The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-16

Ling Tales there S an account of a
| young woman whose head was acct
! dentally cut off, and when by good
| will and hard work of a company of
fairies IL had been put on again. it was
! found that, by the malicious act of a
! dwarf, who twisted a rope at the mo-
ment of union, it had been attached
wrong side foremost her face toward
the back. This unfortunate condition
| of the pretty maid caused great con-
! Sternation and dismay, and a prince
who happened to be near by pitied her
extremely. So much SO. indeed, that
! out of pure compassion he stepped up
to her and kissed her. As she had never
| before been kissed by a man, this
! turned her head The bright boy re-
ferred to was particularly pleased with
this He saw the pcfnt clearly and dis
tinctly. L like that, he said; it is just
true. For a prince to kiss her. before
everybody, would turn any girls
/ head"
S. R. Crockett seems to have made a
complete recovery of his popularity in
his late novel, THE Black Douglas"
1t had wide reading in American
newspapers before it appeared in book
form, and yet Of the book, which has
been out not more than three or four
weeks, $4,000 copies have already been
sold. How the book is selling in Eng
land L have not yet heard, but as it
appeared serially the story was re-
ceived with great favor there. After
the immense success of his earlier
BOOKS, The Sticket Minister" The
Raiders and The Lilac Sunbonnet."
crockett suffered q clear decline in
popular liking. And this turn was not
due wholly, or perhaps mainly, to the
quality or character of his work Such
epbs, indeed, attend most writers after
the flood Of their first success; the pub
lie seems to become exhausted by its
own enthusiasm. But, at the same
time, it must be said that Mr. Crock
etts work did not hold up to its early |
excellence. There came a period of Two !
ana three, and even four books a year
and there is an easy limit to the speed |
at Which you can run the mill without |
impairing the grist. Mr.. Crockett seems !
to have had a. sense Of this himself for |
1 remember that in expressing his own |
faith in THE Black Douglas" just |
after he finished it, he said in a letter |
to friend, 1T is the story which l |
have been thinking of and arranging |
in my mind for the past ten years. The |
fall of the great house of Douglas con-
stituted the one romance of my boy |
hood" When your story grows up in |
anything of a story writer, it cannot
help being good.
1t is hard to believe that it is only
six years since Mr. Crockett made his !
first appearance, his name is now so
familiar and his books so many. Yet !
this is the fact q leave an early vol
ume of poems out of consideration: for
almost nobody has seen it, and almost
nobody ever Wild. If it had not been
for an unusual fullness when he began,
he certainly could not have produced
in this time the sixteen works he has
But he was 81 or 80 when he wrote THE
Sticket Minister" and he had been all
his life hard reader and a close and
fond observer.
Miss Lily Dougall, having seen her
new novel, THE Mormon Prophet"
through the press, has left her Mon
treal home and returned to England.
She has not claimed residence in Eng
land yet, and, so far as 1 know, has
no design of doing so: but she spends
a good deal of her times there. She is
of Montreal by birth, as well as by