The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-10-14

The story which John Townsend Trow-
bridge tells Of his own life in My Own
Story is Of one who has come in close
touch with all the most distinguished men
and women in literature, art politics, re-
ligion, philanthropy and other fields during
sixty years of his long life. Beginning
to write for the press at 10, he has related
in this volume Of nearly 500 pages the
details of his experience as a litterateur
in the. days when literary success was
rare and literature was poisoning in
only a few localities. Most interesting
are his "reminiscences of the great ones
Of the New England literary set whose
genius compelled English scoffers at our
literature to read American books. Not
able, too, are his recollections Of those
brilliant wits, c. F. Brown ("Artemus
Ward'), c. G. Halpine and B. P. Shilla-
Der. There is breezy account of his
acquaintance with Walt Whitman, and in
his account Of 1.-The South After the
War; there are extremely interesting de-
tails of the wars ruin and desolation.
Confederate soldiers, he says, were the
most ready to resume their loyalty to the
flag against which they had fought
Trowbridge was a contributor to the first
number of the Atlantic Monthly. The
keynote of his life is expressed in this
paragraph of his preface:
Only dreams come to us in our sleep
MOI oHly the great prizes or life, but
often the minds solace and the body's
health, wait upon work. The world is
for endeavor; the world is the flint, the
will of man the steel.'
The collection of Henry Dwight Sedg-
| wick's Atlantic essays, entitled ESSAYS
| on Great Writers, is a volume which ought
to delight students in literary style. These
are remarkably fine essays on Scott,
DAnnunzio, Montaigne, Macaulay, Don
Quixote, English and French literature
and Thackeray. The essays on Macaulay
| and Thackeray are peculiarly brilliant and
wholesome appropriations of two of the
great factors of English literature. OF
Macaulay. Mr. Sedgwick says: ..FIis
whole lie was one eulogy upon plain
speech one continued freedom from make
believe. He never was a pretender'' In
portraying .Thac keray, 1T is refreshing to
note that the essayist stands un SO lustily
j against the latter-day detractions of the
/ author of Vanity Fair, !" whom Steven
I son and Klpling have never as to his
serlocomic style, rivaled, while Thack.
cray always failed in drawing a scene OF
real love and passion. A terrible satiris.
OF society. Thackeray was invited by so.
clety to dinner, as Mr.. Sedgwick saws
I I'm the correct belief that it and Thaclx.
cray agreed at every point Mr.. Sedg.
wick handles boldly the brilliant and dar.
ing D'Annunzio, of whom he says: pan.
nunzio's work is built upon separation
DelWee en- humanity beings knowing goot
i and evil--and art true and terse enough
surely. =" =
Sir A. Conan Doyle did not and coult
not very easily introduce Sherlock
I Holmes in his new story. The Adventure
4 CT Gerard, detailing the experience of Ma
poleonic soldiers in the career Of Briga
4 der Gerard. The book is interesting a
. q probably truthful narrative of a Ma
{ Ipoleonfc fighter, the details being base
upon old memoirs exhumed by the indie
fatigable Sir Conan .
|, Charles q. p. Roberts has won de