The San Francisco call., 1905-06-07
HOME OF POET
WILL Be SOLD.
Tennyson Estate in England
Placed Oh the Market and
Now Awaits a. Purchaser
DOYLE WITTY SPEAKER
Works of Jerome K. Jerome
Are Widely Circulated and
Read in Russian Empire
DOYLE WITTY SPEAKER
Special Dispatch to The Call.


which Alfred Tennyson was born and
brought up. and which has just been Of
fered for sale His fathers old rectory,
where the poet first saw the light, is still
standing on the estate, almostS every part
of which is associated with Tennysons s
work. The rectory itself Is rambling
old-world place, and the room in which
Tennyson was born overrooks the church.
probably THE Gods House" of THE Two
Voices" where his father officiated. The
garden is full of associations of I'm Me-
moriam, though the trees are not as they
were in Tennysons time, "the towering
sycamores' and 1.-The poplars four" hav-
ing disappeared. An old grange, the re-
puted residence of ''the Northern Farm
err stands close to the rectory, SO close
indeed that the young Tennyson, by
reaching out of one of the rectory win
dows. found himself able to steal apple
tarts from the pantry of the oranges
tenant, a worthy man named Barber
Not far from Somersby is 1.-The brook
that swerves to left and right thro'
meadowy curves passing in its course
three mills, one Of which probably sug-
gested certain points in the landscape of
'tThe Miller's Daughter" This stream is
also Tennyson's famous brook that went
on forever" On the estate, too, there is
which is called 'Holywell Glen Here
Tennyson wrote Byron is Dead" The
place is, not improbably 1.-The dreadful
hollow which ''grinds and clangs its leaf
less ribs and iron horns" and appeals to
readers of Maud Not far distant away
is Mablethorpe. possibly the Lovers
Bay mentioned in The Golden Supper"
and the seaside resort where Tennyson for
the first time saw tine hollow ocean
rid inf re
Tennyson was born at Somersby in 1909
and lived there for the first twenty weight
years of his life, almost UP to the time
when he became famous. 1t is felt that
the place should be national possession.
CONAN DOYLE AS A WIT.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is known to be
busy with new work, although all at
tempts 70 make him tell anything about it
have proved futile. The author of "Sher-
lock Holmes has found time, however, to
attend one or two big dinners lately,
notably that of the Royal Medical Society
this week, at which he made a particu-
larly happy speech.
Sir Arthur responded to the toast Lit
erature, and said that he owed that
honor to the fact that he was a medical
man. 1t was true that some unkind
critic had remarked that in spite of that
fact no living patient of his had ever been
seen Some authority had lately been
treating the writers of fiction from legal
point of view and examining their law.
He came to the conclusion that the law
of the novelist was even more strange
and more uncertain, If possible than the
law with which we were familiar. One
aphorism al which that authority arrived
was that if a man died intestate, the
property went to the nearest villain. But
if the law of the novelist was strange, he
thought they would admit that his medi-
cine was equally so. They only recog-
nized in his branch of literature certain
diseases. and all those diseases were of
the upper part OF the body. The novelist
never hit below the belt. They had not
long list of ailments, and their treatment
was strangely simple.
One disease which was useful to nov
elists was fits" They did not descend
to petty details as to whether it was
an apoplectic or an epileptic fit which
eventually carried off the heavy and
stertorous father. That was a secret
between themselves and their con-
sciences. AS they were described, they
might sometimes be either or both
Suffice it that he fell down in a fit,
usually with a pen in his hand and in
front of an unsigned will. 1t was d
very vague fit. but it was opportune
and it was exceedingly effective.
Dr. Doyle continued that for some
reason gout was always treated by the
romancer as semi-comic disease,
which tended to prove that the novel
ist had not himself suffered from it.
The gouty and irascible baronet was
one of their most necessary properties
He was sure he had every reason TO be
irascible If the readers laughter was
invited for his most painful and seri-
GUS malady Nobody at their hands
had ever suffered from mumps or from
sore throat or nettlerash. If they hit
at all, they hit hard Then as to their
doctors: They varied from the village
practitioner, whose treatment appeared
to be a slap on the shoulder and
merry twinkle through his glasses, to
that a member of the upper hierarchy
who came down. said nothing, shook
his head and then, with a large fee in
his pocket, returned again to the upper
regions
RUSSIANS ENJOY JEROME.
OF present day English writer's by
far the most esteemed in Russia is
Jerome X Jerome Hardly have this
hunlorfsts books appeared in English
than they are reprinted into the Sav
tongue. The thing, however, does not
make Jerome entirely happy, for with
rare exceptions these Russian versions
gets not a penny from them. Most of
them, In fact, are issued in happy-go-
lucky fashion by several publishers at
once.
This information comes from the
Russian correspondent of the Author"
the official organ Of the British Au-
thors' Society. who goes on to say that
out of about a hundred millions of
people who can speak Russian not more
than twenty millions can be taken
into account as readers of books and
1t seems that in Poland
the profits on books are especially
small This writer says that in all
two of Barrie's novels have
brought him larger profits than all
put together yielded to
him, or indeed the combined publica-
tions of any other five leading popular