The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-17
LITERARY NOTES.

Capt A. T. Mahan is hard at work every
morning in the British Admiralty Office,
London, looking up data for his forthcom-
ing history of the war of 1872.
Prof Adolphe Cohn, formerly of Har-
ward and now of Columbia University, has
written in French history of the United
States, which is to be published in Paris
within few months.
Mr. Donald G. Mitchell is now in his sew
enty-sixth year. The best-known part of
his work was done before he went to New
Haven in 1855. The sales OF Dream Life"
and 'Reveries of a Bachelor" are, still large.
Alphonse Daudet had a memory even
more remarkable than his power of OBJ
servation. Once it is said, he met in after
life a schoolfeiloW whom he had not seen in
thirty years. Have you STILL" he asked,
that little red mark on your thumbnail.
Miss Varina Anne Jefferson Davis has
written a new novel called "a Romance of
Summer Seas" The scene is said to be laid
in Japan. Miss Davis has been working on
this story ever since her first novel, The
Yelled Doctor" was published about two
years ago.
Nansen having made a comfortable for
tune out of his book "Farthest North"
Johansen, his comrade of the sledge jour-
ney. is reaching for a share of the plums.
1t is rumored that he has received 5000 for
the English rights of his coming Arctic
volume and the German, Norwegian and
French editions will, no doubt, be profit
able also.
Mr.. Marcus Stone, once walking with
Dickens near Gadshill noticed a grocers
cart with the name Weller" on it, and
was told that these tradesfolk had actually
suggested the name. In fact, there can be
seen outside Chatham Church the Weller
tomb with the names of the family in
scribed.
The Christiania Oerebladet states that it
has authority for announcing that Ibsens
next book will be a philosophical work
dealing with his plays and his own life.
The portion referring to his plays Will show
their mutual connection and that they were
all written according to settled plan. The
second portion will contain his auto
biography.
writer, in Literature, discussing of
Dickens's greatest work, says: "A strik-
ing social change that has occurred since
'Piclxwicx' is that the world has put back.
as it were, the clock in the matter of age.
Mr. Pickwick, Mr.. Tupnan and Mr.. War
die are all spoken r OF as ola gebh a men
old Wardle's' mother was alive; the
spinster aunt was fifty If she was an hour.
Nowadays a well-preserved man OF sixty is
merely elderly.
Henry James has this to say in his first
letter on American literature-a letter writ
ten in London by the way: Both as read
ers and as writer's on the other side Of the
Atlantic women have in fine, arrived in
numbers lot equaled ever IN England, and
they have succeeded in giving the pitch and
marking the limits more completely than
elsewhere The public taste as our fathers
used TO say has become so largely their
taste their tone. their experiment. that
nothing is at large more apparent than that
the public cares little for anything that
they cannot do. And what, after all. may
the very finest opportunity OF American
literature be but just to show that they
can do what the peoples will have ended
by regarding as everything? The settiemenS
of such a question, the ups and downs Of
such 4 process surely more than justify that
sense Of sport, IN this direction. that
have spoken of as the privilege OF the
vigilant critic.
W. L. Alden, writing from London TO the
New York Times, says the number of nov
els annually published in that city is amaz-
ing. and adds that nine-tenths of them are
such utter rubbish that 1t seems wonderful
that reputable publishers could be found TOT
them ''Of course" he goes on TO say, %
large proportion of the novels written Dy
schoolgirls, silly women and silier men are
published at the authors expense, or, az
least. the author pays the greater part OF
the cost of production under the liiusory