The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-07-09

MI OuSlII @hICoI II mas 'id q ~
rious story Of the experience of the dis
Gnguished Mr.. kinglake in the British
house Of Commons. He wrote proba-
bly, the most artistic and elegant book
of travels in all literature, "Eothen."
His work on the Crimian War is very
elaborate and full Of splendid pages and
interest. He was no speaker although
a magnificent rhetorician. The house
viii not listen 20 a dull speaker. Mr..
kinglaKe spoke and all he said fell fiat
and no one listened. The great leader,
Sir Robert Peel, shared with the man
of letters in his views and had greatly
admired the remarkably eloquent and
brilliant rcrOration." He determined
the house should hear it. He was a
capital orator ard he asked Kinglake
If he might repeat his closing in a
speech of his own. Mccarthy gives the
result
THE author cf 'Itoth=n' INDUCED in
no halluciaation with regard TO his eff
fectiveHess as a parliamentary orator.
and he most willingly and g0Od-huInOr-
dIy granted the request. Sir Robert
Peel spoke in the following night Of the
debate. ard he wound up with Mr..
Kinglake's pcTOratiCn. Eut if that
~peroratiOn could have had life and
sense and hearing. what a difference it
would have found in the manner OF its
reception, Sir Robert Peel, as we all
remember. had q commanding pres
ence, a splendid d~ecIafnatory power,
and Il magnificent voice. capable of all
variety Of inton2tion and expression.
He brought the house down, if we may
use that phrase, with the sentences
which, delivered by their real author
the night before, had fallen dead upon
the audience"
That shows the great Importance of a
Zine delivery-of surprising e%Iocution.
Said the late eloquent Colonel D. X.
NcRae in our hearing the morning af-
Ter Edward Everett's grafton on Wash
ington 1t Raleigh in 1859: Il heard
no ~eloquence last night save Mr.. Bad
gers introduction. If Harry Clay could
have delivered Eyerett's address he
would have shaken the capitol to it's
foundations."
James Boswell, a ,,cOtchman, wrote
the best of all biographies-his Life
of DR.. Johnson" At last he too has
a biography, and a very interesting one
at that, as we see it reported. It is by
W. Keith Leask, and is one of the
Famous Scots Series" 1t is time that
the prince of all biOgraphers was writ
ten of sympathetically and appreciate
lively. All will recall Macaulay's ia
maus essay on Boswell and his immor-
tai work. Boswell had great gifts for
such work or else he would never haEe
produced such an unique and unequal
led biography.
Dickens is not dying out, and by a
long way off. The new editions of his
work, the popularity of them as the
circulating and other libraries show,
and the biographies Of him indicate
that the world is by no means tired of
or neglectful of the great novelist. His
daughter has just published her recol-
Iections of him, and books on him are
multiplying. Not long ago a new one
4yas announced, by A. G. Armstrong &
Son, entitled The Novels of Charles
Dickens a photography n sketch,
by J.. G.. KittOn, author Of "Dicker-
siana'; Charles Dickens, by Pen and
Pencil" etc, with an unpublished por-
trait.
There is a new Kentucky story writer
who is praised by The New York Crit
&c 1t is John Fox, a K~entuckian, and
who was graduated at Harvard uni
Sersity. He is a lawyer, has been a
journalist in New York, and is in poor
r--, Il I-- ~,,IJ;.HoI n rnyol COLL
ed Hell for Sartain and Other Stories"
He has also a novel just begun in Har-
per for July.
The long talked of biography of Lord
Tennyson by his only living son is
nearly completed and will be published
in the fall.
Stephen Crane has scored a success
in England in his The Third Violet"
He was greatly praised-perhaps much
over-praised for his Red Badge of
Courage Such leading opponents of
literature as London Academy and
Londo Athenaeum praise The Third
Violet" no little, deserved or otherwise.
The former says:
BY this latest product of his genius
our impression of Mr.. Crane is con-
firned, that for psychological insight.
Cor dramatic intensity, and for the po-
fency of phrase, he is already in the
front rank of English and American
writers of fiction; and that he possesses
a certain separate quality which places
him apart"
The Athenaeum is quite as strong in
ats praise. 1t says:
but he is intensely American, which
can hardly be said of Mr.. Henry James,
and it is possible that if he continues
Ln his present line of writing he may
be the author who will introduce the
United states to the ordinary English
world, = The Third Violet Incl
Ientally contains the best dog that we
have come across in modern fiction.
Mr.. Cranes dialogue is excellent, and
ii Is dialogue of n type for which
neither The. Red Badge of Courage
nor his later books had prepared us"