The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-12-28

ward by that name. He was man OF
doubtful character, to say the least, and
in politics was an accomplished Trim
mer'-a man of easy political virtue and
most accommodating views, serving
readily with the Wings or the Tories,
and always writing and able to hold
office under political changes and re-
verses. Have you ever known any TEL
lows of that type in this country, or even
in North Carolina? 1t will not do to De
personal here, in a literary paper. he
had many affections, prosecutions, ana
bitter experiences. He was imprisoned
for years, because of his political writ
ings, and was acquainted with the pill
lory. In his time freedom of speech and
writing was hazardous. He wrote sew
eral novels in addition to his master
piece, the incompatible Robinson,
Crusoe." He was an extraordinarily
prolific writer, and of marked powers,
| even genius. His most notable novels
are Mr. Duncan Campbell" Memoirs
| of a Cavalier" THE Life of Captain.
Singleton, MOL Flanders" 1.-The
| Plague Year" Colonel Jack" 1.-THE
| Fortunate Mistress" 1.-The New Voyage
Round the World" and "Roxana." He
published great many other volumes
history, biography, novels, commercial,
autobiography, etc. De Foe will always
| find readers of his Robinson Crusoe,
''the most thrilling boys book ever
written" says Prof. Saintsbury. He
wrote it after he had suffered
from an attack of apoplexy,
when some So years old, and it is
not overrated by Saintsbury in saying
| that it is lone of the most beautiful OF
| the worlds romances." He never APP
| preached its excellence in any other of his
| many books He was not a man to admire
or confide in, and his moral standing was
low and loose. AS narrative story his
greatest book has not yet been equalled,
or at least eXcelled. 1t was no fore
runner however of the genuine English
novel which was only to appear when
Richardson and the greater writer, Harry
Fielding, began to publish. DeFoe wrote
210 books and pamphlets.
Among women writer's Mrs. Humphrey
Ward holds the first place, and perhaps
rightly. | have relished two of her
works, but ] did not read her first nor
have l read her last two. She shows her
good sense in refusing to be interviewed
she is described as a tall, graceful fig
IRE, with steady smiling eyes, dark hair
touched with gray. intellectual attrac-
tive face, with decided austerty.
The short stories are not so popular
in England as formerly, but they have a
big run in this country. Harper's Month
ly published 100 in this year, The Cen
fury 81, and Scribner's 4S-21S for the
three leading illustrated monthlies.
The New York publishers of "The
Leopards Spots,t the popular Southern
story by Thomas Dixon, Jr., state that it
is selling rapidly still, faster than ever,
and that recently in three days S,153
copies were sold. The Yanks would
squelch it if they could, but like its virile
author, it will not be squelched.
"Purveyors of putridity'' is what John
A. Mooney, LII D., writes of certain
French authors. 1t might as we'll be ap-
piled to some American and English pro-
ducers of bad books-noveIs particularly
He writes OF a volume of the DeGon-
courts, that it antagonizes mot only tho
manners and customs. but even the
| hygiene, of decent society; book to
shock the public and to scandalize its
taste; book of terribly ignoble catas-
trophies" But such nasty books are
sought after by novel readers in two
hemispheres who crave the indecent and
relish the impure.
l read lately a very enjoyable and sat
isfying critique in one of the great Brit
ish Reviews. upon Jane Austens novels,
now being so curiously sought after and
read with aVidity. 1t clearly places her
before the reader as to her actual gifts
and limitations She was a pure, good
woman of literary gifts, but destitute of
the high literary qualities that give such
enduring fame and attraction to Scott,
Ihackeray, Dickens, and a few others of
the greatest writer's of fiction and ro-
nance. Her Pride and Prejudice her
best, L believe. | tried in vain to read.
recent English critic, Mr.. II. H. Bow
nell, puts Miss Austen below Charlotte
Bronte and George Eliot. He might with
justice have put her below other female
novelists-Miss Oliphant, Mrs. Gaskell,
Mrs. Ward and some others Is there not
more true genius and power in Emily
Bronte's ''Wuthering Heights" written
when she was young, and not long before
she died. than in all that Miss Austen
wrote.
| have often referred to that unsur-
passed work in biography, the Life of
Walter Scott" by his highly gifted SON
ln-law, John G. Lockhart, essayist, novel
list, poet, critic, biographer and editor of
the great London Quarterly Review, in
the long ago 1t does not rank higher
than Boswell's Life of DR.. Samuel Jonn-
son, if quite so high, but it is very I'M
like it, and in some particulars it's SUI
perior. | am glad to know that editions
of Lockhart's mastery biography are ap-
pearing and one of five volumes, was
lately published. A ten-v volume edition
also appeared. l am sorry that l lost
my four-volume edition when my first
library was lost to me by the unfai thful-
ress If a supposed friend, and my own
folly. The late Hon. Abram W. Venable,
the man Of remarkable gifts, once said
after examining it, that for it's size it was
1.-The most appetizing collection he had
ever seen"
Let me mention in this gathering OF
literary notes that there was d novelist
OF some forty years ago. who seems to
have disappeared, who was much read
by cultivated men. and was full of in
al n icfi