The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-08-07
TuF LITERARY OUTLOOK.
-. ALE TOO POPULAR STORY OF
MARK TWAIN'S.

ualimiou of work and His
30, of Living It-A New Poet-Na-
riou, Notes.
,-.. YORK. Aug. 6.-Mark Twain, in his
81. .-ttled "Roughing It." records the
- he suffered from encountering at
..rr q familiar story of Hank Monk
.- Horace Greeley across the noun
t. "a stage TO keep a lecture engage
To give the greater reality to the
-..,,, he has one character after an
.,...r sppear in his narrative and actual
,.u the story always precisely In the
words so that the reader also, be-
h. has done, has encountered it a
-..r of times. I have had parallel
-s,ti. e,Derience; and, oddly enough, In
lection with Mark Twain.
,,,ers is p picturesque village of log and
lab cottages set up in the woods on the
49,. of one of the Catskill mountains,
.-t.5 Onteora. 1t Is one of the summer
--....,oerts where everybody doesn't 60
-, &, mqintains something of literary
~ ,r.is,ie tone. At one time Mark
1,..,f, made a sojourn there. and 1t is on
- Standing ia that familiar picture that
show, him in a white suit, IN company
,+ Mr. Brander Matthews and Mr.
Tll,,-rsroa Hutton. And while inhabting
!, he .bqnced to say of this inn, with
l1arl.lv less truth than humor, that the
,,,r,i+ions were so thin that you could
- Inc woman in the next room change
her mind. III. 4. O,,4oo,,
j
one Who had been there. 80, you will find
mat" said he, "a charming place. VIII
van 'stop al the inn? There is a very good
st5ry M connection with that inn. Mark
1r..iin v,aen-and he told the story of the
5av or Two later I met another ac-
o,afn.3uce who had knowledge of On
teor9 add he too, introduced the inn and
recired the Mark Twain story. Then.
shortly. I met yet another, and after him
another and another, until finally | had
hoard the story not less than six times.
Then set out myself for Onteora. On
the was ] met in the cars two persons
porh9ps three-who said, 80, going to on
teora, Yes. yes l know that place. 1t
was there that Mark Twain said" and
then oIlowed the story. Arrived at on
teora Itself, I got the story from abso-
mtelv every person l met. few We're
shrowd enough only to allude to it. as
tbirg T mieht possibly have heard, out
most told it carefully in full and not one,
so far as recall, omitted entirely to men
ton it,
on my last day there, as I sat on the
veranda of the inn, two young men came
and sat down near me. One of them l
had seen about the place throughout my
stay; the other l OWNED as a newcomer.
In a moment ] heard the former say:
perhaps you have heard what Mark
Twain said about this imp There was a
Questioning infection in the tone of the
sentence. undoubtedly but it was so faint,
so clearly not meant, that no kind person
would have had the heart to take advan-
tage of it: ana the other man said mo"
Al once the story was told him, and his
face during the recital was delightful to
see I knew from it as wen as if he had
said so in words, that already that poor
fellow had heard that story more times
than he could count.
The resident of Onteora whose presence
does most to maintain its literary reputa-
ton is Mrs Mary Mapes Dodge. She has
a very pretty cottage there, and while she
lives in way retredly, she is still well
identified with the social life of the viii
lage Though the chief editor of St. Mich
olas since its foundation In 1873. Mrs.
Dodge has never been close shut in an
Office. Her work has been done for the
most part at home and she goes to her
office only often enough to see that her
work necessarily done there is done right.
In addition to being a busy editor, Mrs.
Dodge has been also a vOluminous writer.
She began to write after the death of her
husband, William Dodge, a lawyer of
growing reputation, at the time of hiss
death. more than thirty years ago. Hans
Brinker or the Silver Skates" the book
by which she is best known. was first
published in 1865. 1t did not find a pub
Usher without some soliciting, and it was
hrst brought out by rather an obscure
house. which, after a few years, failed.
bUt 1t has been a rare good book for the
publisher it must have sold by now not
less than coco copies in this country alone
ana ii has been translated into French,
German, Italian, Dutch and Russian.
AR Shan F. Bullock. whose stories Of
IRISH life begin to be known and reished
IN this country, is native to the land and
people OF which he writes, having been
born M Ireland in 1865. His first book
was published five years ago His second
Door BY Thrasna River" published In
lsF'' was the one, however, that first
uIr" general attention to his special
Messrs Dodd & Mead have in hand.
understand, for early publication a book
III poems by Mr. Theodore Dresser. Mr..
HIe'ser Is young man of German par
el'se. born in Terre Haute, Ind. For
SUN, years he has been maintaining him
s7i 'y his pen here in New York and he
- ~, own as man who does literary task
"o.A with an intelligence and imagi-
t'.'"u mat are apt to be lamentably abb
'' from most such work. He has the
~ l-e temperament certainly in good de-
have been permitted 10 read
III" 'I OF his poems, and none of/them
L" suggest rarely sensitive and re-
t.'2 mind back of it. They are apt, too.
,"e present life and time; they don't
with the Greek mythology, and the
.Ns lhey record are not for Cleopatra
Of S other purely conventional mistress
'-s heart. 1t is probably by their re-
e, 5sp'cally that they have won the
g'tu9n of Mr. Howells-for | am
MAJ he has read them and expressed
liking for them Mr.. Dreiser's
H., ~ temperament proves itself not
crr...,. ms way Of life; allowing for the
th. '.ee inseperab.e from earning even
oo.. s modest living, he adheres to his