The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-03

employment OF a term which has become
oldfnshioned. unliterary, and therefore bad
form. All writer's are now authors what
ever the sex to which they may happen to
belong
Jules Verne is enjoying robust health al
the age of seventy in his quiet home at
Amiens, where he lives on herbs and eggs,
a meager diet, to which he attributes his
vitality He has written book for every
year of his life, with six volumes to spare
and is still at work. His literary talent is
not remarkable, but he must be given a
place among the inventors who have made
the century what it is. Just now scientists
are claiming for him the invention of the I'M
candescent lamp, as well as the submarine
boat.
Professor Brander Matthews has com
pleted novel of New York life which the
Harpers will publish serially in the Bazaar
beginning in January next. The title is "A
Confident Tomorrow and was suggested
by a phrase of Col. Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, who once described himself "a
"a man of cheerful yesterdays and confident
to-morrows." Colonel Higginson used the
first part of this phrase as a title for one OF
his own books, and presented the ether half
to Professor Matthews, who has now made
use of it,
James Payn, who died in England last
week, was hardly more than an agreeable
writer, says an Eastern critic His novels
a little quiet humor, an unaffected style.
Apparently he found the world pleasant
place, and described what he saw about as
he saw It, without laborious exactness, and
also without insight: AS editor of the
COrnhill Magazine, Mr.. Payn welcomed
those essays by which, in the years which
came just before the publication OF Treas
ure Island. Stevenson has recorded that he
failed to earn 92O0 year.
"Quo Vadis" several times refers to a
xxrrit4 NV 0ofr md col
of curiosity has been expressed of late by
readers of Sienkiewicz as to this book,
which has hitherto remained practically I'M
translated into English, although an imper-
feet version Of it was made by Kelly in 1854.
This has long since been out Of print, The
novel itself, of which the whole has not
been preserved, is the only surviving speci-
men of the realistic novel in antiquity, and
it is an extremely curious piece of work In
that 1T gives US what no other ancient book
contains, minute and faithful picture of
the life Of the lower classes at Rome and
in the smaller towns of ancient Italy. Prof.
Harry Thornton Peck is now making a
translation OF the work, and 1t VIII be
brought out at an early date.
The editor Of Harper's Magazine, writ
ing from London, says: Turn about is
fair play. If the English admire Whitman
the Americans apparently admire the
author of that tiresome book, Quo Vadis.'
If we can trust advertisements, Quo Vadis'
has sold in the United States better than
any other book of the year. AN American
friend sent it to me and 1 tried to read it.
/ found it dull, commonplace and machine
made 1t differed only in q degree from
half dozen novels purporting to reproduce
life in Rome centuries ago, from that for
gotten book, The Roman Gladiator to
Bulwer's cotton velvet romance, 'Rienzi.'
There was not a live person between it's
covers, and not an incident, from the first
to the last page that could be called new.
And yet this tedious book, translated into
dialect so obtrusively of the nineteenth
century that reliable Roman patricians
are made to fog their slaves right away
is apparently more popular in America than
st. Ives Captains Courageous and In
Kedars Tents To me the cause of this
popularity is wrop in mystery l can un-
derstand why the ingenious stories of Marie
Coreli are popular n country like Eng
land, where thanks to the board schools,
hundreds of thousands of poor children
have been taught to read and then reck-
lessly permitted to roam in libraries where
Miss Corellrs novels abound; but why any
persons in any grade of life should ever
desire to read beyond the first chapter of
Quo Vadis' is inexplicable.'