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Eton and later at Oxford Mr. Bridges was noted for his scholarship, but he found time to distinguish himself in athletics. He was an enthusiastic cricketer and oarsman. 1867 he was placed in the second class in the final school of literae humaniores. After leaving the university he spent a number of years in foreign travel, familiarizing himself with life on the continent and in the far East. On his return to London he became a student of medicine at St. Bartholomew's hospital, receiving in due course the degree of M. B. at Oxford. He then began the practice of his profession, being regularly attached to the staff at St. Bartholomew's hospital and of the Children's hospital in Great Ormonde street. Retiring from practice in 1882 he married and left London for his beautiful rural estate at Yattendon in Berkshire. Since that time he has devoted himseif exclusively to literature, and particularly to poetry. -- Chicago Tribune.

Case. The poem beginning, "There is no unbelief," which has been credited to Kingsley, Mrs. Browning, and other authors, was written by Mrs. Lizzie York Case, who is now living in Baltimore. Mrs. Case is by religious faith a Friend, and has spent a good part of her life in work for the daily press. She was for some time on the staff of the Detroit Free Press, and in that paper twenty-eight years ago printed the poem.

The Free Press printed August 1, 1905, the author's own statement, a part of which follows:

This poem of mine, which for twentyseven years has been accredited to BulwerLytton, Charles Kingsley, and Mrs. Browning, not to mention a dozen others, was written by me in a moment of emotional turmoil compounded of resentment against dogmatic intolerance and enthusiasm for a larger, nobler belief.

"It happened this way: One morning about twenty-seven years ago I was breakfasting with a very zealous young clergyman whose ironclad orthodoxy permitted of no compromise. He questioned me as to my religious belief. I answered that I had inherited a creed, that I had clung to the faith

of my fathers - I was a Quakeress, a Friend. "Then,' answered the pious young shepherd of souls, 'you are an unbeliever and will be damned.'

"I'm not afraid of that,' I answered, 'for there is no unbelief. The thing is unthinkable. I believe in everything that is good and beautiful and true; in God and man and nature, in love and life and joy.'

"That night I slept fretfully. The young zealot's words haunted and worried me. In hot refutation of his arrogant summary of a belief that did not coincide with his, the verses were born. That is the only way I can explain their being.

"I was living in Detroit at the time and contributing a weekly article to the Free Press. But the next morning, instead of preparing my regular stipulation. I dashed off the poem that had been framing in my mind all night. The Free Press published it, and soon after letters came pouring in to me from all over the country thanking me for the verses, and for the consolation that had been induced in many cases by them."

De Morgan. - The New York Times tells again the story of William De Morgan's debut as a novelist at the age of sixty-five. He is an expert in ceramics, having devoted thirty years of his life to the study and practical application of the art. "De Morgan tiles." as they are termed, have a peculiar finish and lustre, and are much sought after for the best English houses. He is also the inventor of a duplex bicycle, and an effective sieve, as well as a smoke-consuming fire grate. At sixty-four years of age Mr. De Morgan wrote the first chapter of "Joseph Vance," and a year later, at the solicitation of his wife, he finished the novel and sent it to a publisher. It was rejected. It was written out in longhand. A manuscript of 280,000 words must have seemed appalling to the publisher's Reader, and it was suggested to De Morgan that the manuscript might have a better chance to be read if it was typewritten. The work was put into the hands of an intelligent woman, and she was soon complaining that the girls employed in her office were reading the manuscript and

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crying over it, instead of copying it. She told this unusual experience to a publisher, and "Joseph Vance" soon afterward was issued and made a great success. Alice for Short," written mainly in 1906, was published in 1907, and Somehow Good," written in 1907, was published in 1908. "It Never Can Happen Again" was published in 1909, “An Affair of Dishonor" in 1910, and "A Likely Story" in 1912. Mr. De Morgan spends much of his time in Florence, Italy, and when in England lives in Chelsea. His wife is a distinguished painter.

Jacobs. "I hate work of any description whatever," W. W. Jacobs said. "The 'Night Watchman - one of the most humorous characters" has not raised a laugh from me for ten years, and I'm quite certain he never will again. At the same time, not a single one of the characters in my more serious work has been able to awaken in me the slightest start of horror. All that concerns me is the checks they bring me, and in consequence, the additional number of hours of idleness I can allow myself.

"There is, I am afraid, a lot of nonsense talked about the average literary man and his work. An author must 'live' his characters, many persons contend. As a matter of fact, to be a good craftsman is all that is required; and the writer's happiness consists of two things; first, sending the finished article and knowing that it is a winner; and, second, making use of the check it brings. It is this love of loafing that has led choose Loughton"- Epping Forest- as my home. I can potter about there to my heart's content, troubling little about anything except myself and my family." London Special, in New York Trib

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Meredith. Talking with Constantin Photiades in September, 1911, George Meredith said :

The press has often treated me as a clown or a harlequin- yes, really! And with such little respect that my fellow citizens can scarcely put up with me. Do not cry out! Certainly at this late hour they

accord me a little glory; my name is celebrated, but no one reads my books. As for Englishmen, I put them to flight because I bore them. With regard to foreigners I Iam but an illustrious unknown. Think! All my poems were, until 1896, published at my own expense ! "I continue to write, despite the prevailing indifference to my work, it is because certain magazines, notably Scribner's Magazine of America, pay me liberally for my contributions. My contemporaries here know nothing of it. Lately I gave a poem to the Oxford and Cambridge Review". "The Call," I interrupted "What! you have read it?" he asked. You are the first person who has spoken of it to me. I hoped that my poetic warning would be of use to my country. Ah, well! It has passed unnoticed. No, my countrymen do not value me, believe me! at the most they will appreciate me after my death."

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Sienkiewicz.-"All my novels and nearly all my other works have been written from day to day," said Henry Sienkiewicz, "each page going straight to the printer when finished. Writing in that way I have always had to finish what I began. But I do not recommend this method to beginners, for it is inconvenient, requires the closest attention, and would be a dangerous practice for many, if not most, authors.

"Although I never attained the ability of writing with ease, my manuscript does not look very untidy, as I make a point of putting the sentences right in my head before writing them down. I prefer authors who write with difficulty and read easily to those who write with ease but are difficult to read.

"I never lay out a plan for a book, I never divide my story into chapters before setting out to write and never note down what I am to say in any particular chapter. I leave all that to the logic of my tale and the natural development of events. You never know what your characters may want to do. Often I add new characters as the work goes on or develop what had been a minor figure.

"The highest art is to create a living character that shall remain in people's mem

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"My favorite authors are Homer, Tacitus, Livy, Horace, Shakspere, Molière, our three best Polish poets, Dickens, Balzac, and the elder Dumas. I am fond, too, of books of travel. Often I read from four o'clock in the afternoon until late into the night. My principal recreation during my months of hardest work is hunting, but I enjoy any kind of outdoor exercise. I sleep about eight hours and I eat what they give me.". Warsaw Special, in the New York World. Wilde. Frank Harris's Oscar Wilde; His Life and Confessions," to be issued this autumn in London, was written five years ago, but for various reasons its publication was postponed. It will contain several of Wilde's letters, reproduced in facsimile, and a frontispiece portrait. In a letter to a friend who praised his life of Shakspere, Mr. Harris said: "Shakspere I never knew in the flesh; I had to read him in his writings, groping after this trait for months, puzzling over that contradiction, now in exultation, oftener in despair, seeing much, divining more, lost again and again in the abysmal depths of personality, not knowing what explanation of twenty to accept, and forced to the end to content myself with guess work on many points which five minutes' talk would have made clear and certain. Oscar Wilde I knew for nearly twenty years, from his college days to his death, intimately; saw him first in his strugglings, and then borne on the topmost wave of

popular success, to fall an hour later into the depths of popular hatred and disgust. In prison I visited him, joyed with him in liberty, and loved him from the beginning to the end as we weak mortals love, with interludes of vain temper and momentary selfish estrangement, but on the whole with passionate admiration and constant affection -- and this for his virtues, for his fine intelligence and sympathy; and above all, for his exquisite humor, the shaping spirit of his imagination and his divine sweetness of nature. I have set down everything here fearless, knowing that the vices and virtues are of the same piece, so to speak, and well assured that it will all be read one day in the proper spirit, for Oscar Wilde is of that strange race called immortal, destined therefore to be more and more discussed as time goes on. After keeping this book by me for five years I am persuaded that this personal knowledge and personal affection have added something to my work as an artist, and I am proud and glad to think I have helped to give Oscar Wilde to others as he was to me; that is, indeed, the heart of my joy. Of my sorrow at his loss I shall say nothing." Few know how greatly Mr. Harris befriended Oscar Wilde. This was recognized by Wilde in the dedication of his play "An Ideal Husband":"A slight tribute to his power and distinction as an artist, his chivalry and nobility as a friend." - Boston Transcript.

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ern progress and the broadest literary catholicity," and adds: "The fourth editor joyfully reaffirms this creed. There can be no simpler and more comprehensive statement of this magazine's present spirit and purposes."

Mr. Yard also pays tribute to the editorial aims and ideals of Richard Watson Gilder; quotes his prophecy, made in 1886, that there should be "during the next ten years a revival of creative literature," since American life was so rich in feeling and action and meaning," and adds this comment:

"Like most prophecies, Mr. Gilder's has been only partly fulfilled. Yet the eighteen years since he uttered it have proved at least that it was true, though its realization has been delayed by the extraordinary activity of these later years. The history of all human progress shows that the art of any period is, so to speak, the flowering of that period. The bloom appears only after stem and stalk have shot to their full growth and leaves have expanded and darkened to their maturity. The bubbling sap of Mr. Gilder's time is showing now in new and surprising growth and our problem to-day is not so much to enjoy the flowering literature which he promised as to study and to measure and to comprehend as nearly as possible the wealth of scientific and social and political and industrial achievement which has amazingly developed.

"There is no escaping the fact that civilization, like the river tumbling and swirling between two lakes, is passing turbulently from the old convention of the last several generations to the unknown almost unguessable convention of the not distant future. The feminist movement, the uprising of labor, the surging of innumerable socialistic currents can mean nothing else than the certain readjustment of social levels. The demand of the people for the heritage of the bosses is not short of revolution. The rebellious din of frantic impressionistic groups is nothing if not strenuous protest against a frozen art. The changed Sabbath and the tempered sermon mark the coldly critical appraisement of religious creeds. And science, meantime, straining and sweating un

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der the lash of progress, is passing from wonder unto wonder.

"Perhaps Mr. Gilder's period of literary flowering, though surely coming, must be postponed another decade. The need of the moment is to discover where we are, what is accomplishing about us. Where have all these struggling activities brought us? What have they really done? What do they mean? Whither do they tend ?”

The salutatory ends with these words : "As for the rest, we shall conserve the best that the Century has stood for in the past. We shall offer a larger proportion of fiction than formerly, and shall bring it as near to truth and make it as interpretative of life as conditions allow. We shall maintain illustration at the highest point modern method will permit. We shall cultivate history and poetry and the essay. We shall explore conditions at home and abroad. We shall make this magazine, fearlessly and in the white light of to-day, as nearly the magazine of the century as courage and devotion and eyes that see and minds that shrink not can do."

Limiting the Scope of Writers. In editorial circles there is talk of a new weekly to be launched by "the Hearst magazines" "to compete with the Saturday Evening Post." The phrase has become a cliché brought out every time the idea of a large weekly circulation arises. There is no reason, however, to think the gossip is without foundation.

Writers who hear of the new weekly inquire: "Are they going to corral a bunch?" Which being interpreted means are they going to standardize a group of writers-one for business stories, one for "love" stories, one for girls' adventures, one for humor, one for "the sob stuff," and so on. The process is first to confine a writer to his specialty and then rope him down to what he shall do in it. The anarchists are missing a chance to do literature a valuable service. They should convert the magazine editors. There is no class more in need of the doctrine of non-interference with personality.

The corralling process is being done rather for whole groups of magazines than for a

single one such as the new weekly. I heard yesterday of one proffered contract for one writer's whole annual output at ten cents a word. This particular profferee preferred liberty. Many do not. The piece-work system of magazine writing may be depended upon to suppress individuality and check growth in a large number of writers.George Crane Cook, in the Chicago Evening Post.

Drawing Characters from Life. "I largely model my characters," says Owen Johnson, "after recognizable types; and this with malice aforethought. For the public, which acquires its realism through the ne papers, recognizes inconsistencies in the concrete individual where it will not proceed philosophically to abstract generalizations.

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"Create out of the imagination a character such as John G. Slade in 'The Sixty-first Second,' lay down the bold proposition that amid the financial adventurers to-day there can be two periods, one a conscienceless, brutal, lawless seizing of power, and the second a constructive period, when the same man, his power acquired, can turn with equal enthusiasm to projects of national good, and the thesis would be rejected as impossible and indefensible. But give to the character certain points of resemblance to three or four great promoters in the public eye, and the reader, adjusting the character of fiction to the characters in the day's news with which he is familiar, proceeds without irritation.

"I do not mean to say that my characters are close transcripts from living persons. This is very rarely true. Usually three to six personalities of the same general condition will be drawn upon and the character evolved, just as the artist builds his landscape from several sketches. Of course to the professional this is the commonest A, B, C. Balzac is full of recognizable portraits, such as those of George Sand and Alfred de Musset. Even lately in the old police records which Stoddard Dewey has been investigating have been found the records of that most highly colored character

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Advice to Playwrights. Personally, I do not look upon playwriting as an art. To me it is toil; real, downright, sleep-destroying, nerve-racking labor, which, to accomplish the best results, should be started with an apprenticeship in the theatre that begins at the stage door and which, to thoroughly absorb, should be continued until its technic, from the curtain line to the gridiron, is as familiar as A, B, C. If the ambitious author of the future would adopt this course he would not be compelled to knock at so many managerial doors before finding one willing to produce his plays. George Cohan, in Chicago Record-Herald.

M.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicais 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.]

THE TRIBULATIONS OF AN AMATEUR BOOK BUYER. John L. Hervey. Atlantic for September. THE BUSINESS MAN IN ENGLISH NOVELS. William Arthur Gill. Atlantic for September. LETTERS OF WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY. - II. Atlantic for September.

AMERICANISMS, REAL OR REPUTED. Thomas R. Lounsbury. Harper's Magazine for September. A VISIT TO WHISTLER. Maria Torrilhon Buel. Century for September.

THE SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY. Topics of the Time, Century for September.

LIVING ENGLISH POETS. R. A. Scott-James. North American Review for September.

LIITLE PICTURES OF 0. HENRY. for September.

EMIL VERHAEREIV. F. Theis. Review for September.

- IV.

Bookman

North American

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