The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-09-04
LITERARY NOTES.

BENJAMIN Kidd, author of Social Evolu-
ton" and Alfred Austin. poet laureate of
England, are due to arrive in this country
soon.
William S. Walker nephew of Rolf Boil
drewood. the well-known Australian story
writer, has written a volume of bush
stories which will be published under the
| title When the Mopoke Calls"
Rudyard Kipling has joined the war which
| is waging in England between author and
publisher. On the subject of a draft of an
| agreement which was proposed by the pub
fishers he wrote as follows to the editor of
the Author; Il have seen the draft con-
the whole society has ever done to or said
about the publisher will condemn him half
SO thoroughly as his own notions of fair
ness set forth for him by his own lawyer
in his own way Can any one say more
than that?"
Bret Harte's story, "Tennessee's Partner -
is said to have been suggested to the au-
thor by the touching and beautiful friend
ship which binds together two cd men who
have lived more than forty years in the
mountains on the route into the Yosemite.
They have little gold mine, which yields
an occasional $50, an orchard and a garden.
One of the two has not seen San Francisco
since 1850. With all their hermitage, how
ever, the two old gentlemen read a great
deal and know what is going on in the out
side world
Mr.. w. l.. Alden, whom Mark Twain once
| described as the wittiest man in America, is
now busily engaged on his first long novel
rather daring experiment for a man who
has spent most of his life in writing short
stories. the London Mail thinks. 1t is not
generally known that Mr.. Alden began his
carer at the American bar. He is alleged TO
have said that if the heat wave continues
he will probably end it there. Mr. Alden,
who is surprisingly youthful and active is
CXcllSt golfer r. q m a Y
ness for cats and claims that the converse
tlon OF the average cat is as interesting as
that or the average woman.
In the days when Jane Eyre was widely
read men were apt to be cynical concerning
the character of Rochester, its hero. where
as women worshipped and built up their
own ideals on that model. 1t is interesting
to know that the character had an original
lat least Mr.. Wemyss Reid says that this
was the case. He was the brother of Char
lotte Brontes friend, Ellen NusSey, and
was West Riding merchant who had ali
the unpublished force and logged egotism
which sometimes marked the Yorkshire
magnate in those days. Charlotte Mr..
and planted him in the midst of circum-
stances of which his own life knew moth
ing.
The eccentricities of spoken and written
languages are illustrated by an anecdote
lately related by Prof. Max Mueller. while
/ was sitting" he says, lin my room at
oxford copying Sanscrit MSS, a gentleman
was shown in, dressed in long black coat,
looking different from my usual visitors,
and addressed me in a language of which /
did not understand single word. 1 spoke
to him in English, and asked him what Ian
guage he was speaking, and he replied with
great surprise, Do you not understand San
scrit?' No, ! said. I have never heard it
spoken, but here are some MSS. of the
Veda which will interest YOU He was de-
lighted to see them, and began to read, but
he had soon to confess that he was not able
to translate a single word.
In an interview with Mrs. Ida Hustled
Harper in the Rochester Post Express on
the subject of the biography of Susan B.
Anthony, which she has been writing, she
says that when she comprehended the mag
nituoe of the task before her she was APP
palled. Miss Anthony has kept every letter
she has received for fifty years, and there
were bundles and bales of them to be ex-
amined. Some of them were faded and had
to be read with microscope, and by actual
count 1 have read twenty thousand" She
adds that after the biography is off the
press the letters and material from which
! they were prepared are to be destroyed as
many of the letters are of personal nature
and the number of them makes it care
to preserve them. Thus another authentic
history will be an impossibility.'