Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-06-16
The Library Table
BY THE BOOKLOVER-

author and his lovers that the lraS-
ment should be allowed to remain
| fragment. Well meant efforts on the
part Of literary executors to finish
the work are usually unsatisfactory
from the standpoint of the discrimi-
| mating reader. Better a fine torso
than a poorly restored statue. Per-
i sonally. / have never ceased to feel
poignant regret that the novel which
Stevenson judged the best he had
ever written. and on which he wrote
hard all the morning Of the last day
! Of his life-"Weir of Hermiston"-
could not have been finished before
that bursting blood vessel ended the
heroic life. / have always been glad.
however. that neither Mrs. stevenson
| nor"Lloyd Osbourne nor Sidney Colvin
attempted to tamper with the inter-
rupted story, but that 1T was pub
! lished as 1t stood, with the addition
of only a summary OF Stevenson's
| plan for the ending. Sir Arthur Quill
ler-Couch was not so confederate with
Stevenson's other unfinished novel,
est. Ives" which he completed. with
fair degree of success.
famous case of an unfinished novel,
| left as the author dropped it. Some
years ago an appropriate ending for
the novel was made the subject of
| mock trial. in which a number of ia
nous British authors took part.
among them Bernard Shaw and CT. K.
Chesterton. Mrs, Gaskell died sud
denly, while her novel, Wives and
Daughters" was running serially in
the Cornhill Magazine. Her daugh-
ters Indignantly refused to finish 1t,
though they gave information con-
corning their mothers intended de-
nCuement.
Recently an unfinished novel of
Jane Austen, "The Watsons" has
been published, with a conclusion
! written by Miss L. Oulton. The pub
fishers have declared that members
of the Austen family cannot distin-
guish Miss buttons work from Jane
Austen's; but Edmund Gosse says
that he has mo difficulty whatever in
discovering the place where the d.
vine author dropped her work"
Pasteur's name is inseparably as
ISOLATED in most minds with cure
| for hydrophobia, but few people re-
member, or perhaps know, that Louis
| Rasteur also made valuable re-
| searches and discoveries in connec-
! ton with the prevention of tubercu-
| losis. the germ Of diphtheria, the an
! thrax bacillus and chicken cholera.
\ These researches are described in
most interesting manner in The Life
/ of Pasteur," by Rene Vallery-Radot,
| translated into English by Mrs. r. l..
! DeYonshire, with an introduction by
/ Sir William Osler. This biography,
! reissued in connection with the CEN
tennial of the great French scientist,
| is enlivened by various anecdotes of
Pasteur. About 1870 he announced
that the beer produced by practically
all of the great breweries, including
those of Strasburg. Nancy, Vienna,
and most of the British breweries.
was diseased. He found samples of the
most famous beersto contain poisonous
ferments and to be lacking in sur
gical cleanliness" The brewers were
at first indignant but Pasteur soon
convinced them that it would pay
them to make pure beer and showed
them how TO do it. Pasteur was him
lself most scrupulous in trying to avoid
germs. 1t is said that he always
ldipped his grapes in a glass of water
before eating them, but sometimes
| forgot and afterward drank the wa
ter. Whether at home or a guest in
another's house, he invariably wiped
| his plate and glass before using
+, them.
Upton Sinclair, the socialist author,
who in novels and other books has
shown up" various sore spots on the
| body polite, has broken loose again.
Years ago it was the Chicago stock
yards whose vileness was portrayed
| in 1.-THE Jungle."~ More recently the
! cruelties of the Colorado coal mine
| strike were revealed in King Coal"
| The shams of religion he exposed in
| The Profits of Religion" The venal-
! ity and subserviency of the American
| press were proved, at least to his sat
| isfaction, in THE Brass Check" The
great crying scandal of the present
according to Sinclair-is the control
| of our universities by great wealth.
| All this he sets forth in THE Goose
! Step" Sinclair's thesis is this; Our
| educational system is not public
! service; its purpose is not to further
! the welfare of mankind, but merely
! to keep America capitalist" In an
other place he says: Our six hum
dred thousand young people are being
/ taught, deliberately and of set pur-
pose not wisdom but folly; not JUS
| tice, but greed; not freedom. but slav-
cry: not love, but hate" Some Of his
| lurid chapter headings are: THE
| University of the House of Morgan
| (Columbia); THE University of Lee
! Higginson" (Harvard); The Cniver-
sity of L. G. l. (Pennsylvania): The
| University of Standard Oil' (Chica-
! go): The University of the Black
nearly 500 pages to tell of the enor-
| mites of university education and
| ends by promising second volume
! dealing with the public schools and
| to be entitled THE Goslings."
! x X X
| A biography of Mrs. Humphrey
! Ward has been prepared by her
! daughter, Mrs. George Trevelyan, who
is related by marriage to Macaulay
and the younger Trevelyan. Mrs.
Humphry Ward was prominent fig
| ure in English literary and social
circles for more than two generations,
and her biography should be an ex-
tremely interesting one. The book is
to be published in the fall.
The best SMILES for the past year
| have been selected by Frank ]. Will
| stach, editor of Dictionary of
Smiles" The crop for 1922 was, it
appears, an abundant one. Mr.. Will
stach, who is the acknowledged ex-
| pert in this line, has chosen those
which seemed to him to be best in
point of piquancy and sententious-
| ness. Here are a few selected from
his long list:
The human mind should be like a
| good hotel-open the year around
/ william Lyon Phelps.
! Dull as duty.-Don Marquis.
| Different as grape juice and vodka.
katherine Fullerton Gerould.
Subtle as the tapping of pile
Understanding Pollock.
| Grave. but satisfied, like a widow
! er-Gordon Arthur Smith.