New-York tribune., 1908-01-04
BOOKS And AUTHORS.
Current Talk of Things Present
and to Come.

and to come.
Mr. Winston Churchill has been writing
new noveI-has been at work upon it. indeed.
for nearly two years. Its title and its subject
are still buried in the wilds of New Hampshire,
but all will be revealed soon and the book will
be published within few months Let us hope
that it will be careful study of American
character as was ''Coniston."
1t is reiterated concerning the late Lord Kel
vim that he consistently held himself aoof from
all controversies originating in the antagonisms
Of scence and religion In fact, he resoutely re-
fused to admit that religion and science were
antagonstc. He declared in public that
we only know God in His works. and we are
absolutely forced by science to believe with
absolute confidence in Directive Power-in an
influence other than physical dynamical, or
electrical forces
An eminent fellow countryman has said of
him: He has dealt with geologic time and
plutonic forces. but none of these fascinating
and awful problems has ever shaken his faith
in Cod"
One OF the subscription publications of the
past year has been complete edition in five
volumes of The Poems of Madison Cawein.'
This edition (Which has illustrations by Mr.
Eric Pape) is limited to $50 sets. Mr.. Howells,
who was, we believe. the first critic to welcome
Mr. Cawein's productions. praises the poet afresh
in The North American Review:
He has the gift. in a measure that do not think
or commonest thing in nature. and making it live
from the manifold associations in which we have
orr being and glow thereafter with inextin-
guishable beauty His feicities do not sought
with the delight they inlpart through him He has
the inspiration of the right word and the courage
be challenged. you may be revolted, by something
that you might have thought uncouth. you are
presently overcome by the happy bravery of it, and
gladly recognize that other word of those verbal
ssrVise of beauty would at all so well have con
veyed the sense of it as this or that plebean
Mr. Cawein is fortunate in his advocate.
II is said that there is a singular scarcity of
good editions of Robinson Crusoe' in England
and commentator wondering if Defoe's strain
of oId-fas ashioned pety is longer acceptable
concludes that it certainly would not be true
now to say. as Charles Gildon did to Defoe. Not
an old woman who can go the price of it but
buys thy Life and Adventures and leaves it
as a legacy, with The Pilgrims Progress the
Practice of Poetry and Gods Revenge Against
Murther.' to her posterity."
Mr. H. F Browns lately published Studies
in Venetian History is full of picturesque
stories not many of them cheerful as that
which deals with the question of precedence be-
tween Can Grande della Scala and Jacapo Car
rara Of Padua "Carrara and Scala were walking
in garden under the walls Of Padua; they
came to a door too narrow to allow them TO
pass through arm in arm; neither would take
tho nrecedence and the grave matters under
discussion seemed likely to be indefinitely post
poned when a court jester solved the difficulty
Inv CRYING. Let the biggest fool go first; in
etantlv both Ieaped forward to claim that honor
and the obstructing door was cleared
Mrs Edith Wharton in the course of the
motor flight through France which she de-
scribes in the current Atlantic visited Nohant
and the last resting place of another female
novelist:
the graveyard where George Sand and her children
lie under ancient yew reudal even a In 3u1a aa
the tombstone of Maurice Sand as well as the
mons tbH name of Dudevant and asserts a claim
to the barony Strange inconsequence of human
desires that the woman who had made her
pseudonyme illustrious enough TO have 1T assumed
by whole family should eng IN aea no 10 tne Inc
consequent still that the descendant of kings and
The 6n rsht GI to the petty title which
hers since il was never Dudevant's to give!
Seven letters written by Dryden, the poet, to
raoob yonson in the years 16S4-'S7. e.
can+1v sold in London for nearly a thousand
dollars.
4 nromised addition to the New Medieval
library, is a translation into English OF the
rorrteenth century manuscript Of Fra Giovanni
40 Canno entitled The Legend of the Holy
E4pa Virgin OF Santo Geminiano Reproduc-
tions Of the Ghirlandato frescos in the Church
Of san GemigcaEo.
eacond edition Of Mr.. Ralph lie Fevres
.14,s,ory Of New Paltz and Its Old Families
=; an the press This early Huguenot settle
o+ WAS one of the most interesting within
4ho confines of New York and its records are
20 ,,,nch value Mr.. LIE Fevre has gathered
,,,,cb additional information for his second
edition.
In little book of social essays by Lady
Go 20 an anecdote which If not new Is al
Mays amusing;
coc,abiIity toward fellow travellers is certainty
$, british characteristic. On one occasion
,aayer the Duke of n. having got into conpei,
tIan no. with a chance traveller. they were loilso
tar ~. Drke of A. for short distance On Ine
,,ter leaving the carriage tho non-ducaI passehse