New-York tribune., 1901-06-02


Mr.. Austin Dobson has written a new poem
a contribution to The May Book publica-
ton in aid of a London hospital He callsit
Angel Court:
In Angel Court the sunless air
Grows faint and sick: to left and right
The covering houses shrink from sight,
Huddling and hopeless, eyeless, bare.
Misnamed. you say. For surely rare
Must be the angel shapes that light
In Angel Court!
Nay: the eternities are there.
Death by the doorway stands to smite;
Life in its garrets leaps to light;
And Love has climbed that crumblinS stair
In Angel Court!
That entertaining novelist, Ada Cambridge
CMrs. G. +. Cross, has not been heard from in
| a long time but she is about 10 reappear
! the author of a book called The Devasta-
tors
Here is a pertinent comment on modern
poets from a book of "Colloquies Of Criticism
attributed 10 that clever writer, W. II. Mallock:
i should say that their distinguishing char
acteristc was paasivty Instead OF playing
life. they let life play upon them Their whole
attitude is one of self abandonment, which these
gentlemen typify by the act of laying their
heads weeping on the breast of somebody, who
probably weeps too. Indeed. many of their
/ best poems are like so many articulate faintinS
fits"
! a copy Of the first edition Of BIackmores
| Lorna Doone" sold the other day for $1O1.
Devonshre is to do itself honor in honoring
| the memory or BiaCkmOre. une monument Is
10 be erected presently in Exeter Cathedral.
Mrs Anne ThackeTay Ritchie writes concern
ing the original OF the character Of Lord Steyne
in Vanity Fair; lord Steyne was certainly
not Lord Lansdowne. for whom my father had
/ respect and admiration. 1 suppose my father
may have been told the picture like Lord
HEREFORD and thought il best to suppress II;
| or perhaps the publishers advised him To DO
. remember hearing my elders talking about IL,
but can remember what they said The only
thing know for certain is that it couldn't have
had anything to do with Lord Lansdowne"
Here is a strictly feminine description Of the
author OF The Visits of Elizabeth' she has
. sweet, pretty, refined face with lots of blond
hair. and dresses in soft dainty style. She
Is. l believe, very accomplished"
one old scotchman lives who remembers
meeting Sir Walter Scott and again as he
walked over the North Bridge in Edinburgh:
He always kept his eyes on the ground and
rarely looked up and people just looked at him
with due respect and passed along" one man
lives who patted on the head in childhood
10y Charles Lamb-and this is Canon Anger
1t is stated that Lady Ponsonby. widow OF
Queen Victoria's secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby,
is the person who supplied material for The
ouarterly's" much talked of article on the late
Queen
There was sold in London the other day for
. something over $50 letter written by George
Eliot to the editor of the George Eliot Birthday
Book" This epstle is worth reading:
Il Will not longer await the packet of ex
tracts which Mr.. Lewes IS expecting from you.
, thank YOU for all the feeling and intelH
: gence which you have given 10 that best part
of me which has long ago taken wings and left
me rather a shrunken residence. l have too
long made no sign 10 you of the gratitude |
| feel toward a mind whose emotions and judg-
ments have given me the encouraging response
which l find both in your letters and selections
= of passages. over the latter | have not done
, more than my eyes hastily, but | believe
that when your book appears | shall be almost
4 like OF the public making acquaintance with
2 it. For have read my own books hardly at all.
/ after giving them forth. dreading to find
them other than / wish and now / am haunted
by the fear that | am only saying again what L
z have already said in better fashion. For we
all of have little stOre-Our two or three
beliefs which the outcome of our character
and experience and there is equal danger or
my harping on these too long and OF our taking
l up other strains, which not at all our be-
, liefs. but borrowing of echo From both
Of these dangers good sense deliver me-that
good sense which includes good conscience and
i a high estimate of the authors function Every
c one who contributes to the too much OF litera
n ture is doing grave social injury, and that
thought naturally makes one anxious
[ Many readers. doubt. Will sy mpathize with
!; Charlotte Bronte in her feeling about Goethe
- set down in a recently discovered autograph
letter You right about Goethe; he Is clear,
deep but very cold. / acknowledge him great,
i but cannot feel him genial