The Portland daily press., 1899-05-18
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

lazily dream or browse over, in the soft
sunshiny days when labor seems sin,
cities are deserted, and the green fields
and soft tapping waves shave it."
But this spring brings us literature of
divers kinds; books which make us think,
and ponder, and wonder; so that the
reader who rather scorns pure romance,
and does not, like the rest of the world,
Glove a lover" may have his I'LL Of lore
to suit his more serious moods and
moments.
A volume to please readers OF all GLASSES
is the delightful Fragments Of an Auto
biography, by Felix Moscheles, thel au-
thor OF In Bohemia withiDu Maurier, a
book which Is not easily forgotten by
whomever has had the pleasure Of read
ing IT.
Mr.. Moscheles is celebrated portrait
painter, and edited and translated the
letters written by Mendelssohn to his
parents, Ignaz and Charlotte MosoLeles,
His literary style IL brilliant, clever and
charming, and one only wishes his mod
esty less that he might say more Of him
self. ''It is regretable," he says, THAT
one cannot write ones "reminiscences
without mentioning ones self. Things
go so smoothly as long as one records the
doings of others, hut become so puzzling
when one has to introduce the Ego. Be-
tween self-laudation and mock modesty
there Is not much to choose, and II you
try to steer clear of the one you are sure
to fall into the:other. In.this remark the
writer docs himself injustice. for he
absolutely avoids both of these pitfalls.
One rarely runs across book which con-
tains SO much entertaining reading, and
the personal recollections of Moschele's
father and mother, .of Mendlessohn,
Dupont, .Mazzini, Rossini. Irving, Ellen
Terry and Robert Browning are most in
tsresting.
Mendelssohn was his godfather.
Through Moscheles's childhood, his
student days in Paris, his sketching tours
along the Loire with his friend, Claud
Raoul Dupont, we follow, him with un.
tagging pleasure.
He briefly and succinctly describes to
us his. trip to America in 1883 with Henry
Irving and Ellen Terry, remarking that
he came to America with the usual Eng
lish prejudice against 1t, but before he
had been in the country long found 1t de-
sirable to Climb down." discovering that
1t was quite as much as he could do to
keep his footing--at all on one.or the other
of the scaling ladders which he had tried
to ascend.
Moscheles declares that he thinks Gin
t reviewing" by the newspaper men "a
splendid institution" as one has an op-
of making himself appear just
as he wishes to be, and adds; son Ellen
Terry the interviewers must have dotted
from the first she was SO oharminGly
impu lsive, SO spontaneous and overflow
ing with copy. l dare say she gave them
points about Art and the Drama from
Sophooles via Shakespeare down to the
last thing out; but only remember 1.-THE
delightful insight into her personal
habits and tastes she let them have, when
she chose to take the world into her con-
fdencs.''
What do drink" she said on one 90
nervous. The doctor restricts me to milk,
but restrictions and doctors combined
will never come between me and my tea.
| must have tea-tea or death-three
times a day, and, as johnson said about
Mrs Wellington and her tea. 1T is strong,
and red as blood I take English tea
W hioh buy by the caddy, and wherever
l am there are my oaddy and my dog
Fussy and caddy. Without them
Otehllo's occupations gone.
There is delightful chat of MazziIi and
Rossini, and last the chapters about
Robert Browning, which the present
Browning revivalists will find timely
and valuable addenda to the love Letters
Moreover, We know more of Browning's
son "Pen' from these than from any
other printed pages. OF the hours spent
In Mosoheles's studio by MIR. Browning,
there Ia an enchanting portrayal; such a
life-like pen portrait of the poet lounging
In his favorite easy chair with the artist
at work upon his beautiful pictures 1.-The
Cloud Compeller" and ''The Cloud Dis
peller," while Browning quotes Shelley s
Cloud:
81 bring forth showers for the thirsting
flowers
From the seas and the streams;
l bring light shades"
Later Moscheles was painting what he
called his shell-pioture, and wished to
find q name adapted to 1t, his idea being,
as he suggested to Mr.. Browning, some
thing of this kind: "And as walked
along those lovely shores, and breathed
the air of balmy olimes. 1 waki ng
dreamt of living forms that welded
opalescent shells; of peace: and rest, and
blissful harinonies. In day or two
the poet sent him the following lines
signed Felix Moscheles, and the picture
was christened 1.-THE Isles Enohantress. >.
"Wind. waited from the sunset, DER the
swell
or summers slumb'rous sea. herself
asleep,
Came shoreward, in her iridescent shell
Graded, the isles enchantress You who
keep
A drowsy watch beside her-watch her