The San Francisco call., 1898-01-02

Sdlu that MT. Barrle'S s DOCK should nave been called James M. Barrie as 0 son; how he carried shawls an0 made beds and secured plates in his own home, and went to London and wrote books about his friends and relatives. and the strange faces he made while writ ing them; what he thought of things in general, and himself in particular; with full details of his daily habits and do- mestic life, and occasional glimpses of his mother" If MT. Barrie could have suppressed the all too prominent ego in his work, one could have pardoned the questionable taste of issuing the book at all.
 The literary event of the year has been the publication of the Life of Tennyson" simultaneously in England and in this country. We have pre- viously taken occasion to point out the debt that is due to Haliam, the poets s son, for his uniform good taste and Judgment, for his correct sense of the fitness of things, and for his regard not only for effectiveness but for truth and justice. Hallam Tennyson appears to have completely recognized the aver sion which Tennyson had for anything that might savor of self f-advertisement or self-glorification, and has preferred to let the life of Tennyson be told from his letters and other written memoran- da. For this reason there is a certain disjointedness in the work and some obscurity in places. This, however, is excusable when one remembers that the facts of the book were compiled from more than forty thousand letters, a task requiring consummate tact.
 The value of the Memoir of Tenny- son" is enhanced by the fact that very little authoritative matter was pub- iished regarding the poet during his lifetime. His retiring habits made him no mark for the omnipresent inter- viewer, and it was perhaps this charac- teristic which gave rise to the idea that Tennyson was a dreaming sybarite. an epicurean, averting his eyes from all that was unpleasant, that failed to meet with his approval. It was fortunate that Lady Tennyson lived long enough to correct the proofs of the memoir which was sent to press but a few months after her death, and the book will pass to posterity as the true record or the life of man whose verse was the classical expression of the phiIosophic metaphysical and literary bias of his century.
 In bringing to a close this review of the more important works that have seen the light during the past twelve months, we are impelIed to a reitera- tion of the statement made in these columns some weeks ago that the giants of the pen are dead; that mod ern literature finds its prototype in the Kodak: that our writers are photog- raphers of little obscure scenes that few care for; that modern literature has no heart, that there is no mighty love in it. It would really appear as if literature had become feminine; that it is to-day written by women for women. As we have pointed out, apart from one or two notable works of fiction and the same number of impor- tant biographies, there has been noth- ing issued in book form this year that can really be classed under the head of literature that will live.
 And what we said at the beginning of last year touching the non-appear- ance of the really great American novel may be echoed at this writing We hold with Professor Harry Thurs ton Peck that the great American novel, for whose appearance every de- vout resident of these United States should pray thrice daily, will not be a novel constructed on hitherto unheard of outlines but one that is an active delineation of the life that is lived in this huge colossus of country. We appreciate the complicated difficulties that beset an author who tries to linn in a large way the life and attributes of the American people, but we do not yet despair of discovering the Ameri- can novelist who shall be truly great who shall deal with no small. isolated section of the country nor with tha petty acts of it's inhabitants, but one who will be entitled to that place in the affections of American people that Thackeray and Scott and Dickens and Stevenson occupy in the hearts of our trans Atlantic cousins.
 EMANUEL ELIAS.