Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-12-05
AN AFTERTHOUGHT


Maybe phonograph sets up q tune
they usd to deal out at Magnunson's
roadhouse on the trail-and you hear
that blame lonesome waterfall UP In
keystone canyon calling you as plain
as you hear the photograph! Maybe
you smell something like the sun shin
Ing on snow, all mixed up with tundra
and salt air--nnd there's double quick
action on our eyes and lump in your
throat that won't be swallowed down!
Maybe you see q white mountain. or a
green valley, or a big river. or blue
strait, or a waterfall--and like a flash
your heart opens, and shuts III an
ache for Alaska that stays!
No, l don't know what it Is. but I do
know how ii Is; and so does every other.
poor devil that ever h ard that some
thing calling him that's just Alaska.
1t wakes you up in the middle of the
night, just as plain as If somebody had
said your name out loud. and you just
lay there the rest of the night aching
tc go. I tell you what, If ever a
country had a spirit, it's Alaska; and
when it once gets hold of you aud gets
to calling you to come, you might just
as well get UP and start for it calls
you and follows you. and haunts you
till you do.''-From Alaska: the Great
Country" by ella Higginson.
Tho author OF "Women, ETC." must
have wnown well enough that deli
cate feminine storm would follow IT,
Ito like that. TO one woman it brought
d delicious moment. She is a woman
who has tilted her chin more than once
at Colonel George Harveys SLY discus
sions OF the sex in the North American
Review, and her husband was far from
forgetting 1t when he remarked. II see
Colonel Harvey has written a book
called Women, Etc What do you
suppose he meant by Etc..
II suppose he meant Men" she said
Present literary conditions are very
different from what literary conditions
We're in the days when Edgar Allan Poe
was satisfied to receive q five dollar bill
for one or the best of his grotesque
tales. To avoid any appearance OF lese
majestic, let us begin with the presi-
dent 1t is only a few months ago
that the newspapers were full OF vari-
Gus extraordinary stories on this score.
Sycamore ELL. Oyster Bay. was rep
resented as being violently besieged by
n troop of magazine editors and pub
fishers, who, fired by competition, were
bidding one dollar a word one dollar
and q half a word, two dollars a word,
and even beyond for anything that the
president would write. 1t was said
that one publishing firm had made Mr..
Roosevelt a fiat offer of one hundred
thousand dollars for Il book about his
Forthcoming visit to Europe; and that
another publishing house had bid fifty
thousand dollars for a book on sports
and hunting. While the present writer
is not going to discuss these offers. real
or alleged, there is no question about
the president with his exalted position,
and his dominating personality, having
a really high literary value. At that,
as literary property pure and sim
pie he is very far behind MI. Winston
Churchill Once upon time an in
dustrious person of q statistical turn of
mind figured that four thousand spruce
trees had TO be cut down In order that
"Rchard Carvel'' might be printed.
From the story as a book and from the
ton "Richard Carvel" yielded Mr..
Churchill over 100000. That book was
the greatest individual money winner.
Yet not SO far behind have been '"Tne
Crisis "Conston' and mfr. Crewe's
Career"-From the Authors Full Din
ner Pail by Arthur Bartlett Maurice in
the December Bookman.
The political turmoil in Bulgaria finds
literary echo in the fate of Il Well
remembered novel written by James l..
Ludlow and published by the Harper's
a few years ago-"The Captain OF the
JanIZarics" This story was concerned
with the ld-time uprising in Albania
under Scanderbeg. and because it en-
phazised the career of that grand old
rebel, the Turkish authorities have
been endcaVoring to suppress its circu-
latiun