in Richmond, Virginia. Now she lives and writes almost entirely in New York city. "I have just finished a book," she said. "I must go rather slowly about writing. I cannot write more than one book in two years. That is not very many- I cannot understand how any one can finish and publish two books a year regularly. It seems that one ought to give more of one's self to a book than that. For my own work, I should like to write each novel and keep it ten years before I publish it. But my friends tell me : Of course that is impossible. You change so much in ten years all would be different. You would be obliged to write it all over again.' I suppose that is true. "I don't find it best to write about people or places when they are immediately before me. When I first came to New York, to live here for a time it was two years ago - I expected to be here for six months of the year perhaps, and to do most of my work in Richmond. Actually, it turns our that I am now here about nine months of the year, and spend one month in Richmond. Even at the time I worked altogether there, however, I did not write the things immediately about me. One really must get at some distance and obtain a perspective, especially for realistic writing. I believe strongly in the realistic novel, but realism is n't a photographic reproduction of life. It is rather the truth of life portrayed and in the novel, with an interpretation, for one must put one's self into the writing. In my present book, everything is taken wholly from actual life; it had all been in my knowledge and thoughts for ten years or more. "All of my novels have been cast in the South. In this last book of mine, two or three chapters are set in New York city. My idea was to tell the life story of a woman in the transitional period-the book begins in 1884 in the South. The years since then have been the period of transition - the change has come in that time from the old to the new. "I have in my mind the stories of several women," she said. "I want to write several books, each taking the life story of one woman and working it out. I want to tell for one thing the story of the business woman who has been highly successful. She has always interested me. "These books will not deal with problems. I do not ever let a problem get into my novels there is none, except, of course, as some problem of an individual life may present itself to the character. I am not concerned with any propaganda. A book should never serve any purpose but the teliing of life as it is being faithfully realistic. And realism is only the truth of life told, and is the writer's true business. Hawthorne was strongly realistic. He did not try to be pleasing or pleasant. wrote things as he saw them."-New York Evening Post. 66 He Hutchinson. A. S. M. Hutchinson, who has scored his second big success with "The Happy Warrior," began writing about eight years ago, when he was a medical student ; but his ambitions lay in another direction, and he did not drift into journalism - he deliberately walked into it. "I always intended to earn my living with my pen," he says, "and took the plunge when I had about one short story, two articles (for Punch), and some verses (for Scraps) accepted. I did not know a soul who had the remotest connection with literary work, but I was and have been frightfully lucky." Mr. Hutchinson wrote all manner of things all day long for three months or so; some of them attracted the notice of the publishers of Pearson's Magazine, and he presently obtained a place on their magazine staff. For a while he was assistant editor of the Royal Magazine, then co-editor of the Rapid Review. Then he "made another plunge "; he cut himself adrift from editing with a good practical knowledge of what the magazines require, "thanks to the pains that had been taken with me," he remarks, "by P. W. Everett, Pearson's Magazine editor." He cut himself adrift simply because he wanted to make headway in other fields, and, hearing that the Daily Graphic wanted a leader-note writer, he sent in some specimens and secured that appointment. During this period he wrote "Once Aboard the Lugger"; as soon as it was finished he found a publisher for it without difficulty, and it was immediately and widely successful. In the same year (1908) he was appointed night editor of the Daily Graphic, of which he has recently been made editor. Mr. Hutchinson devoted four years to the writing of "The Happy Warrior," partly because he had very little leisure, chiefly because he took the most laborious pains with it. He could have published it two years ago, but it did not satisfy him, so he set to and re-wrote it from start to finish. "It was a dreadful task," he sighs. "Some of the scenes in it have been written a horrifying number of times, but I found, when the thing was done, that, so far from tiring of it, I had grown uncommonly, fond of Percival and the rest of the characters." New York Times Review. CURRENT LITERARY TOPICS. 66 Henry James's Later Style. The "later manner of Mr. Henry James," according to a critic in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, is far inferior to his earlier manner. In revising Roderick Hudson," for instance, Mr. James is apt to substitute a general word or phrase for a particular one. Thus, the older text reads in one place: "It would have made him almost sick, however, to think that on the whole Roderick was not a generous fellow." In the last edition this becomes: "It would have made him quite sick, however, to think that on the whole the values in such a spirit were not much larger than the voids." By the same process, "a transparent brown eye" reappears as "a transparent brown regard." Formerly, Roderick "looked at the straining oarsmen and the swaying crowd with the eye of a sculptor"; now he looks at them "with the eye of an artist, and of the lover of displayed life." Then Mr. James substitutes for the natural word a word which is commonly used in a somewhat different sense, as when he alters "I shall be better entertained" to "I shall be better beguiled." Sometimes this change provides the reader with a puzzle, as in the sentence: "She had already had a long colloquy with the French chambermaid, who had published her views on the Roman question." The fact is that this chambermaid was not so learned as these words would imply, but that Mr. James has merely employed the word "published" in the sense of "expounded." French idiom seems to have a marked effect upon his later style. Christina remarks" She's capable of thinking that, mamma," where "mamma is not a word of address, but a noun in apposition with "she.". Another example occurs when the phrase, "paying, to Rowland's knowledge, his first compliment," is changed to "acquitting himself, to Rowland's knowledge, of his first public madrigal." Here we have, not the English use of "acquit," but the equivalent of" s'acquitter de." Mr. James is even guilty of altering "said it was very promising" to "pronounced it tremendously trouvé," and of changing "no fixed day" to 66 no fixed jour." He is also given to increasing vagueness. In the first edition of "Roderick Hudson" there is an admirable directness, as in the sentence: "During the dreary journey back to America, made, of course, with his assistance, there was a great frankness in her gratitude, a great gratitude in her frankness." This is diluted in the revised edition into the statement that "she had used him, with the last rigor of consistency, as a character definitely appointed to her use." A gem of this sort of revision is the transformation of "shaking his hunting whip with little quick strokes" into still agitating, in his mastered emotion, his implement of the chase." 66 He "Said." The "technique" of the present day short story writer embraces a curious error in observation and judgment, set forth precisely in the advice of a successful novelist to aspirants: Never use the phrase "He said," "She said," etc., where any ingenuity or invention can produce a substitute. Other couplings must connect the dialogue. The advice evidently is based on rule 44 or rule 109, or some such, of the short story writer's technique. In one interesting tale by a writer of much popularity there may be The substitutes endeavor to present the mood of the speaker, it is true, but the fact has been overlooked that the eye of the reader, which takes the phrase "he said " without a glance, may become fascinated by the variation. The result is the precise opposite of that intended. It causes the "couplings" to stand out conspicuously finally to the detriment of the dialogue. "Mackellar," said the young lord in The Master of Ballantrae," "I am now a very happy man." And thereafter follow with perfect abandon "said I," says he," "says I," "asks my lord," "said I," "said he," "said I," etc. 66 - The eye must hunt for them, it so accepts the probability of their being there. The construction is submerged. In the modern technique it is crying aloud like a kicked pup. The older generation used "he said " and “she said" as if they were well-ordered walks along which the dialogue might go without hitch and without interruption. The modern regards them as offenses against invention, monotonously reiterative, and overlooks the apparent fact that the reader who makes no ado at all of them, if they be seen at all, is likely to find himself, in the case of the ingenious substitute, observing with curiosity the cement in which the sentences are set, and not at all the sentences themselves. Chicago Tribune. certainly imitation of writers with an agreeable rhythm, in whose hands language is a pliable instrument, is a means to achieving it. But, unfortunately, rhythm is a personal property; it expresses the mood of the writer almost as clearly as his choice of words, and it is fatal to acquire the manner of another man which is unsuited to the aspect in which things actually appear to ourselves. Imitation is therefore a snare unless we are careful to choose for imitation an author who sees more or less eye to eye with us and then there is a danger of becoming a mere echo. - Desmond McCarthy, in the Eye Witness, London. 'What is a follow' story and a 'follow" head?" Particularly interesting was this: 'Given Helen Gould's limousine crashing. into the automobile of John D. Rockefeller, with both owners occupying their cars, but neither badly hurt, which name is the more important in writing the head? Why? Given the bulletin of the crash, stating that neither was more than shaken up, and that bothcars managed to proceed under their own: power, what is the next important thing to put into the story arrangement if obtainable?" Out of the thirteen embryo copy-readers two hit the nail plump in the middle of its head, to Mr. MacAlarney's pride and delight. The answer was: "What did they say to each other?" George Eliot's Financial Reward. - In one of George Meredith's letters he says: "I shall send you the Cornhill magazine next month. The author of Adam Bede' has a new work in it. I understand they have given her an enormous sum (£8,000, or more! she retaining ultimate copyright) - Bon Dieu ! will aught like this ever happen to me?" As this letter was written in 1862 it is obvious that Meredith refers to "Romola," says the Bookman. It appears that George Smith, the publisher, was anxious to attract well-known names to his new venture, and he in reality offered the author of “Adam Bede" £10,000. Although the offer came at a time when she was particularly depressed at the slow progress she was making with her novel of the Italian renascence, she did not care to accept it, as she hesitated to have the story appear in serial form. The offer, however, encouraged her to finish her laborious task, and it was ultimately published serially in fourteen parts, since Lewes felt that the publicity would help the sale. Smith paid. seven thousand pounds for the copyright, though it was not a financial success; George Eliot, in fact, afterward gave a short story, "Brother Jacob," to offstand the publisher's loss. In book form, of course, it justified the publisher's faith. This remark of George Meredith naturally calls attention to the large sums which George Eliot made from her pen. She received, according to Leslie Stephen, fifty guineas for her first short story, published in Blackwood's for January, 1857. This was afterward incorporated in " Scenes of Clerical Life." It made a greater success with the critics than with the public. The original agreement for "Adam Bede," published by Blackwood -as were all George Eliot's novels except "Romola "-had been £800 for a four-year copyright; but as the book went through seven editions, and 16,000 copies were printed during the year, the publisher generously acknowledged the success by returning the copyright, and adding another £800, offering at the same time£2,000 for 4,000 copies of her next novel. "The Mill on the Floss" and Silas Marner" were published on this basis. About "Onward, Christian Soldiers." - Rev. S. Baring-Gould wrote the popular hymn, Onward, Christian Soldiers," forty-six years ago, when in Yorkshire, England. One Whit Monday some Sunday school children were to march in procession from one village to another, and as he could think of no suitable hymn for them to sing on the journey, he wrote that one at the last moment, never dreaming that its popularity Iwould be instant and extend all over the world. Christian Science Monitor. - A Waverley Novel Discovery. It seems late in the day for the discovery of a new point in connection with the characters in the Waverley Novels. But Dr. J. B. Hellier, a professor in the Medical School of Leeds University, calls attention in the British Weekly to the fact that with one striking exception all Scott's heroines are motherless. A heroine may live with a widowed father, an uncle, a brother, a grandmother, or other female relative, but, except in "The Bride of Lammermoor, there is to be found no grown-up daughter living with her own mother. In "The Legend of Montrose" a mother is introduced, only to be ignored. The four children of Sir Duncan and Lady Campbell are carried off by Highland freebooters. One of them is subsequently found and brought back. When she is restored, the novelist tells us that she "discovers a father, and Sir Duncan discovers a daughter," but no mention is made of Lady Campbell. She does not seem even to have been asked to the daughter's wedding, which takes place shortly afterward. The explanation suggested by Dr. Hellier is that Scott, like every other author, was apt to repeat himself and to run in a groove in regard to matters which were to him of secondary importance. Scott took the greatest pains over his historical and topographical details, and his special character studies were always fresh and new, but he spent little trouble over his nominal heroes and heroines. One can but hope, concludes Dr. Hellier, that all the heroines who were so happily married in the last chapters of their respective biographies were not destined to premature decease, but that some of them lived long enough to bring up their own daughters to maturity and to give them that maternal care of which they had themselves rather conspicuously stood in need. - New York Evening Post. Own The Novel of the Future. The novel of the remote future will take it for granted that action of some sort or other is the normal outlet of every stream of thought, and it will show us how necessary it is to dig deep mental trenches for the thoughts to flow in the direction of good rather than of evil. It will show that thought and action form a linked progress, and that in our ov lives we ought to order the duration and sequences of meditation and effort so as to strike a happy mean, so that we are not merely muscular mechanisms, like a Jackin-the-box, whose spring any accident may release, and so that we are not dull and immovable as hens, fruitlessly brooding on stone eggs. No, when we brood we must hatch out. That is a lesson that the novel of the future can enforce. In fact, it will, or it ought to, help to guide us in the intricate labyrinth of mind and matter through which we all have to grope our way from the first gleam of light to the last curtain of darkness. It will show what, of course, we know already, that an evil fancy may sometimes bring more pain and suffering in its wake than the most violent and brutal physical deeds. And it will show, too, what perhaps is not quite so clear, that the loftiest thrills of altruistic sympathy are just as mean and valueless as any selfish desire if, while we think nobly we sit supinely, or if, with a generalization and a sigh, we turn again to the fire glow and the tobacco wreaths after we have been watching a struggle in which we ought to have interfered, something weak that wanted protection, something fine that was being trampled on by something vile.-W. B. Maxwell, in the New York Times. Newspaper Pay Locals. Eugene Howe, of the Atchison Daily Globe, son of E. W. Howe, told the members of the Kansas Editorial Association of the pay local as used in the Globe. This paper is unique in newspaperdom in the amount and readability of its local columns. Everybody on the staff looks out for locals. Every one looks for, and writes, pay locals. One critic was unkind enough to remark that every time. a man sneezed in Atchison the Globe ran a local about it and then collected for the item. "A good news item, according to my father's definition," said young Howe, "is a two-line local that everybody will read, and then say: Heaven's sakes!' And that is the idea we follow in filling our news columns. "One local that brought us good returns was the story of the ice wagon and the fire department. Two neighbors in Atchison one day used the telephone at the same time. One called up the local ice company, which prides itself on quick delivery, and the neighbor called up the fire department, her gasoline stove had exploded. The ice wagon made its delivery before the fire department arrived. It made a good story - and the ice company was glad to. pay for it at advertising rates."-Topeka Daily Capital. Essentials in Translation. — There are three essential qualities that must be demanded of every translator. Without them he has no right to undertake his task. They are familiarity with the language of the original, artistic command of the English language, and ability to grasp not only the letter but the spirit of the work to be translated. The common idea hitherto has been that only one thing was needed, namely, a reasonable knowledge of the language from which the translation was to be made. Fundamental as such knowledge is, fundamental as legs are to walking, yet I hold it not a whit more so than a wide and deep |