The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-07

"he has. simply gone into retreat in Ja- pan, possibly in some Tokio suburb" MT. Hearn has been living in Japan, most of has always avoided European and Amer ican travellers, and some years ago be- came a Japanese subject. Mir. Scidmore tells few anecdotes of MT. Hearn's brusqueness and eccentricity. Probably his Boston publishers find him much like other authors.-From New York Times.
 Mir. Fafcadio Hearn is well known to Southern readers. For many years he was on the staff of The New Orleans Times-Democrat. and it was his exquis- ite work on that paper that first drew to him the eyes of the world.
 Gertrude Atherton in The Bookman, writes: Personally have never met anybody who has read the huge successes of recent years, and all my friends and acquaintances appear to have had some experience"
 Who are the hundred thousand people who read the popular novel? If it were not for the advertisements that are to be read of all men, one would ask who are the publishers who bring out the popular books, for every pub fisher says how greatly preferable Is an SuCCcSS tU d HlcES pOpuldT Utlc-
 Wallace Irwin in Ballade Of Sour Grapes in Bookman pertinently states the case: 9A,' Oft do strive with god-like toll ' On clear. Parnassian heights to dwell. While Smith, the author, keen for spoil, Cooper'te novels just to sell, His work is drivel, wot we'll,
 But still his mill grinds golden grist The while his sales to millions swell The poor. successful novelist! Public. would such luck befell
 That my fair genius I might trust Like him who claims your x l. The poor, successful novelist!
 American and English Pronunciation
 Perhaps 1t may be said that the Ameri- can who takes care of his pronuncia- tion takes more care than the careful Englishman. He-perhaps "she" would be more exact-has more consciousness of education; but consciousness of education is not the trick of education. He thinks the Enlglish speaker is slovenly in drop ping the in white, and prcno1fices, it carefully transposing it so that it begins the word. Most Englishmen treat 1t as a mute, but not through negligence. Aad
 
 to us seems i'll done. because the word s French, and in French its h is mute. Un- English, too, is the phrase Write me (without the accusatfve letter.. It must he owned that this sounds Ill to us (al- belt am told 1t has become usual here also in letters of affairs): but 1t seems 10 be the invariable form on the other side of the ocan. There is assuredly nothing w ong with it except novelty. We make no difficulty of Write me a letter, and yet Write me by return post we cannot abide. Why not? Me in our monotonous language is as good a dative as 1t is an accusative. so that grammar Is not out ragged; and this obviously we acknowl- edge by our Write me letter, Give me a book, and Sing me a song. American ears are aware of the universal English manner of pronouncing stupid if one may judge by the fact that the most vigil1.lt of writers, Mir. Howells. mimics the spech of an English woman by printing styoupid. But few English ears seem to detect that Americans generally call their city Moo York.-Alice Meynell, in Harper's Magazine for February.