an 64 romance must at a sesses cumulative interest. It develops a quite well known at the publishers' and in faculty for amplification that gives vitality to the libraries, turn out three books a year a great deal of the history of to-day and ard earn, with serial rights included, a bare yesterday that has little meaning to those fifteen hundred dollars. who confine their readings to headlines and “ On the other hand, the play ‘Milestones' cablegrams, and the further one's acquaint- is reputed to have brought Arnold Bennett anceship with reference books progresses and Knoblauch as much as three thousand the further he gets away from the idea that dollars a week ( no wonder Bennett prefers they are published mainly to give an air of playwriting to novel writing ), and Sir J. M. dignity and solidity to the library. But ahead Barrie has been widely reported to have of ail reference books in general utility is a received one hundred and fifty thousand dolgood dictionary. When buying a dictionary lars in a year from his novels and plays. It at a bargain be sure that it is not sold at a would probably be no exaggeration to say bargain because it is printed from old plates. that “The Bondman' and 'The Manxman,' An abridged dictionary that is up to date is in their dramatic and narrative forms, must better than one that is unabridged but out each have earned Hall Caine equal oi date. amount. H. G. Wells's figures also run into Don't use the dictionary to make a high hundreds of thousands. seat in a low chair for the youngest child. ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was paid half Use it for the benefit of your mind and your a dollar a word for his Sherlock Holmes vocabulary. It will pay for itself ten times. stories in America alone, and the greatest --- Louisville Courier-Journal. detective of modern The Earnings of Writers. — “A successful moderate estimate have been worth $250,000 novel brings its author from first to last to his creator. Rudyard Kipling sold the fifteen thousand dollars. The novel's aver serial rights of ‘Kim' for twenty-five thouage length is a hundred thousand words. A sand dollars, and Mrs. Humphry Ward has thousand words is an easy day's work received fifteen thousand dollars for the serthree hours allowing ample intervals for in ial rights of more than one of her novels. spiration. Therefore, you may reckon that Five hundred dollars a thousand words is a novelist with an assured public is paid at Kipling's price for a short story, and an the rate of fifty dollars an hour !” editor counts himself lucky if he can get one This estimate is not mine, but the calcula- at all, even at this inflated price.” tion of a prominent British publisher, who “I, personally, was once empowered to adds : A few makers of fiction earn much offer Mrs. Humphry Ward down the sum of more than the above — the great majority twenty-five thousand dollars on account of infinitely less. Thus the public will not buy the book rights of her next novel - of a book by a new novelist (however well it which, by the way, nobody but herself had be reviewed ) except in the rarest cases, and then seen a line. This sum she promptly rea first novel generally means less than one fused. It was not large enough."- London hundred and fifty dollars for its author. Letter in Philadelphia Record. Moreover, popularity is elusive and hard to The Mission of the Novelist. “We hear," gain. It was generally stated on George says Sarah Grand, a great deal of nonsense Meredith's death that his yearly income talked nowadays about the mission of the from his novels had never exceeded five novelist and the message of his work. Scott thousand dollars, and it is probable that was content with a very simple aim: “That there are not fifty living English novelists I should write with sense and spirit a few whose average incomes exceed that sum. scenes, unlabored and loosely put together, There are barely ten who earn an average but which had sufficient interest in them to of fifteen thousand dollars a year from fic- amuse in one corner the pain of body ; in tion alone. another to relieve anxiety of mind ; in a “ Many men and women, whose names are third place to unwrinkle a brow bent with nen, the furrows of daily toil ; in another to fill feel that I have justly interpreted your the place of bad thoughts or to suggest bet- thought ?? I used to ask him and he apter; in yet another to induce an idler to proved, happy to find a living relation bestudy the history of his country. In all, tween the harmony he hoped for and the save where the perusal interrupted the dis- harmony he heard.” Often Mascagni improcharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless vised a melody and submitted it to D'Anamusement.' nunzio, who inyariably exclaimed : “Well, Plays Now Written for Women. – To-day for very well, indeed! Do not change a single the first time in all the years of the drama's note !” D'Annunzio does not know music, history, the playwright finds himself devising Mascagni says, but he feels it in a strange plays especially for women. Men in the manner, and his phonetic memory is inialmodern audience are very much in the mi lible. nority. Until the last decade or so it had “Often after improvising a melody in his been quite the opposite, and during several presence when I set it down and played it periods in the course of the drama's evolu- for him he would interrupt me by saying : tion women not only did not care to attend “Ah, you have changed it.' He detected the the theatre, but their presence at dramatic slightest and most insignificant alterations, presentations was not permitted. even if a single note was lower or higher. Plays in those plain days were made for We are both happy with our work, as we are They told, from the masculine point convinced that we are proceeding with nobilof view, a story meant for masculine ears ity of intent. I have been swayed by the and frabricated from material that consisted joy of being influenced by a magnificent mostly of masculine problems, passions, and poem and my soul has been ablaze with rich emotions. To-day the state of affairs is ex- and melodious verses. It is due to poetry actly the reverse. The coin has been turned that I could work without any difficulty sponabout and we see the obverse side taneously and rapidly." – New York Sun. It is woman now whose problems are pro. “The Editor Regrets." — The printed form pounded, whose life aims are expounded, and which accompanies an unaccepted manuscript whose future is forecast. on its return to the author is a necessarily The Hamlet of the modern stage is blunt instrument. No matter how many or woman -- Hedda Gabler. The lago, the how honeyed its words, it says just one supreme villain of the drama of to-day, is a word : “No!" Laura, the captain's wife in Strind- That word must be said concerning good herg's play, “The Father.” Most modern manuscripts and poor ones, long and short, plays are centred about some woman, are witty and solemn, wise and foolish. It made from some crisis in a woman's life. must be said to the editor's best friends and “A Doll's House," " The Second Mrs. Tan- to perfect strangers. queray," "Mrs. Dane's Defence,” “Mag- The "must" of it is in the nature of things. da," “Iris," “Mid-Channel," “ Countess Fifty manuscripts out of a hundred are not Julia," The Easiest Way," • Hindle good enough, ten are not timely, ten deal Wakes," La Flambée,” are but a few from with themes already in hand, ten are too the long list of plays that prove this state- long, ten were not written with the paper's true. -- Arthur Pollock, in Neale's constituency in mind, five are just right if Monthly the paper could double its size — and the Writing an Opera, - The collaboration of other five are accepted! d'Annunzio and Mascagni upon their new To tell the ninety-five authors just why opera, Parisina,” has been so far most inti- their manuscripts are not accepted would mate. “We worked together," Mascagni wear out the editor by the sheer physical says. “He stood near the piano and lis- labor of it. And much of the telling would tened intently while I played. start something." The author, naturally, woman. a Wonian 66 ment "Do you to OF would not agree with the editor's judg- elevating. It is the baring of the soul, the ment, and would desire to state his case. swiftly illuminating flash by which man sees Then the editor would try to defend his de- what he is or may become ; it is prophecy cision, unless he capitulated at the first as well as hope. It is this — character creshot, which would be most unlikely, for ation — that makes literature, that has left that is high treason to the editorial brother- its vital impress upon morals and conduct. hood. Real literature is Ymir's well in which wis. The Epworth Herald, in common with all dom and wit lie hidden, and from its unpapers whose editors have been on both fathomed depths is drawn creation. Man is sides of the rejection slip, dislikes the cold less influenced by sermons than by experiformality of its impersonal “ No.” If some- ence. He hears and heeds not, but he sees body would invent a mutually satisfying the created vision of the novelist, and wonform of sound words to be used in return- ders if there has not been revealed to himing an unavailable manuscript, he could re- self his soul in all its nakedness. A. tire on his royalties. Maurice Low, in Harper's Magazine. But until that genius appears, the slip which says “No” and adds to it no reason LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS. save that once ascribed to women -“ Because "-must still be our dependence.- - The [Readers who send the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies of the periodicals Epworth Herald. containing the articles mentioned in the following reference list will confer a favor if they will mention What Makes a Story Great. What con THE WRITER.] stitutes the vital in the literature of imagina FRANCIS THOMPSON. tion? What is the indescribable power that Darrell Figgis. North Ameri can Review for October. makes one book great and another common- The New ENGLAND Sarah ORNE JEWETT. place ? Not style, not plot, not analysis. Edward M. Chapman. Yale Review for October. Neither Thackeray nor Dickens is master of THE BUSINESS MAN IN FICTION. William Arthur Gill. Atlantic for October. style ; neither is strikingly original in plot, AUTOBIOGRAPHY SAMUEL S. McCLURE. but both live. The answer to the question I. McClure's for October. that has so often perplexed writer and JOSEPH Pulitzer, REMINISCENCES Secreader who attempt to find the source of the Illustrated. Alleyne Ireland. Metropolitan for October. mysterious power that eludes discovery but SINCERE FictiON AND THE QUESTION OF POPULAR• reveals itself in a great book is to be found Metropolitan for October. in one word — creation. The vital in litera. How I REWROTE “ WITHIN THE LAW." George ture — the literature of imagination - is Broadhurst. Metropolitan for October. MR. VEILLER'S REPLY TO MR. BROADHURST. Metra originality. Not the meretricious original politan for October. ity of trick or dialect or forced contrast, not THE DEVELOPMENT DRAMA LEAGUE the sordid parade of vice or the refinement MOVEMENT. John Corbin. Scribner's for October. of virtue ; not the flaunting of passion or the WALT WHITMAN, World's Poet ? Albert Schinz. Lippincott's for October. subjecting of emotion — these do not con ROUSSEAU, Tolstoy, AND THE PRESENT Age. With stitute originality as the test applied to liter. portraits. Maxim Kovalevsky. American Review of ature. Originality — creation - means some- Reviews for October. thing more than a mere catalogue of mo. THE LIBRARY – ITS ARRANGEMENT AND FURNISH. tives ; it means the power to create a repro Lillian Purdy Goldsborough. Suburban Life for October. ductive type ; to visualize life ; to project on THE CHARM ENGLISH PROSE IN THE SEVENthe screen of existence a figure that is im TEENTH CENTURY. Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Har. mediately recognized. Literature, the litera- vard University, 1913. Samuel M. Crothers. Harvard ture of imagination, when it rises to its Graduates' Magazine for September. OUR LITERARY AMBASSADORS. Henry van Dyke, supreme height and is really literature, is Hamilton W. Mabie ; Walter H. Page, Isaac F. not merely the reflection of life. It is more Marcosson: Thomas Nelson Page, “ An Intimate than that, something higher, nobler, more Friend." Bookman for September. OF A RETARY. ITY. OF THE A INGS. OF “ Shak THE STORY-TELLER'S CRAFT. The Artist and the Public. Arnold Bennett. Metropolitan for Septem. ber. THE BETTER PART IN CONVERSATION. 0. W. Fir'kins. North American Review for September. THE POETRY OF CHAUCER. Henry Newbolt. Eng. lish Review for September. A VAGABOND POET ( Nicholas Vachel Lindsay ). With portrait. Peter Clark Macfarlane. Collier's for September 6. SPORTING STYLE. Bellman for September 6. MADAME DE STAËL. Isa Carrington Cabell. Bellman 'for September 13. THE DRAMA LEAGUE OF AMERICA. Richard Burton. Bellman for September 27. BYRON HARROW. Illustrated. Bellman for September 27. LITERARY BY-WAYS. Arthur Adams. Bellman for September 27. THE NEWSPAPER AS A PERSONALITY. H. J. Has. kell. Outlook for September 13. The Young Goethe. Outlook for September 27. AT NEWS AND NOTES. Henry C. Shelley open's the new Literary Shrines Series to be published by Little, Brown, & Co., with a volume on spere and Stratford.” The Earl of Lytton has finished his life of his grandfather, Bulwer Lytton, for publication in two good-sized volumes on both sides of the Atlantic soon. A life of W. T. Stead is announced for publication this fall by William Heinemann in London. It has been written by the late journalist's daughter. Miss Estelle W. Stead, and the title of the book will be : “My Father ; Personal and Spiritual Reminiscences.” “The English Novel," by George Saintsbury, published by E. P. Dutton & Co. in the Channels of English Literature Series, is a survey of the novel as it has come from the hands of all the more important novel. ists, not now alive, up to the end of the nineteenth century. The new biographer of Benjamin Disraeli, George Earle Buckle, formerly editor of the London Times, is at work on the third volume of the book, but it is not likely to be ready before spring. Two biographies announced for autumn publication are Sir Sidney Colvin's “ Keats " and Francis Watt's “Robert Louis Stevenson." Pupils of the secondary and normal schools everywhere are invited to compete for prizes offered by the American School Peace League for the best essays on one or the other of these two subjects : “The Opportunity and Duty of the Schools in the International Peace Movement," and “The Significance in the Two Hague Peace Conferences." The first subject is for seniors in normal schools, the second is for seniors in secondary schools. Prizes of $75, $50, and $25 will be given for the three best essays in both sets. The contest will close March 1, 1914. Essays should average 3,000 words and must not exceed 5,000 words. They are to be forwarded to Mrs. Fanny Fern Andrews, Secretary, 405 Marlborough street, Boston. Jeannette Lee has resigned from the faculty of Smith College, where she has taught English for several years, in order to give her entire time to authorship. She is the wife of Gerald Stanley Lee. During a recent discussion of the old question, college versus non-college, one of the contestants remarked that the substantial monthly magazines were not edited by college graduates. The man who made the remark was promptly confronted with the following record : The Century, edited by Robert Sterling Yard, Princeton, Scribner's, edited by Edward L. Burlingame, Harvard, '69 ; Harper's, edited by Henry M. Alden, Williams, '57 ; Atlantic Monthly, edited by Ellery Sedgwick, Harvard, '94 ; Review of Reviews, edited by Albert Shaw, Grinnell, '79; and World's Work, edited by Arthur W. Page, Harvard, '05. Mrs. Lillian Bell Bogue, who was married to Arthur Hoyt Bogue in 1900, is seeking a divorce. The wife of Paul Armstrong, the play. wright, has secured a divorce, with alimony of $15,000 a year. The building for the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University is fin. ished. '83 ; avenue. Pulitzer's Magazine, a new periodical, published in New York by Walter Pulitzer, has incorporated with it Uncle Remus's Home ilagazine. Mr. Pulitzer, who is a nephew of Joseph Pulitzer, is talking of organizing in Chicago a $5,000,000 publishing house, which will print monthlies, weeklies, and dailies of national appeal. The policy of the National Newspaper Men's Magazine, to be issued monthly by the National Newspaper Men's Publishing Corporation, Times Building, New York, is outlined in this quotation which appears on the first page of the first number : “ A publication to voice the views of responsible newspaper writers from everywhere." Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr is to be editor-inchief of the Suffragist, a weekly newspaper and magazine to be published in Washing. ton, beginning October 19, by the congressional committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Following the withdrawal of William B. Howland and his sons, Harold B. and Karl V. S., from the Outlook and their joining the forces of the Independent, the latter magazine has been reorganized as follows : Presidert and editor, Hamilton Holt ; vicepresident and assistant editor, Harold B. Howland ; secretary and treasurer, F. E. Dickinson; managing director, William B. Howland. With the issue of October 2 the Independent will appear in a new form, with many improvements. The page will be enlarged to accommodate more and better illustrations, and there will be a variety of other changes. The editors say that the Independent will, in its new form, become preëminently, a forward-looking weekly magazine, discussing such topics as the solution of the problems of family life ; the conditions under which business may be fairly conducted and the interests of the workers conserved, while those who invest the capital may be adequately protected ; the life. stories of strong men and women ; the de. velopments of science and art ; the world of books ; the vital interests of the child ; the field of sensible recreation ; the progress of education. M. C. Young, owner and publisher of the Family Magazine, Chicago, has bought Farm News, of Springfield, Ohio. The Springfield organization will continue to operate as the Simmons Publishing Company, with V. C. Young, president. Mr. Young will publish the Family Magazine and Farm News in Springfield hereafter. The New York Board of Education has opened a free evening class in proofreading and copy reading at the Stuyvesant Evening Trade School, in Fifteenth street, near First The course is divided into lectures and practical work. Lectures will be given on prooireaders' marks, punctuation, division of words, capitalization, compounding, abbreviations, copy editing, and the editorial and typographical construction of books and magazines. Stephen Phillips writes to say that he is not editor of the Poetry Review, and sug. gests that letters should be addressed “The Secretary, The Poetry Society,” or “The Manager, The Poetry Review,” London, W. C. A movement to raise a $10,000 fund for a memorial to Eugene Field has been started in Chicago by Will J. Davis, Slason Thompson, and Harry J. Powers, all personal friends of the poet. Charles G. Dawes, of Evanston, is the treasurer of the fund. The Uncle Remus Memorial Association, which early this year purchased “The Wren's Nest” at Atlanta, Ga., Joel Chandler Harris's home, as a lasting monument to him, has issued a thirty-eight-page booklet written by Myrta Lockett Avery, giving a sketch of the author's life, and an account of the work of the association. “ Pierre de Coulevain ” (Mlle. Favre ) died at Lausanne, Switzerland, August 22, aged sixty-eight. William Carew Hazlett died in London September 8, aged seventy-nine. Eugene L. Didier died in Baltimore September 8, aged seventy-four. Professor Arminius Vambéry died in Budapest September 15, aged eighty-one. |