Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-12-13
| stuff as dreams are made Of"


A number of reviewers have spoken
LOT "The Master of Appleby" as nrst
novel by a new author. Francis Lynde
| has. however. been writing since N9S
land has published a number OF SUCCESS.
I ful books. "A Private Chivalry," a
Romance in Transit" and "The Help
ersv all have had wide circulation. His
fshort stories and essays have appeared
frequently in the better magazines
and. as he said in telling his publish
| ers about the success of some OF his
earlier work: mo door at which ! have
lpersistently knocked. has failed to
Fopen-save only one. aas4 ~
Hamlin Garland has arrived in New
York, where he will remain all winter.
He is at work on a series of short
stories for Harper's Weekly which
deal with the American Indian in his
human and domestic aspect, written
from an intimate point of view. The
6rst appears i'm the Christmas number
of Harper's Weekly.
The Observant Woman made herself
nuisance for several days by asking
questions of all her friends, and taking
notes OF the answers on little pocket
pad. Then she announced certain results
| in the shape of four lists of books, rep
| resenting the mental pabulum OF as many
professional women from their earnest
youth up to what they considered the
| age of intellectual maturity.
No. Her earliest remembrance was
| Prudy books. Elsie books. Miss Alcott
books, all the boys books procurable
| lily Story Paper" Mary J. Holmes, over
| whom she wept consumedly. Then came
| THE Duchess" Mrs. Alexander, Jane
| Eyre Dickens everything
No. AT about nine Years of age she
| loved Longfellow very much; at about
| eleven or twelve she was prevented from
reading ''The Family Story Paper" bur
perused it on the sly whenever she could
| read Vicar of Wakefield over and over
again; also Alice in Wonderland: At
fourteen she plunged into ,o Dickens n !.
same time with Bertha NJ. Clay anG
Mary j. Holmes. For all she can remem-
| ber she liked one just as well as the
| other. She read Paradise Lost'/two or
| with LENA Rivers At sixteen she
reached Shakespeare and general read
| ing.
No; 3,Her earliest remembranee is
Jacob Abbott's Franconia books; Male
| Vile and Phonny. Beechnut, Ellen Linn
! and the rest. all being the dearest com
| panions OF her child life, she used to
/ play lOF nOuTS with them as 1IndSlIldTl
companions. A little later she mad two
or three years when she read Swiss
| Family Robinson" and ''Oldtown Folks
| over and over again. going back to one
4 as soon the other was finished. She
pursued the same policy to a lesser de-
| gree with bred and Jane Eyre" At
| this time, also, from nine to twelve, she
| read more Shakespeare than she read
| again ill she was in her late twenties.
1 She read the historical plays and TRACE
| dies for the stories; the comedies did NOT
| appeal to her. She liked the Old Tesla
| ment, and was nearly thrown into con-
| 'lnnocents Abroad The works of
| .'Ouida," and the old New York Ledger,
l she purused at the same period From
| twelve TO sixteen she read most of Dick
ems ami Scott, and as those authors were
| then printed in agonizingly fine print,
| she permanently injured her eyes in SO
dong. As she looks back the curious
I mixture of her mental diet is what I'M
| presses her most She wept over the
4 death Of Brutus and sorrows of poor JOB.
| at the same time that she followed the
fortunes OF that unearthly pris. st.
4 Elmo" AT fifteen and sixteen she was
| reading Virgil and Cicero in the high
| school, and regarded Mrs. a. d. T. Whit
ney as an excellent. type of English style.
| After mat she read everything from tic
| viewpoint of an adult.
No. 4-Spent her extreme youth ON
| board ship. sailing round and round the
| world, as her father was a sea captain.
L ~ tiitic was. UOtHlHS else 10 90. ntr
| father and mother read to her evening
| after evening, SO that being lazy, she did
| not read books for herself until she was
| eleven years old When she was three
little English book. .Lilah, or The Is
| land Tennyson's poems and David
Copperfield made the next impression.
Pilgrims Progress and Great Ex-
these books she reread for herself after
eleven. Line Upon Line" stories from
| the Bible for children, she continued to
. read for years. She never read "UnuIe
son or Robinson Crusoe,' but She
dipped INTO much expurgated Arabian
Mlsnts, which made no particular I'M
passed through a Dickens period. during
which she adored him deeply and read all
his books except Edwin Drood.' At
fourteeH she grew supercilious anent
Dickens, going basely over to Thackeray
all of whose works she read except "lei-
Scott; never read Mary j. Holmes.
Bertha NJ Clay or The Duchess and
teen she loved THE Ancient Mariner
and ''lntimations of Immortality" and
went about repeating long extracts from
in childhood and Felix Holt and
| i'Scenes from Clerical Life before the
Age OF fifteen. The rest of the Eliot and
Bronte books. read in fifteen or sixteen,
| biiuSt ~ duult x
After digesting the foregoing data the
observant Woman arrived at this con-
| clnsion:,s Result-Net returns indicate
| that Juvenile books are unnecessary
| mat children, certainly at the age of
| twelve, and often younger, can find the
most absorbing interest in the classics
| OF English fiction. Children will unerr-
| lngIy Cetect the story, sometimes in
| classics. sometimes in very simple books
| No. and No. both confessed to IA deep
| impression made upon their minds by
two little Sunday school books, Hand
some is Handsome, Does and a
| Place for Everything and Everything in
| It's Pace. not because Of any moral les
| sons conveyed. but because both were
| good stories. No. also read the MARY
| Gay Books and the "Rollo Books" boil
| by Jacob Abbott, the author of the
| Beechnut Books but neither made the
| slightest impression on her mind, while
| the franconia tales remained fresh and
VIVID, because Of their delightful story
| telilnS quality. OF all the standard au-
| thors. Dickens seems to have the story
| telling quality demanded by children IN
| supreme degree. Three of the four lux.
! uriated in him at twelve, and placed the ir
| reading of Eliot, as their introduction in
| 10 the world of adult thought
The lesson is for parents to leave the
| worlds great stories around where the
children will get at them. They may
| know nothing of style or esoteric mean
| lnss. but they will sniff a story unerrinp
| W beneath the most discouraging heap Of
| rubbish and they will take a joy and dc
| ilght with the worlds great story tellers