New-York tribune., 1901-12-15

cases the critic and the criticised must possess
equal knowledge.
As a reader nv impulse is TO accept a new
thought a point OF view-not because
originality Is rare-but because one can never
know much about idiosyncracies- Where
find imaginings, happenings statements alto
gether opposed 10 the unalterable facts in hu-
man nature, I infer that the author is writing
falsely to please others and is suffering himself
propOrtionateiy-"
Mr. Conan Doyle thinks his best book is The
White Company and We are inclined TO agree
with him.
M Stanley Weyman believes that the opinion
OF a writer the merits OF his book is value
less. I have never myself he adds. read ten
pages Of any book / have written after publica-
tion. and if ] prefer the French ones and put
the Gentleman Of France Under the Red
Robe and Count Hannibal in the front rank
and TO them The Castle Inn'-I do not
think the preference of the least value That
Count Hannibal and Under the Red Robe
have the strongest motfs-they can scarcely be
called plots-is, think, fact and not an opin-
ion. The only circumstances in which a novelist
could. / think, be a judge OF his OWN work would
be such interval say fifteen years, after
publication, when he could read them as a
stranger
Mr II. @ Wells does not know which is his
best book: he thinks well or i'll of
score and OF another another score 1t Is
Ike asking which think my best garnent-I1y
hat my collar or my left boot Ny biggest
thing my most intimate thing, my first line-of-
battleShip. is 'Anticipations': my best piece OF
significant story writing The Invisible Man i
pretty, and that Love and Mr.. Le~isham is as
near beauty s / ever likely to get; and am
fond Of The War Of the Worlds because OF Its
destruction Of property / DO not like The First
Men in the Moon but / think II contains some
Of the best descriptive writing have ever done,
and l have a great tenderness for The Island
Of DR. Moreau' because ! think il is the only
book Of mine which has been treated unfairly
But in places j must admit, in spite OF my af
fection, il is net good
NJ Maurice Maeterlinck is about 10 lie mar
rfed-and TO te married in England. though his
hride-to-be Mile. Georgette Leblanc, is a French
Matter of peculiar interest viii be found in
the recollections Of Walt Whitman which Mr-
/ T TrOEybridge set down for The At
lantic" The acquaintance OF the late poet
have been apt TO hold one of TWO dlameJTcaily
oDp0site opinions Of him-either that he a
good gray genius Of massive proportions. or that
he was a too clean minded poseur and
charlatan. Mr.. Trowbridge imagine, VIII
tread delicately middle course
Why did Ruskin that American Utopia come
in '.l,,Infon's Magazine that because the
communal life made the people lazy. "Ruskin,
the last Ruskin.' he says, was simply typical
town in rural Georgia. 1t lacked almost every
convenience of modern life The people dressed
indifferentIy to the point Of slatternliness. and
the children ran al 1oSt wild the razor
hacks The late w. II. Claiming. in carefully
selected words, gave this tendency toward in
5olence as the reason for the failure of Brook
Farm and be was member OF the community,
too Mr. Noyes, founder of the Oneida com
rpupf,y after a per Sonal investigation into the
causes of failure of these experiments; Mr. Mac
the American communities on a tour Of lnVeStl-
cation and research, and Mr. Nordhof, who IN
1yectigated some seventy odd communities, all,
according to John Rae's contemporary Social 4