The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-02


 tne two keep up voluminous core spondenee.
 Anna Katherine Green has stipulated that the heroine in her new story shall not wear shirt waist in the illustra- tions. She wants "a good. old-fashioned type of female loveliness." This is re- freshing. and 1t is to be hoped that 1902 fashions in Illustrations for books of the year 1876 will gradually cease to be.
 
 It Is humored that MT. Lecky. the his- torian. is to be made peer. He is now member of the house of commons, and his speeches there are much the same as he would make to a gathering of lit- erary men. An ostensible reason for making him lord is that. as a fellow member said: His stun is too good; 1t is thrown away where he is."
 
 The British Museum owns the largest book in the world. and the smallest. The largest is an atlas of the fifteenth cen- tury, seven feet high, with ponderous clasps. The smallest is a "Bijou AL manac," less than an inch square, and bound in red morocco. Between these extremes of the printers art are thirty seven miles of shelves filled with books.
 As
 Mrs. Humphrey Ward has started the first vacation school ever established in London, and 1t Is said that she has made a success of it. The experiment was tried in the Passmore Edwards set tlement in Tavistock Place. London. This settlement owes its origin to Robert Elsmere." The Duke of Bedford allowed the school the use of garden at the rear of the settlement house, where out door classes were held throughout the season.
 There exists an impression that Rus kin was as unappreciative of music as he was sensitive to beauty. This is a mis- apprehension. He made no pretense of being a musician, but he delighted in music, particularly in old English. l French Scotch and German songs, and the works of Haydn and Mozart. He has taken lessons in harmony and counter point, and even composed an air to a poem of Scott entitled "At Marmions s Crave"
 Jerome J. Jerome has been expressing I himself on the subject of the career of humorist in England, and takes a some what melancholy view of it. He says that in England 1t is the serious writer the Marie Corelli or the Hall Cain-who makes money. He wishes to be taken seriously, therefore, both as a politician and as an author, and while he admits that little humor goes a long way in a l speech to doubtful voters. says that if lie goes to St. Stephens he will be "as solemn as the most portentous member of l the house."
 1
 Edwin A. Abbey who Is painting the scene of the coronation of Edward VII, recently told the story of his early ex- 1 perience as an illustrator. In 1S71 when but nineteen years old, he secured em- l ployment in the art department of the Harper publishing house. Reinhart and | Alexander were also employed there at the time. When only a lad the artist had fallen in love with the classic litera- ture of England, and his delight at being assigned to the illustrious of Herrick's s poems undoubtedly contributed to the success of the work. For the last twenty i years he has been living in England with occasional Journeys to America and I the Continent.
 It is not generally known that c. D. | Gibson, the originator of the famous Gib- son type of the American woman, began his artistic career while yet child, and began It with the scissors When nine or ten years old he achieved fame among his playmates in Boston for his remarka- ble skill in cutting silhouette pictures. l He could, with no apparent effort, cut out an elaborate silhouette, and many of | these pictures clearly indicate the indi- | viduality of his genius even at that early age. This perfection was the re- suit of long and painstaking practice, and picture after picture was thrown away because of the imperfection of some detail of the outline.
 Somebody has started a story that the original Tom Sawyer is keeping sa- loon in San Francisco, but w. L. Alden, London literary correspondent, scouts the idea, and says that Tom Is undoubted- | ly editor of a Mississippi country paper, and writes everything in it but the adver- tisements and the patent insides. If it is 1 considered worth while to unravel this 1 yarn, there are two things worth re- l membering. One is that the original Mulvaney was also discovered in San Fransico saloon, and that Is the place, according to Mulvaney's creator 1 Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear l lass,
 And the widest tales are old 1 It was afterward found that MT. Kip | ling never heard of the alleged original 1 The other fact in this connection Is that Mark Twain himself was once asked about the model for Tom Sawyer, and 1 said that Tom was all the boys he had ever known, including and most of all himself; and that he had medtated two | endings for Tom, in one of which he 1 should be hanged and in the other be- come great and honored. He had planned 1 to print the two endings and let the read I CT take his choice. And this ought to set- 1 tie the question of any double of Tom | Sawyer walking about the earth, unless