New-York tribune., 1909-05-02
LITERARY NOTES.

The publication of Mr.. W. D. Howels's new
novel has been postponed and a volume n
tanning two dramatic poems by him has been
substituted. We suppose that the promised
/ novel is that entitled "The Children of the
Summer" book advertised by the Harpers
d study of a Shaker community in the early 7O's
Nine Melba, it is reported, intends, during
I this years professional tour in Australia and
New Zealand to write book about the places
she will visit This book. she expects. Will
agreeably reveal the wonderful possibilities Of
her native country.
Rome Professor G. Ferrero declares that in
many matters the United States is nearer than
Europe to Ancient Rome. Hence, the success of
| ms book IN America Granted; but why, oh
why does Professor Ferrero say that the rec
/ ception the work has received" etc, etc?
In the course of an article in the Paris
! Figaro" Professor Ferrero says that ideaisTn
not materialism. is a note of the American life
! of the period He even thinks that perhaps in
| the old American society there is too much
| idealism. He adds: In the land that Europe
| regards as the home of the practical and utili-
! tartan spirit L was continually meeting people
| who seemed to spend fabulous and an
enormous activity on behalf of chimericaI
| ideals have often asked myself while there
| if America may not be, after all. of the
! most mystic countries of our epoch"
| There is to be a new edition Of HumboIdt's
| Letters to a Friend" a book which was first
published about sixty years ago. This edi-
! the painful fact that these letters, which
written to Charlotte Diede and published
| by her, contain a great number of misrepresen-
| tatons and deliberate forgeries The first edi-
! ton of the book appeared about sixty years
| back The most interesting parts of the
| publication several letters from Humboldt
concerning Goethe, in which he gently banterS
the receiver upon her aversion to the poet and
! especially on her anti-WertheT fanaticism. He
| says: don't believe the tale that have
committed suicide through Werther. One doesn't
| kill ones self for a book; if such were really
h11 N N
| accuse their disordered senses and not the
poet. This and other letters in a similar strain
were suppressed by the first editor, delber-
ately altered. so as to produce quite different
| opinion from that which Humboldt really had
/ OF the poet"
! Pray tell Dickens from me to remember that
| he is still but man, and that however eIated
by this American dedication, he must return to
/ his authropc state. and that he Will find US
YOU and me-good friends but bad idulateTs''
/ Thus wrote sydney smith in an imprinted letter
which has just come to the surface. II was
written after Dickenss first visit to the United
States.
The Empress Eugenie. II is stated by ths
/ London Nation" has spent much time and pains
upon her memoirs. but il is thought TO be doubt
/ ful whether the book will see the light during
! the present generation Now q fragile and de-
/ cate old woman. the Empress evOkes sympathy
! from all who see her. Her face says one Eng
| shman makes me think OF Rudyard KipiinG'5
story. The Gate Of a Hundred Sorrows-"
W T. 4
| and under the title OF THE Perjurer' il Will
! be published in a month two.
In The Philosophy OF f-Hep' &C. T. Put
nam's Sons) MIR. stanton Davis Kirkham offers,
. against the theological dogma of relying upon
another 10 save Us from the effects of sin and
; against the medical dogma of relying upon -
prescription to from the effects of self
indulgence and wrong thinking. what he calls
the Spartan and heroic creed Of sef-reiiance-
Having lost faith in bones ana relics and
"anthrOpomorphic God" must, he tells Us,
sooner or later lose faith in drugs. In a sound
/ philosophy of self-betterment the chief factor
is faith In eternal Principle and in ones self
the normal instrument of divine activities
Ralph COnnOr' (the Rev. Charles W. Cor
| dom, whose tales Of the Northwest have
! reached circulation of million and
half has turned aside from fiction long enough
to write The Life OF James Robertson tF1em-
ing II. ReveH Company. As superintendent of
/ Presbyterian missions in Western Canada. Mr..
| Robertson did exploits that often put to shame
| the tenderfoOt theoOgueS who came from col
/ legc to assist him the frontier. Under his
| direction. during five years, preaching stations
! were established at the rate of week.
! Mr.. Gordon confeSses that much of the material
for his SKY Pilot stories furnished by the
! career of this intrepid missionary.
/ A romantic adventure is Swallowed forth in
/ Dr. 4. r Wallace's just published edition OF
/ the journals of Richard Spruce, the botanist.
/ While in South America. about the middle OF
| the last century, Spruce encountered the old