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

OF the difficulty with which celebrities
escape the lure of the Woman's club
lecture committee, Madison Cawein tho
Kentucky poet, whose works are be-
ing brought out in a fivc-voume limited
edition de luxe by mall, Maynard &
Co, tells a good story ut the expense
Of Percy Mackaye. the playwright. The
chairman of the committee of Chicago
Woman's club about year ago wrote
to Mr. Mackaye, asking him to lecture
before the members. The proposal was
startling to the drama.ist, who consult.
ed q friend as to graceful modes of
destinations. The most business-like
way" said this friend, who happened
to be an editor, is to put your price
so high that they won't be able to ac-
cept. Make it $500 a lecture" MI.
Mackaye wrote a proposition to that
effect only to receive Il telegram. Come
at once, He went, delivered, as best
( he could, two lectures, and thereupon
had to entertain a proposition for three
more. AS Mr. Cawen Observes 1T is
hard to get ahead of the good women
who alone make art and literature pos
$sible in this country"
"Thc Witching Hour is not midnight
after all, il we are to believe Augustus
Thomas, whose novel from his play the
Harpers have just published; 1t is
O'Clock in the morning. In both play
and novel thet hour that the clock
strikes is 22,&and 2 1t is also in the lit
tie stanza from Bret Harte which rises
to the lips of the stately old judge as
he muses. on his first boyish sweetheart:
'.s.'-And over since then, when the clock
e4.f strikes two,
She walks unbdden from room to
room.
And the air is filled that she passes
through
With a subtle, sad perfume.
The delicate odor of mignonette
The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet,
is all that tells OF her story-yet
Could she think of a. sweeter Way?' y
Even an editor may sometimes be.
moved to enthusiasm, as witness the
following letter Which the publishers of
IONA Gales Friendship Village have
just received from the editor of a pro-
Ininent weekly journal: Il have just
finished reading one of your recent cub
LEGATIONS, Friendship Village by IONA
Gale. and cannot refrain from telling
you how charmed and delighted ] have
been with it. IN its humor, its quaint
ness, its tender pathos, its deep look
into the inner things of life. its de-
plcting OF the good home peoI le, its
utter wholesomeness, ] have not read
anything that surpassed It in many
years. l have already given my order
for several copies to be used about
Christmas time, but ! am afraid | will
have to so back for more. hope the
book will have very wide circulation.
Unlike so much OF the fiction of today,
it leaves a good taste in ones monuth.'
II women really are, as they are said
to be, the greatest readers of stories
that describe Illicit love-. they ought to
be diverted by the case for Gilbert
Neal a Harper novel of the triangle"
order, which an opposing member of
their sex presents with a Kind of fierce
nnivete
I've cannot says this lady in the
current Independent. deny that it is
one of MI. Harben's best stories. The.
characters in 1t are as real as the earth.
And the moral in the tale il as honely
as righteousness usually is when it has
been bred in the simple hearts of a few
decent but unfashionable folk. Yet it is
impossible to give the reader the most
interesting features Of the story, be-
cause they are SO scand:ilously impro-
per II the author had clothed them
With the moral phrasing used by the
most advanced writer's of indecent fic-
ton we might have managed to dis
cuss the delicate details of the sin i'll
the story, but he has written it all out
with kind of staring simplicity. as If
he had just seen right and wrong turn
ed out of the Garden Of Eden without