of the famous Forty has been styled as
zone of the sgentest spirits that survived
the bankruptcy of Romanticism." Theuriet
excels as a novelist in descriptions of cOun-
try hooks and corners, "of polite rustcity
that knows nothing of the delving laborers
of Zola's La Terre CThe Soil.)' This
graceful romancer has written eight or nine
pleasant novels, the most important of
which are, perhaps, Aunt Aurelia," THE
Deadly Sin" and Love in Autufnn.'
1t is reported from many sources that the
three most popular books in all parts of the
country just now are Quo vads," The
Christian" and 1.-The Choir Invisible" 1t
would be hard, says the Springfield Repub-
lican, to find three books concerning which
opinions differ radically. Is Quo
VadiS' a great historical novel or par
ticularly long and duh sham antique? Is
1.-The Christian a great problem novel or
a piece of crude, ignorant and sensational
claptrap? Is THE Choir Invisible"
great romantic novel, equal to Hawthorne
at his best, an ill-constructed, diffuse
and illogical mess of sentimentality? There
is the brief for both sides, and readers
can choose or take the middle of the road.