The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-02-11
WILMINGTON N. C.
OLLAPORIDA.

the wish was expressed that
he would favor the reading world with
another volume OF some one thousand
pages, continuing his published work
through Napoleon times down to the
overthrow OF Louis Napoleon. Since
writing we have seen 1t stated
that the gifted. able author has COM
pIeted a Life of Napoleon" whereof We
are glad. w shall nave from his dra-
matte, powerful pen a work of great in
xerest, We can not doubt. upon the
gree test man in two thousand years not
including Shakespeare, for he stands
.boNe in his supreme greatness, tour
fng mountain like above his fellows and
u1approached. 1t would not be fair to
IT, X = conn arison between these two
monumental NIL, both so sr3Ht in their
respective spheres, n so unlike. 1t
will be issue this month by Macmillan.
= - e
1t is gratifying to us to meet with
quite often in these days criticisms
upon the morbidity, the lubricity, the
n~astiness, even the coarseness, the
suggestions of evil, the banality and
commonplace, and the blood and thun-
der character Of the historical romances
of this particular period. Aside from
E~ulgarity and leachery there is such a
hopeless tone in many novels rs to be
depressing and inconsolable. They have
drunk of Lethe and a found the
profoundest depths of sorrow and dis
pair. The Houston CTexas) Post in a
discriminating editorial the other day
said this and it fits as n glove: THE
most striking phenomenon of the fiction
OF the present day is it's hopelessness.
Mr.. George Moore is unauestionably de-
pressing. Mr.. Thomas Hardy breaches
the blacklist kind of pessimism. Mrs.
Humphrey Ward is cherries, both
with regard to his world and the next.
Lucas Malet's last novel, Sir Richard
Calmady." is about as disheartening as
anything ever produced in literature"
- - -
We meet with some most ASTONISHING
> with cultivated taste and a famil-
I saFSty with the great standard authors.
We see articles greatly depreciating
Scott. We see Balzac exalted above all
other novelist and even declared to be
greater than Shakespeare. The senior
editor of he New York Bookman did
that a year or two ago. Recently he
put Anthony Trollope with the three or
four greatest of English novelists. He
left out Dicken in the count for
Trollope. Wonderful! That estimate
Of Trollope is almost as amusing as the
stop-lofty praise bestowed upon Balzac,
whose novels, We take it. are not good
drawing room reading. Trollope had
great popularity in his day. He was
widely read by intelligent and cultivat-
ed people. Even distinguished critics
read him constantly and admiringly.
And yet he is we'll nigh neglected al
though not in his grave a dozen years
perhaps. AS 10 Jefferson, as Rip Van
Wrinkle, says with consummate pathos,
when he returned to the village of Fall
members him, Are We so soon forgot
ten" so might Trollope say now if he
could return to this earth and so once
more to his fellow-men. He had tall
ents no doubt, but why has he fallen so
quickly into neglect. The reader will
find in the English National Review"
an elaborte discussion by the really
very distinguished biographer and crit
&c, Leslie Stephen, upon Trollope. We
read it with pleasure because the writ
eer is so judicious, well hottomed, sane
and acute in what he gives us. He con-
fesses TO having been al admirer of
Trollope and ound pleasure in many of
his best novels. He vas of simple,
masculine character" sturdy, not high
fy cultured, not of exquisite taste in
letters. but a cordial, bluff, boisterous
man. In his youth he was universally
edespised." He did not promise we'll
for Intellectual parts, much less to be a
writer of great fecundity and no little
success. He did not pretend to write
inspiration, but turned out regu-
larry every day so much copy as a clerk
would copy so many pages from a doc
ument. He was industry and ambition
~personified:
He was up every morning at $50
spent half an hour in reading the pre-
yious days work; n h wrote $50
words every quarter or an hour. for
two hour and a half. He wrote when
he was travelling on a railway, or on
shipboard, and in h course Of his ca
ree turned out some fifty novels, be-
sides other work, including a Life OF
Cicero. which showed at least his dar-
Ing"
But what were his intellectual quail
ties? What particular gifts shone
Forth on his rapid productions? He
~ssr1e for money. He took the CONNER
cial view, and used his mind and hand
as he did as a government clerk. writ
n : much copy each day. He was q