The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-10-25

was reported all over the world by wire
and the advertisement of Miss Corell
and her latest effusion, Temporal Pow
err" was thereby given a boom. When
Miss Corelli has written all the Won
derful stories that are in her mind,
and righted all the injustices IN the
world, she need not be discouraged for
she will have no difficulty in obtaining
a position lin advance" of some ORA
matte organization. What a dream OF
a press agent Marie Would make!
Sprained Ankle in Literature.
A sarcastic letter, printed in a cur
rent literary review. is both interest
ing and amusing. The writer refers to
the many cases of sprained ankle
which appear in recent novels, and
suggests that at the text meeting of
the American Medical association the
physicians make GU q list Of diseases
or accidents that might be used with
impunity by writer's Of fiction, thus
varying the programme slightly. A
sprained ankle is a refined sort of thing
which happen to nyone and, as the
hero usually nurses the heroine, or
vice versa, as the case may be, 1t Is
we'll to choose something easy and not
too painful. Some years 6 novels
seemed to run to this sort of thing
even more than at present, and When
"Ships That Pass in the Night came
out, it was facetiously called q patho-
logical novel and Of the hos
pital. That was before the days of the
robust, athletic heroine, when con-
sumption was regarded as romantic
and a young woman who spent her
time upon a lounge knitting under
wear for the poor and always descrtb-
ed as angelic in disposition, was then
the vogue. But we AVE changed all
4L4+ o-I Now ryo we tho oiv1 with
common-sense heels, and a large waist,
who never curls her hair, but has the
charm of perfect health n animal
spirits" whatever they are, and who
has a contempt for weak persons Of
any kind. Her We now worship n
adore, and when she wins ou in the
golf contest, as she always does, we
cannot out believe we are getting the
real thing. This is, of course, referring
to the few and rare books, in which
there is an unmarried heroine. Time
was when stories ended with the GUS
tomary "bleSS you my children" Or
ange blossoms and showers of rice,
but now we have a sort of contempt
for that childish business, and want
the tale to begin with a wedding, or
perhaps a divorce, which is frequently
the case at present. But we must
have a healthy heroine, and, indeed, a
sprained ankle is only tolerated for
the sake of giving the hero a chance
to pick her up tenderly. If, however,
she goes on c~ultivating her muscles
and increasing her a~Noirdupois, the
hero will soon find it rather difficult
to pick her up unless he tugs at her
in a most unromantic way, n then,
oh, then, what are we to do? Let us
have confidence in the tactfulness of
the coming novelist and believe he will
find a way out of even the most en-
~barrassing positions.
Preface by George Meredith.
George Meredith, who by some per-
sons is considered England's greatest
living novelist, and by others is re-
garded as not understandable by or
binary minds, has shown by the pre-
face he has written for Lady Duff Cor
don's book, Letters From Egypt" hat
he has lost none of the mannerisnls of
a characteristic style. His description
Of the writer is very like him. He
says:
I'm her youth she was radiantly
beautiful, with dark brows on a bril-
liant complexion, the head of a Roman
man, and features of Grecian line, save
for the classic Greek wall Of the nose
off the forehead. Women, not enthusi-
asts, inclined rather to criticise, and to
criticise so independent a member of
their sex particularly, nave said that
her entry INTO a ballroom took the
breath. Poetica1 comparisons run I'M
der heavy weight in prose, but it would
seem in truth, from the reports of her,
that wherever she appeared she could
be likened to a Selene breaking
through cloud, and, further, the splen-
did vessel was richly freighted. Train
ed by a scholar, much in the society Of
scholarly men, having an innate bent