The age-herald., 1902-05-11
BOOKS

Few men in the literary world could be missed more than Frank R. Stockton will be- Ills death is a loss so serious that his eountrymen mourn as they rarely do for any man. Of him George Gary Egg gleston writes, '-Alas, this most gentle manly of gentlemen, this wittiest of gem le wits, this rarest of hImortsts who never made fun of anybody or mooked at any sincerity. is gone from us for everl His death Is a circumstance the more saddening for the reason that his life was so great a ministry of joy" Mr. Eggleston knew the author since 1858 and writes very intimately of his career and his work He also says. The story upon which MT. Stocfton's fame was first buiided-'The Lady or the Tiger very nearly ruined the author by its ex- cellence and its extraordinary popularity. After I had written that story Stockton said, all the editors of all the periodi- calls wrote asking me to furnish them with short stories. Of course I had quirer full and as these people seemed anxious for them 1 thought that my harvest time had come So I proceeded to write with all my might. But pres GnJlX the SlOI1eS began COIulIB DaSk U me with editorial regrets that they did not seem to be equal to The Lady or the Tiger2 In other words 1 found that ] had ruined my own market by furnish ing one story which I could not quite live up to. I succeeded after awhile in selling the rejected stories here, there and everywhere, but the experience was annoying l wrote Ills Wife's Deceased Sister in the bitterness of my soul at that period as a protest against the as- sumption that when a man does his very best he places himself under an obliga- tion to do well on every succeeding occasion or starve to death for lack of ability to do so " MT. Eggleston's esti- mate Ia affectonate, true, and inspiring; just the estimate that Stockton's many lovers hold in tender and lasting regard for him. Altogether Frank R. Stockton was the sanest, wholesomest and most healthfully inspiring writer of our time.
 The Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr. a South ernei who for several years was pastor of a prominent church in New York has retired from the pulpit, and return ed to the South His first novel "The Leopards Spots" has created a great deal of comm ent well as criticism. It is q story of the reconstruction times, and he has described them frankly and fully and has not minced affairs as they ex- isted. Apropos of the subject, MT. Dixon said recently that he discovered the curious fact in reading the daily papers of the South issued in 1865 that every word on the platform of Booker T. Washing tons plan of negro education can be found in the speeches of the Confeder- ate generals to the negroes when they returned from the war
 Miss Alice Caldwell Hogan has written one of the cleverest little books that have come from Southern writers. It is called MT. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Miss Hogan Is native of Louisville and consequently the scene of her story is laid in Kentucky, the Cabbage Patch be- ing a dingy little settlement hanging on to the skirts of a city. While the story possesses a few touches of pathos, it Is also brimfui of natural genuine humor. Just the sort of sunshiny little volume that fills a yearning-some little crevice in ones life.
 It is said that Miss Bertha Runkle, au- |. thor of "The Helmet of Navarro" has for several months been working on