The Savannah morning news., 1902-02-16

to express themselves. In the same
sense the profession of letters has
been attacked and defended for ages.
1t is now nearly a quarter OF CEN
tury since Robert Louis Stevenson ex-
pressed the modern defense when he
advised the young writer that there
were Just two reasons for the choice
Of any way of life. "'The first is in
bred taste in the chooser; the second
some high utility in the industry Sc
lected. Literature, like any other art,
Is singularly interesting to the artis,
and i'm a degree peculiar to itself
among the arts: 1t is useful to man
kind. l shall not say much about
the wages. A writer can live by his
writing; IL not so luxuriously as by
other trades, then less luxuriously. The
nature of the work de does all day will
more affect his happiness than the
quality of his dinner at night"
In spite of much tramping. how
ever, over the same ground as the an
cients, we are not ready to confess
that we have not advanced somehow
in the field of letters.
DR.. Conan Doyle is meeting with
some difficulty in connection with the
publishing of his defense of the Eng
lish i'm their conduct of the Boer war.
Publishers for his last work on the
subject have been found for both Eng
land and the United States, but, al
though the author offers to bear all the
expenses of publication in Germany,
he can find no one with the courage TO
take the matter up. At the present
time there is little love for the Eng
lish within the domain of the Kaiser,
but 1t is certainly to the credit of the
American public that, In spite of the
f.a s1vt Dants ctrt
pathizers, there is fair minded spirit
manifested in this country. We are
quite willing to hear both sides OF q
question and then decide as we choose.
Mark Twain recently published seri-
ally a peculiar detective story which
will be brought out In book form
shortly. His friends and admirers are
trying to decide whether to take the
tale seriously or merely as a humor-
lists play with some wo~ds and
strange idea The story started out
well. but unfortunately ended up with
an imitation of Sherlock Holmes
methods that was to be deplored, since
the author had previously In the tale
poked fun at the great detective. In
one paragraph the combination of i'm
possibilities was positively ludicrous--
which was doubtless the effect the au-
thor desired to get. One character
saw an aesophagus floating in the air,
and the author told of trees blooming
which never. flower and so on.
Mr.. Clemens frequently says ne
Is much understood man;
the public insist on taking his
most serious statements with bursts
Of laughter and fail to smile at his
best humOr. II may be a lack OF per-
ceDtlon on the part Of the reader or II
may be lack OF something on the
part OF the writer.
As a rule a man lives his life. ana
then. II he thinks the world VIII re-
gard u as worth while, he writes his
autobiography Such a course II the
logical one. but here comes Booth
Harrington, who has written into a
novel. which he has called The oen-
ilefnan " Indiana" an autobiography,
the story Of "a part ~ bic life which be
has not yet gone through with. The
book was nrst published about i've
years oR0. and II she aufh0r had IN
mind fhn F0rf ~ career which nis hero
enjoyed. enc public was given 90 in.
ilmafion ~ iho feet only the gfhfT
dpF. hgnfFer A. T2hinEien anl