New-York tribune., 1900-01-20

An interesting piece of literary gossip comes
from Berlin by way of The Pail Mall Gazette"
1t appears says this journal, that Bismarck,
having written his memoirs, decided to have the
benefit of his labors and sold them to pub
Usher for very considerable sum, cash down.
Bismarck died. and the publisher took steps to
profit by his purchase. But in the mean while
the Chancellor's two sons had made their peace
with the Emperor the dead mans grave,
and it certain that the publication of what
Bismarck had written in his sullen retreat would
not be pleasant reading for William II. A COM
promise was arrived at, and for the moment only
two volumes Of the work published, deal
ing with "old. unhappy, far off things" But
while this being arranged, the astute DR..
Busch stepped in and took the edge off public
curiosity with his instalment of Bismarckiana
and the net result was sale which did not pay
the publisher However. that gentleman looked
forward with some confidence to recouping him
self the third volume, which dealt with the
Chancellor's dismissal The story was written
by man still smarting from the indignity, and
it was likely not to lack pungency. DR.. Busch
providentially died, and could be of no more an
noyance; but there still the sons to count
with. At the last moment they forbid publica-
ton. and the unhappy publisher is reduced to
seek legal redress He has paid for the right to
a thing. Shall he be permitted to use it?
That is what the courts have to decide.
1t would seem that the very high sense of
honor with which we expected to credit the
German noble ought to lead the Bismarck
brothers to offer an unenforced indenlnifcation
to the publisher.
Mr. Henry James intimated not long ago in
the course of an occasionally wearisome article
Sn 'The North American Review" that the pres
ent literary situation in France is not as brill
santly interesting as it once was. We fail to see
why Mr.. James should be very apologetic in
advancing the statement of so plain a fact We
doubt if any of the literary Frenchmen of the
day would deliberately claim to stand beside
Renan. Sainte-Beuve, Balzac and Taine. None
the less" adds Mr. James, sit is not yet on the
critical side that the French intelligence may be
noted as faltering to any such degree as shall
minister to the comparative compIacency Of OBJ
! servers-and. least of ALL of competitors-of our
own race. The spirit of conversation is so in
defeasible a part of the genius of the people
that, however among them the creative gift
may flicker, the last light markedly to pale must
ever necessarily be the form that has most in
common with suggested talk. If the races per
sonaly inexpensive, nonosyllabic at best may
be-as regards letters and art-handicapped by
that fact for criticism, it is beyond contradic
tion, 1 think, that the French, on the opposite
basis, have much the start of us that the
spirit Of the matter begins for them quite where
we are condemned to see it-and in no little
eXhaustion-give way"
AS for the novelists quarter there is a dis
tnct chill in the air. says Mr. James; and he
mentions the apprehension that there may af-
ter ALL be strange and fatal disparity be-
tween French talent and French life
That puts the case doubt with a certain
breadth; but ii may, none the less, represent one
of the occasional Wonderments of a spectator
from distance Does French life support being
worked with the fury-as may almost say
that the great combination from BaIzac down
have brought to bear it? Would our bigger
Anglo-SaXon life, even? Would any collective
life that is now being led on the globe? The
Anglo-Saxon world, with the multitude of its
practical experiments and the variety of it's ma
terial habitats, would. perhaps hold out long
est and I express a fancy that | have some
times idly entertained when say that we alone
would have offered broad enough back to such
acute penetration and such consistent irony.
The spirit of the French novel at it's best in
into US and should have been as a rich
world-people worthy TO be stretched on the
table. We should not certainly have been Paris
at a-in which there would have been a loss;
but we should on the other hand not have been
Paris only and ever-in which there would have
been a gain.
The danger l glance at is in a word the
danger arising from sameness of subject.
Passion is strangely brief, while character, like
art itself as we know, is long. The great Balzac.
clearly had made this reflection when beating
the bush with a cudge all his own he started
up game of so many different kinds. know not