The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-09-19

There will be a posthumous vol
ume by Germany's great soldier, Won
Moltke. 1t will give account Of v cam
p2igns.
The NY Evening Post says Of the
people at large: 1--WE do not read
books; only books about books"
Professor Goldwin Smith, the emf
nent and able English essayist, is to
publish am historic work he calls THE
United Kingdom"
George Egerton is, We believe, a Wo-
man. She has published a work named
@"The Wheel of God" 1t is poor stuff,
we suppose. The n. Y. Tribune says
lit "is morbid, anaemic and ~maukishly
sentimental" So are many OF latter
day novels and only fit to burn.
The ridiculed poet laureate of Eng
land, Mr.. Alfred Austin, lately made
am address before the st. Edmunds'
school, at Canterbury. 1t was excellent
in sentiment and expression, finely fe-
fictitious and full of practical reflection
and wisdom. 1t vas really clever.
Professor Trent, of Tennessee, mas
published another volume entitled The
Authority of Criticism and Other Es-
says He is prolific. This makes some
four volumes i'm about two years, we
believe. He is am interesting writer
and something of a thinker. We see
him criticised in an able editorial in
the n. Y. Evening Post for cr1ticislng
other critics instead of the writer IN
hand 1t says:
EVEN I'm Professor Trents recent
volume we see how his eye is as often
ON the critic as on the thing criticised.
His book takes title by preference from
the essay ON 1.-THE Authority OF Crltl-
cism," and all through n sees thea u-
thor's readiness at any 10 LET
go OF the subject i'm order to turn n
read SOME other critic who has written
ON it. He is NOT peculiar in this. Crit
icism is more and more coming TO De
q discussion of criticism"
One of the most successful of recent
books-selling fast-is Trooper 3,8O9,"
by a French private named Lionel
Decle. He was educated in England
and served in the French army HIS
hook is a revelation of cruelties n
corruptions pacticed. Out OF all this
vice and rascality have come the w
prosecutions of Dreyfus.
Mr.. William Sharp, am English writ
CIR. had am interesting paper in review
of that amous and highly gifted au-
thor, George Meredith, in N. Y. Satur-
day Review. 1t was an attempt to es-
A.--z.z III ,nu1ro o,J o,-caa THO 1ottar
strikes us as lamentably bad often, and
his prose lis marvellously involved and
awkward at times. But again he writes
with splendid results, and is subtle,
virile, mastery. We refer here not to
discuss his great gifts, but to quote an
opinion of Mr.. Sharp's as to then novels:
"When we come to the difficult ques-
tom as ito which is the best, or even
which are the best, of George Mere
otfith's novels, each must answer only for
himself. The present writer WOULD
have it that the three most mastery
books are "Rhoda Fleming" THE
Egoist," and "Beauchamp's Career"
and that those which at all times he
can read with even new delight, in a
word his favorites are 1.-THE Ordeal Of
Richard Feverel," 'The Egoist," "Di-
ana of the CrOssWays,' and,
personally rather than critically, The
Amazing Marriage" There can be lit
tie question, I fancy, that "The Egolst'
stands foremost in intellectual pow
ar. Tt lis the most ~searchingly brilliant
book in the language. 1t is equally
easy to understand why THE Ordeal
of Richard Feverel'' and Diana of the
Crossways'' are the most widely popu-
lar. In literary beauty, perhaps Wit
toria'' is the most sustained i'm excel
hence of picturesque and vivid STYLE