The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-05-10
TEE L1TNRARY oUTLooK.
News of the Authors-A Clever Paro-
dY Of the Rubaiyat.

published, and the sponsors OF one De
gan suit against the other for IN
fringement of copyright. It seems that
the name ..ping-pong" was copyright
ed, but whether the protection OF the
law viii extend itself to one publisher
to the exclusion of all others remains
to be seen.
Stewart Edward White, author OF
The Westerners" and The Blazed
Trail" has recently left New York Tor
his home in Michigan. Mr.. White has
been spending the entire winter IN New
York. where he has mingled plng-pong
with story writing, but when the signs
OF spring began to come, he heard the
wood .'a-calling." Every summer Mf.
White goes north, either to an unfre-
Quented section of upper Michigan or
to the Hudson Bay country. Natur-
ally enough, he writes well OF the
woods and it's people. His "Blazed
Trail recently published has called
forth the most enthusiastic praise from
many well known writer's and critics.
x X 4
Mrs. Humphrey Ward has completed
a new novel and by the time this has
gone through the process of seriallza.
Lady Roses Daughter is the title OF
the present story, enough of which has
not yet appeared to judge of its char
acter, save that it is English.
John Morley viii have his Life Of
Gladstone ready for fall publication,
and at the same time another firm VIII
bring out Bismarck's letters to the first
hopes to complete a new novel, The
Tuscan Crown" before the close of the
year.
omar Khay5a5 + : 5r..~ is very
clever travesty on the verses of the
Persian poet.S by Wallace Irwin,
young journalist of San Francisco, VINO
may be remembered as the author OF
7 of
The book has just been published 1t IS
illustrated by Gelett Burgess. Here
are sample verses from the collection:
What though Gorgona at the Portal
And charms the squamiest Serpent in
I Wear tobbachanalian wreaths Of
And here are more Perfeetos in the
Box.
All, Love, tn Invisible Buskin at the
Gate
Illumes your Eyes that languored gaze
and wait,
And in their Incandescence seem to ask
The World-old Question: rs my Hat on
0tra'gh' XIV
A Grand Piano underneath the Bough.
Gramophone, Chinese Gong, and
Thou.
0 Paradise were Wilderness enowi
4
Cecil Rhodes probably appeared as a
character in more novels than any one
man of his time Morley Roberts took
him for THE Colossus" Anthony Hope
for THE God in the Car" Kipling as
the persOnlhcatiO of much of his inn
perialistic doctrines, and many other
Rhodes under thinly yelled DISCUSSES
in their books.
Apropos of the Shakespeare BacOnian
controversy. a citizen of an interior
town in Ohio suggests a solution. He
says that an amateur company gave a
performance of Hamlet" in the local
theater recently and he thinks that if
con were opened to see which one turned
over the great problem would be solved
at once.
X x K
Here is a comment of a New York ed
itor which should be read by all in
terested, not only in the publishing of
books, but also in the writing of them.
For many months past he says, a
publishing house (Which shall be un-
named here) has been sending US week
after week piles of bound volumes of the
most varied kinds, processing to contain
fiction, or poetry, or theology, or what
not We have looked into them all at
first with the expectation Of finding
something worth reading; in the end
with the hope of finding out why in the
world they were published. They are all
absolutely hopeless and impossible from
any literary standpoint The authors
may have been misguided into the be-
lief that any one can write by the rate
at which books are produced nova days;
but they furnish proof in black and
white that some people can not write.
It would have been a mercy to them If
some firm but kind critic had taken
them in hand and persuaded them not to
40IIh1iG6 if thew write
would have saved their readers pain, and
the reviewers, too, for it is not pleasant
to crush down ambition for fame, or
even the yearnings for wealth. The pub
fishers readers must be a more than
charitable lot: it is hard to say what
stuff they would reject if they accept
this Perhaps the circle of each authors
friends is large enough to absorb an edi-
ton. Some Of the books have apparent
~ passed through more than one. 1t
may be that these authors have dis
eliminating friends like the wealthy
Boston merchant with literary daugh-
ter. She wrote novels and had them
published, and then her father bought
UP the edition and stored it in the cell
lar in one of his warehouses. Her col
lected works were all found there when
he died But what has a reviewer to do
with this stuff It Is not literature. and
it would be bafbarOus to make fun of
poor incompetents. They are all alike
in disregard Of art and in happy igno-
AdliSC fCA Tit OA0AAdAS AEAQ Dt
style. That might be passed over if
they had-anything worth saying to say"
4 X
Mr. viii NJ Payne has recently writ
ten a number of essays which have
been collected and published in. book
form. AS a proper person to guide the
uninitiated into the right paths of read
ing, Mr.. Payne is youched for by nu-
merous literary friends and by A long
training in critical and Imaginative
writing on his own part. Mr.. PAYNE
objects particularly to the cult in lit