The record-union., 1899-10-01

visit from his Japanese home to Eng
land he personally supervised the un,
loading of the vans which carried his
luggage. As case after case was re-
moved to his temporary domicile he
checked them from list with the care
of an experienced supercargo. Sud-
denly he espied a. box labeled Edwin
Arnold" Then his massive brow grew
dark. THAT is not my name" ne
shouted, and, seizing a marking pot and
brush, he wrote the prefix Sir before
the address in letters fully a foot high.
Victor Hugo's love letters are being
prepared for publication by Paul Meu
rice who says of them:
Il have never laid eyes upon nobler
human documents. They reveal, during
it's most interesting period, the inner
life of the most illustrious literary man
of the century.
Edmund Gosse has written paper on
"Stevenson's Relations with Children,
in Chambers Journal" In it he re-
lates a story of his youthful days as
narrated to himself by Stevenson. He
was still little fellow when in the
summer holidays, after reading num-
ber of detective novels of a bad kind,
he was passing one Sunday afternoon
along a road in an Edinburgh suburb.
There he say deserted house, fur
nished, but without caretaker. 1t
struck young Stevenson that it would
be fine thing to break into this house,
which he accordingly did, roaming from
room to room, looking at books and
pictures in great excitement, until he
thought he heard noise in the garden.
Terror seized upon him as he imagined
himself handcuffed and conveyed to
prison just as the church folks were re-
turning home. He burst out crying, then
managed to creep out as he had come
in. s.
From the London Sketch: Compare
lively few of those who are familiar
with the names of Burns two famous
heroes = Tam O. Shanter and Souter
Johnny are aware of the actual des-
ignation of the two worthless, or that,
associated as they are in Burns inn
mortal pages, in death they are undi-
vided, as they sleep not far from each
other in Kirkoswalde Churchyard The
stone which marks the grave of John
Davidson (Souter Johnny has fallen
into decay, but the name is still legi.
ble To the right of the grave new
tombstone has been placed, an exact
copy of the old one, and bearing, in
addition the names of the Souter'S
sons and nephews, the latter of whom.
two in number, died as recently as
1893. They had lived in Kirkoswald,
and left a considerable fortune. The
gravestone of David Graphame (Tam
o. Shanter) was erected by him to the
memory of his son, who was followed
by Helen McTaggart, Tams wife. Sou
ter Johnny died in 1906, aged seventy
nine, and Tam in 1911, aged seventy
two.
In the present state of literature the
critic, whatever he may have been in
the past, no longer has a serious audi
tory, says J. S. Tunison. in the Sep
tember Atlantic" The question, What
is the value of the book review? be-
comes academic, problem for solu
less it is discussed with some heat, par
ticularly by those who insist that it is
not worth discussing at ALL A letter
from one who is certainly expert in all
literary affairs contains these lines:
1.-The book reviewer (whereby / mean
the critic of new books) is not worthy
of the slightest consideration. I do not
believe that any single piece of con-
temporary criticism was ever worth