Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-10-31
Gossip from the World Of
eooks-Review Of Now
Books - Authors Plan.
for the Season-Notes.

the demand for books which -
shedding light on the military go
tions now going forward, at least nav
nelp us To understand the forces behind
them by making us better acquainted
with the Japanese and the Russians nj
home. Books about travel in tho tw1,
countries are rapidly increasing in
number. Books assuring to piya
thorough-going information, statistics
and so on are also being issued with
greater frequency. Russia is still tho
old reticent Russia, but she is not
quite as reticent as she used to he Ia.
pan Is. up to certain point, extremely
generous to those who go to her for
facts. Mr.. Alfred Stead has even suc-
ceeded in obtaining for his "Japan nv
the Japanese" papers by some of the
most distinguished officials in the land
of the Mikado.
John Davidson has been printinp
some aphorisms in THE Author" call
ing them occurrences" He has a wav
of conveying the impression that h.
takes himself little too seriously.
but we like this specimen of his
critical attitude:
Browning sitting down daily after
breakfast to write so many lines, be-
lieving that he was bound to do so. and
that it was worth doing, That is n
pitiful spectacle: what a grotesque illu-
sion duty can become, Browning is
proper target for criticism, for the
wickedest criticism: he was not writ
ing for a livlihood Think Of it, He
had an independent income, and vet he
wrote, wrote. wrote--Nhat? "SOrdello."
"Fifine at the Fair" prince Hohen-
stieSchWangau." And he hypnotize 1
Il portion of the British public into the
idea that there was something in it,
until in despair they formed society
with apparatus for cracking these nuts
to find them all empty.
1t will surprise nobody to hear that the
japanese go at their reading with as de-
ttmined spirit as at everything else
they are attacking. Mr.. Bolce tells in
the Booklorer's Magazine that in Toxic
the most popular foreign author is
Charles Darwin. This is not mere i'm
preston, but an actual fact, as deter
mined by a voting contest. in which. at
several thousands of citizens engaged.
The educated classes give their days and
nights to the Origin of Species" An
other work which entrances the japanese
mind is the Encyclopaedia Britannica
and Nuttalls Classical Dictionary ha>
reached a circulation over there of more
than half a million copies:
The Japa imperViOuS to western.
humor: even Mark Twain does not al
tract them. Mr.. Lorimer's '.SelfMad.
the one kn of 5ns
quite from business point of view
Baron Shibusawa introduced him after a
visit to the Chicago stock yards. He con-
ceiv"d that this textbook as it appeared
to him. was just the kind of admonition
the :outh of his country needed, and
forthwith recommended the distribution
Of III" Letters" in a Japanese transla
tion. 1t was not long before 20O.Jm copies
were disposed of. and read with sense
of great profit. Not single passage of
this eXcrliciatingly funny book, 50 far as
anybody knows, has upset the gravity OF
Il single Japanese reader.
Now somebody has discovered the
source of Mrs. Humphry Wards new
story. 1.-THE Marriage of William Ashe. "
and the ''originals' of some of its person
ages Lady Caroline Ponsonby was mar
rird in July. 1905. to William Lamb. after
ward the famous Lord Melbourne. They
were from the first an ill-assOrted couple,
ard Mr.. Lamb bore with unaccustomcd
patience the afflction OF his young wife's
tcmIer and other infirmties of character.
When, eight years after their mar
rage. they were puDlclE LduN
Caroline had lived through romance. OF
which Byron was the hero, and had pub
Iishcd her first book. "Glenarvon," still
dimly rcmembe, ed for its portrayal of
Ryron. The cynical poet admitted that
he 81, briefly. for the portrait. The
troubles between Lamb and his wife were
adjusted after this. and they lived to-
pethcr fitfully a dozen years longer. She
wrote other novels and poems. and her
later books were full of moraliZing. In
lS.5 she and Lamb were legally separated
see her o3ice more before she died. in ISIS.
If Mrs. Ward has really used Lady Caro-
line as model, and woven some incidents
of her career i'm the plot, in writing her
new novel (Which by the way promises to
equal Lady Roses Daughter in popu-
larity, j she is not the first novelist to be
attracted by the romance of Lady Caro-
lire Lamb. Bulwer is said to have mod
| elled several of his personages upon this
lady. whom he knew well in his Younger
days Disraeli is known to have pOr-
| trayed Lady Caroline as Mrs. Felix l.or-
! raine in Vivian Grey" There IS no rea-
son in the world why Mrs. Humphry
Ward should not put to use in fiction the
cxDeriences of person who have been ia
NOUS in real life. There is no poet in
| '.'The Marriage of William Ashe. but his
place is taken by an explorer. Nor is the
.aro hangcls." in which Lady Kitty and
Godfrey Cliffe and that rising statesman
William Ashe. move. exactly the same
London fashionable world of the
which Lady Caroline. George Gordon
Pvrcn. and that rising statesman. Will
liam Lamb moved. Mrs. Ward has
chosen later epoch for her novel-New
York Lines