The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-10-12

Post.
GT1 HE usually genial professor once
II surprised the breakfast table
with the announcement that the
gold has long ago passed out of old
books; nothing but the dross remains. 1t
is statement one finds it as impossible
to subscribe to as would good Doctor
Holmes himself, had he given personal,
not a vicarious, opinion. If it be true of
many old books, many others are yet
like inexhaustible mines of wealth; the
further they are dug into, the richer
grows the deposit Of treasure. Such as
these grow younger with the years, nor
ever get so far away from the present
that lively sympathy with today's ex-
perience is wanting. That this Is, per-
haps, particularly true of the greater
books of the Victorian era is borne In
upon us in 1916 with recollection OF that
certain famous few which first saw the
Light of day exactly SO years ago.
1t was in 1856, for one instance, that
James Anthony Froude gave to the world
tory of England OF the total IL into
which this genuinely great work even
tually expanded four years later, the last
six are taken up with the reign of Eliza
BETH An intimate of Carlyle and intel
lectually much under his influence, it Is
not surprising that F'roude's treatment OF
this potent rulers reign should be that
of dramatic recital rather than of true
historian criticism.
Tx Marvel" who repeatedly disap-
proved of what he regarded as Froude
vicious dabs" at Elizabeth, once said
he preferred in the main, the chess
board royalties of Lewis Carroll to James
AEthony's real ones" and the pronounce
ment falls the more pat today in that 1866
was the highly privileged year which wit
messed the debut of Alice in Wonder
immortal volume originated in series of
stories told by DR.. Dodgson to his par
ticular pet child, Alice Liddell But 1t
was George Macdonald who really gave
u, the "Donderland and Looking
Glass books, for the creator of the
stories had no idea of issuing them till
Doctor Macdonald persuaded him to SUBJ
nit the matter of a publisher. Two
thousand copies went across the coun-
tiers instanter-nor has the sale ever since
ma terialIy decreased. Lewis Carrill
surely may be numbered with those rare
ones who have sounded new note in
literature.
The new fiction of a half a century
back was more interesting than epochal.
Charles Reade, at So. with IA dramas and
as many novel dncluding all of his best
-"Christie tombstone" Hard CASH and
THE Cloister and the Heartily well be-
hind him, offered the public Griffith
Gaunt," which Edwin Arnold thought
.roble' and Swinburne held high for Its
dramatic power, though today has vel
might forgotten it. George Eliot, at A.
with "Middlemarch" and Daniel De-
ronda" still to come then put out her
socialistic Felix Holt" one passage Of
which Frederick Harrison was proud &c
claim. The story was eagerly devoured
BY Sidney Lanier (as he wrote Gibson
Peacock), though the rest Of us are more
apt to concur in McCarthy's dictum cts
decidedly inferior to all the rest') and t
turn back to THE Mill on the Floss" ant
"Silas Mariner" or even "Romola." Will
kic Collins contributed THE Frozer
reep" and "Armadale'' to the u months
output, and here was something more
| v orth reading, for entertainment at least
| One other novelist. to complete an 1856
quartet: r. d. Blackmore, with the i'm
| mortal Lorna Doone" still three year,
away, gave the world "Cradock Novel;.
II among these tales there was not on
| from Stevenson, 1t was not exactly thu
| fe ult of the 16-year-old Edinburgh stu
dent, then beginning to turn unenthusi
astically towards the law, the while Cane
most intellectually racing his imagin
alive pen across white paper. 'Sixty-sl,
| was the year when he wrote his secont
| story, THE Pentland Rising"
| Those Of our grandparents poeticall,
inclined in the sixty-sixth year of tn
| last century received nothing new from
| Tennyson or William Morris. but Swim
| burne offered his Songs and Ballads,
and Christina Rosetti her somewha
teLuous THE Princes Progress" Pal
| grave, his enduring Golden Treasury
having been on sale round five years
now published certain Essays on Art
| while Ruskin put out his Grown of Will,
Olive" and Ethics of the Dust" Hulk
loy's contributions were of even les