freight. He wrote in reply: "Dear Sir: I observe that you spell which' with a 't.' Yours truly."

Mayor Gaynor, who in his hours of relaxation reads the Discourses, Encheiridion, and Fragments of Epictetus, and thus learns valuable lessons in private and public conduct, writes many letters, in fact he has been dubbed, The Complete Letter Writer." Perhaps his epistles do not have the charm of Mme de Sévigné's correspondence, the sparkle of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters, the malice of Horace Walpole or the urbanity of Lord Chesterfield, yet they are generally lucid, incisive, unmistakable. His remark about the abuse of adjectives may well be pondered by writers, young and old. Was it William Cobbett, that master of sinewy English, who said: "When a man comes to his adjectives I tremble for him"? One that uses adjectives loosely and thinks that every noun should be accompanied by a descriptive word may not be insincere, but his style loses force, the adjective often lessens the strength of the noun, the diction is slovenly.

It is said that Kinglake, writing his "Invasion of the Crimea," left each morning blank spaces for adjectives. He then rode horseback and thought as he rode. Returning, he filled the spaces. Yet Kinglake's style is prolix and often sophomorically rhetorical. It would have been better if he had written out his adjectives in the first draught and then done heroic surgery.

Farley of Simmons College, is the latest English grammar, and perhaps the best. It treats with unusual thoroughness the use of "shall" and "will," "should" and " would," the infinitive and the infinitive clause, conditional sentences, indirect discourse, and the combination of clauses in sentences of different kinds. The sentences used throughout the work as examples are taken from standard English and American writers, and the book is peculiarly fitted for use as a reference book in connection with work in English literature and in composition and rhetoric. Old usages found in the classic English writers are cited and explained in notes throughout the text.

LILT OF THE BIRDS. By Emile Pickhardt. Illus trated. 19 pp. Cloth. Boston: Sherman, French, & Co. 1912.

This attractive volume contains a score of bird poems, with illustrations, in which bird lovers will take delight. Mr. Pickhardt's verse is distinguished by poetic fancy and facility of expression which give it special charm.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies of the periodicals containing the articles mentioned in the following reference list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER.]

LETTERS OF WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY. Edited by Daniel Gregory Mason. Atlantic for August. COMMON SENSE IN PRONUNCIATION. Robert J. Menner. Atlantic for August.

WHAT MAKES A STORY GREAT. A Maurice Low. Harper's Magazine for August.

THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE. (A story). William Dean Howells. Harper's Magazine for August. ⚫ ENGLAND'S NEW DRAMATISTS. P. P. Howe. North American Review for August.

CORRESPONDENCE OF NIETZSCHE AND STRINDBERG. Herman Scheffauer. North American Review for August.

ROMAIN ROLLAND, AUTHOR OF "JEAN-CHRISTOFHE." With portrait. Alvan F. Sanborn. Century

A REMEMPRANCE OF GEORGE ELIOT. Mrs. W. K. Clifford. Nineteenth Century for July. JOHN MILTON. Henry Newbolt. English Review for July.

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF NIETZSCHE WITH BRANDES. Translated by Beatrice Marshall. English Review for July.

WRITING PLAYS. Arnold Bennett. English Review for July.

TRAILING BRET HARTE BY MOTOR. Peter B. Kyne. Sunset, Pacific Monthly for July.

THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. David Marvin Key. Methodist Review for July.

A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN JOURNALISM. Mrs. Juliet Strauss. National Printer-Journalist for July. SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE EDITOR. Charles J. Downer. National Printer-Journalist for July.

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO. E. S. Romero-Todesco. Author (London) for July.

THE LETTERS OF AN ORDINARY AUTHOR. Collected and edited by John Haslette. Author (London) for July.

A SAD AGREEMENT. Author (London) for July. ALFRED AUSTIN. Author (London) for July. LORD AVEBURY. Author (London) for July. RABINDRANATH TAGORE, INDIA'S GREATEST LIVING POET. With frontispiece portrait. Basanta Koomar Roy. Open Court for July.

FROM POETRY TO PROSE. Richard Burton. Bellman for July 5.

BARRIE AND THE BARONETCY. Richard Burton. Bellman for July 12.

A HAPPY CHOICE FOR LAUREATE. Bellman for July 19.

LITERARY DIPLOMATS. Richard Burton. Bellman for July 19.

A POET OF THE I. W. W. (Arturo M. Giovannitti). Outlook for July 5.

GOING THROUGH THE NEWSPAPER MILL. Roy S.
Outlook for July 5.

Durstine.

POETRY AND THE SCHOOL. Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer. Outlook for July 5.

POETRY AND THE HOME. Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Outlook for July 12.

THE LAUREATESHIP. Reprinted from the London Times in the Living Age for July 12.

THE FORTUNES OF CITIZEN CREEL (George Creel). With portrait. Peter Clark Macfarlane. Collier's

for July 19.

127

Dr. Paul S. Reinsch, of the University of Wisconsin, has been named as minister to China.

Frederic Courtland Penfield has been named as ambassador to Austria-Hungary.

Included in the new British civil list pensions are six hundred dollars a year to Arthur Symons, in consideration of the merit of his writings and the breakdown of his health; an annuity of three hundred and seventy-five dollars to Miss Charlotte McCarthy in consideration of the services to literature of her father, the late Justin McCarthy, M. P., and her inadequate means of support; and to Mrs. Jacinta Leigh Hunt Cheltnam, daughter of the late Leight Hunt, an annuity of two hundred and fifty dollars for similar reasons.

Five unpublished poems of Emily Brontë have been sold in London for nearly $200. The three Brontë sisters once published a volume of poems. The trade returns at the end of a year showed that two copies had been sold, and the remainder of the edition. was then given away to friends.

Lord Halsbury at the age of eighty-seven is undertaking the general editorship of "The English Digest," a new work in which the whole case law of England, from early times to the present day, will be given in twenty-four volumes of from 800 to 900 pages each. For several years Lord Halsbury has been editing another work, "The Laws of England," in twenty-eight volumes.

"The American Drama," a study of the pure native growth of recent years, by Richard Burton, will be published by the T. Y. Crowell Co., in September.

"The Adventures of a Newspaper Man," by Frank Dilmot, is published by E. P. Dutton & Co.

Routledge will have ready in the autumn "A Dictionary of Universal Biography," by Albert M. Hyamson. There will be about a quarter of a million brief entries.

John Lane has in press a biography of Trollope by T. H. Escott, who was a personal friend of the novelist, and has collected much material from others who knew Trollope well.

"The Youth of Goethe," by P. Hume Brown, is published by E. P. Dutton & Co. "Swinburne : An Estimate," by Professor Drinkwater, is published by E.. P. Dutton & Co.

The editor of the Associated Sunday Magazines (New York) wants traveling men to tell their own stories of the triumphs and tragedies, the problems and philosophies, of their everyday life and says: "We are willing to pay $100 in prizes to traveling men every two weeks as follows: Twenty-five dollars for the best contribution; twenty dollars for the second best; fifteen dollars for the third best; ten dollars to two dollars for all others accepted." Manuscripts are limited to one thousand words.

The largest literary prize on record is to be awarded at St. Petersburg in 1925. The prize amounts to $1,540,000 and it is to be given for the best history in any language dealing with the Czar Alexander I. In 1833 Alexander's most loyal helper, Araktcheef, deposited 50,000 rubles ($25,000) in the Bank of St. Petersburg to be left at compound interest for ninety-two years for this award. A quarter of the sum is to be used in printing the winning manuscript and translating it into various languages and rewarding the next best work with a consolation prize. The winner will thus get well over $1,000,000.

L. A. Rankin & Co., 372 Boylston street, Boston, are going to publish a magazine for girls.

New York has a new magazine called the Bible Champion and published by the Bible League of America, with Rev. Dr. Jay Benson Hamilton as editor, its object being to rekindle faith in the old Bible stories.

Rev. Herbert B. Gwyn has resigned as editor of the Churchman, and Rev. Charles K. Gilbert, secretary of the New York Diocese Social Service Commission, will take charge of the paper for the present.

Charles Dwyer, for seven years editor of the Ladies' World, will become editor of the Woman's World (Chicago) September I. Herbert Kaufman will continue his editorial contributions.

Arthur Page, son of Ambassador Walter H. Page, has succeeded his father as the editor of the World's Work, and has also taken over the work laid down by the late Henry Peyton Steger as literary executor of O. Henry.

August Harold Hedge will relinquish the editorship of the London Saturday Review at the end of this month, and its chief proprietor, Hon. Gervase Beckett, M. P., will become editor-in-chief, with the assistance of George A. B. Dewar as literary editor. Little Folks and the Children's Magazine (Salem, Mass.) have been combined.

The Chautauquan has become a weekly publication. The first number in the month will be devoted to magazine features, while the other three will be of the ordinary weekly nature.

The offices of Good Housekeeping, Hearst's, the Cosmopolitan, and Harper's Bazar have been removed from 381 Fourth avenue to 119 West 40th street, New York.

The Caxton Society, Incorporated, publishers of the Caxton Magazine and books, at Chatham, N. Y., has filed a petition in bankruptcy with liabilities of $24,961, of which $17.143 are secured and $375 for salaries, and nominal assets of $42,674, including cash in bank, three dollars.

New light on William Vaughan Moody is shed by the letters from him to Daniel Gregory Mason, published in the Atlantic Monthly for August.

Mr. Howells, in the " Study Chair" in Harper's Magazine for August, makes it clear that he deems the note of idealism to be far less dominant in national literature now than it was when he was a youth.

The Red Book (Chicago) adds thirtytwo pages of reading matter with its August issue, and will now contain 208 pages in each number.

The estate of Alfred Austin amounts to $10,490.

Henri Rochefort died at Aix-les-Bains July 1, aged eighty-two.

Professor John Milne died at Newport, Isle of Wight, July 31, aged sixty-three.

VOL. XXV.

David Graham Phillips, a most virile writer, avoids description almost entirely in some of his stories; in others he uses it freely. Making a study of the descriptive portions, phrases, and sentences from "The Bribe," published in the Cosmopolitan for January, 1911, I found that they contained a thousand words, about one-sixth of the total number in the story. But such descriptions!

Only a very few brief phrases have to do with merely physical characteristics, and certain significance: even these have a

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No. 9.

"small

"strong features," a small man," eyes," 'small face," "a little man," "development of the forehead," "shining eyes," these are all.

Almost all the pure description is devoted to expressions of countenance. The following are examples: "Loungers with eager and mean curiosity in their facesthe expression in the faces of the circle around a dog worrying a rat to death." "A small, slouchy man with a terrier face and small eyes, wicked but humorous and good-natured. He went toward young Senator Clarke with a grin of amused and cruel pleasure on his small, intensely energetic face. This expression changed to affable, faintly respectful kindliness as he stood beside the young man stood where Clarke might see."

This last sentence affords an illustration of another peculiarity of these descriptions — their merging into narration. Often and often is change of expression noted, sometimes briefly, sometimes exhaustively:

A curious interweaving of narration and description Occurs when description is wrought of relating effects which are complished: "So madly in love with her that every one who saw them together knew it." Could there be a more vivid description? "They were shining, intensely alive eyes. As she looked at him, welcoming him so dazzlingly, the expression of shamed, self-despising vacillation rehis face." "Clarke looked

turned to

James Lane Allen, at work in Boston this summer, foretells an expansion of American periodical literature, and scouts Ambassador Page's idea that a shrinkage is either imminent or desirable. As for the recent changes in the staff and management of many New York periodicals, he finds them but natural in the life history of any monthly or weekly. "A magazine simply dies of old age on account of laws which we cannot reach," says Dr. Allen. The fact that a number of such deaths have occurred of late he takes as evidence that American periodicals are in a state of transition. They are adjusting themselves to the developing standards of the reading public. Soon they will emerge, more numerous, better suited to the needs of the age, and endowed with the vigor of a new birth.

Mr. Allen is “working,” not “living." in an ivy-grown house on Newbury street. There the interviewer sought him out. The leading topic for the interview the author chose himself - the relations of authors to the newspaper critics of authors.

"The subject is of great importance," he premised, “both to the large body of workers trying to produce American literature, and to that other immense body of workers organized to make known the value of it to a vast public. Here, first, is a body of creative workers who are in large measure perfectly sincere. very serious, and intent upon doing their best, whatever that best may be. The results of their labor

"Authors cannot live on anything but sympathies, nor does any other human being, doing any other work, live on anything but sympathy in what he does. So that you may put down all the sympathies that pass over from the critics to the writers as the foremost vital and absolutely indispensable influence on the creative workers and on the literature of their time. "Consider what is the channel this influence takes. An author puts out a book. His publishers distribute it broadcast to the leading newspaper offices of our entire literary world. In each office is a critic. Within three months, at most, the verdict of every critic in the land has reached the