In reply to a question with regard to his methods of work, Mr. Crawford said: "I have no moods. After I begin a novel I write all day and day after day until I finish it. Do I find the strain of writing so long exhausting? O, habit makes one used to it. My plan of constructing a novel is very mechanical, consequently very unromantic; but mechanics are often useful in the arts. For example, I first conceive an idea for a story. Sometimes this is a philosophical thought or an epigrammatic remark which I work out in the form of fiction. Then my plot shapes

itself in my mind. Then I arrange it in a series of chapters-about a dozen of five thousand words each if it is to be a short novel; many more, of course, if it is to be a narrative, a three-volume novel. Suppose my novel is to be of twelve chapters. The first three chapters prepare the ground; the sixth or seventh contains the first climax-the lovers' quarrel, perhaps, or a murder or some such dramatic episode. The remaining chapters work up to the grand climax, or the finale at the end of the book. I never revise my manuscript, and I make very few changes in proof."

I asked Mr. Crawford if he thought America afforded the novelist as good material as Europe. "Ah, yes," he replied, "I think it offers more. In the first place, I believe that the Northern races are more emotional than the Southern, though I know, of course, that the reverse is generally supposed to be true. The Northern man has great self-control and outward calm, but plenty of feeling within. The Italian shows all the feeling he has, and that feeling is merely superficial. An Italian can cheat another Italian, but no one else. Because the American works all day long and lives in a kind of business groove it does not follow that he is a machine all the time. I am inclined to believe that his confinement during working hours gives an impetus to the varied forces of his nature when he is not at work, Then, too, all American life is so complex that it is exceedingly interesting and rich in the material for fiction. I must say, however, that I have been struck by the difference between the great writers of distinction of America and those of Europe that I have had the good fortune to meet. The American writers seem to lack the superabundant vitality of the Europeans, and to be inclined somewhat to the melancholic temperament. Tennyson, Browning and Renan were all men of great physical vigor and light heartedness. I once had the pleasure of spending a day with Tennyson. He smoked a pipe and sipped whisky and water all day long; and he amused us by reading jocular references to his latest poems from American newspapers. He fairly roared over them."

wife and I," he says, "seldom travel in the summer. No more charming spot than Sorrento can be found, and of late years it is becoming a favorite watering place, and we have all we can do to entertain our friends who run down from Rome. Our daily life is very uneventful, but to me it never becomes monotonous, for I am a busy man, and when I am not studying I am generally upon the water. In the morning, if we have guests, we either go bathing or driving or riding through the country, and in the afternoon, when the wind is good, it is our invariable custom to go sailing. Oftentimes we make long trips of several days' duration up the Mediterranean."

Literary World.

RUSKIN'S HEALTH.

"H. F." writes in N. Y. Times: The mention of Ruskin's name as an alternate successor to Tennyson as President of the Society of Authors-a post for which George Meredith was chosen by acclamationelicited the other evening from one who has been intimate with him for years some interesting talk about these days of the great critic's sere and yellow leaf. Ruskin has now for a long time written nothing with his own hand. All his correspondence is through the medium of Mrs. Severn's pen. His health is no worse than it has been for years; that is to say, he suffers periodically from fits of mental and physical disorganization not wholly distinguishable from insanity, and when not under these clouds is as sane and lucid and intellectually facile as ever. There never was a time, indeed, when both his mind and body were not subject to these recurring obscurations. He has given up active work for good, it is true, but he is not breaking up with age in the least, and he maintains a keen interest in all the doings of the busy outside world which are on his side of things.

WILLIAM MORRIS' PRESS.

Re

No sooner is one large work out of the way than the Kelmscott Press begins another. The "Golden Legend" has not long been issued, and the cuyell of the Historyes of Troye" has appeared within the last few days. Following hard on this will come Reynard the Foxe," reprinted from Caxton's edition of 1481, in Mr. Morris' "Troy" type, that in which the "Recuyell" has been printed. The first few sheets of Caxton's translation of "Godfrey of Boloyne" have also been printed in the same style. The text of this reprint is based, by permission, upon that prepared for the Early English Text Society, but has been read with the original and corrected for the press by Mr. Halliday Sparling, upon the principles followed in the case of the "Recuyell.' The edition of Chaucer we mentioned some weeks ago will include the attributed works.

Among the smaller volumes now in hand, that nearest completion is a reprint of Mr. Morris' Utopian

story "News from Nowhere" in the "Golden" type. Waiting only for a woodcut design by Mr. E. Burne Jones is Caxton's "Order of Chivalry," edited by Mr. F. S. Ellis, and printed in the new "Chaucer "type, a pica black letter. Mr. Ellis is also reading the proofs of Shakespeare's "Poems and Sonnets," reprinted from the first editions. This will be in "Golden type, as will be Cavendish's "Life of Wolsey," now first printed from the original manuscript.

Lord Berner's translation of " Huon of Burdeux " will be ready for the press by the time that "Godfrey of Boloyne" is printed, and work will soon begin upon Mr. Morris' new romance, the name of which has not yet been definitely announced.

London Athenæum.

Tait, Sons & Co., a corporation with a capital of $150,000, has recently been organized to do a strictly copyright publishing business, and begins its career in artistically appointed offices over Brentano's, in Union Square, New York. It is the announced policy of this concern to publish only a high class of books, and it starts out with a very interesting list of new issues. The President of the company, Mr. J. Selwin Tait, is well known in literary circles, both in this city and in London, as an author and as a contributor to periodicals. The concern has secured as foreign literary adviser and reader Mr. Edmond Gosse. The company has also engaged as its manager Mr. A, B. Yohn, formerly of Indianapolis, who has been actively engaged in the publishing and book-selling business for more than twenty-five years.

N. Y. Sun.

=Mr. Edward Whymper is preparing for publication an edition de luxe of his "Scrambles Among the Alps," which includes the story of the first ascent of the Matterhorn. The volume will have five maps and 130 illustrations. London Academy.

ORIGIN OF THE TIDES.

The moon, a lady robed in white,

Rose o'er the bosom of the sea,
And whispered: Take me! by thy might,
Embrace me, seize me, set me free
From endless bondage to the night!
The brave sea rose to do her will,

And tossed his pale arms high in air.
The deeps responded with a thrill

That shook far coasts and islands fair,
Yet the pale maid rode higher still.
The bold surge, wrestling with defeat,
Threw foaming kisses high-in vain.
At last he sighed: Ah, lady sweet,

Thou art too great! But thou shalt reign
My queen. My heart shall rise to greet
The daily dancing of thy feet.

From "Valeria and Other Poems," by Harriet Monroe.

REVIEWS.

A POET-CRITIC'S WORK.

THE NATURE AND ELEMENTS OF POETRY. Bv Edmund Clarence Stedman, author of "Victorian Poets," "Poets of America," etc. With frontispiece. 388 pp Indexed. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.24.

Upon the whole this book goes further toward a scientific consideration of the nature and elements of poetry than any other that we have read. Indeed, it breaks the way for what it does not wholly accomplish, and must be recognized as the wedge with which a great opening is begun. From Aristotle down to Sidney Lanier much has been said about the unscientific method of discussing poetry; the scientific method is now fully in the field. Fact instead of fancies, results instead of visions are to be made the bases of discussion. Hysteria of the imagination is to give way to a normal mood of investigation.

But it is easy to see that Mr. Stedman, like Mr. Watts, has not quite succeeded in assuming the scientific spirit exclusive of everything belonging to the old visionary view of poetry. He has a lingering respect for the divine afflatus, and his conscience twits him whenever he sets about questioning the poets concerning inspiration and the secrets of poetical distillation and precipitation. He "shivers and shakes" at thought of placing the invention of a new poem on the same ground with the invention of a sewing-machine; but he must do this before he can attain to the merciless and unrespecting mood of the scientist. Shall we say that we like his book all the better on account of this reluctance about going away at once and forever from the glorious chaos of the old theories and dreams? We gave up demigods years ago; shall we now give up the divinities of poetry?

The students of literature will find Mr. Stedman's book a valuable one, a mine indeed of information reduced to a system and forceful thought, strikingly expressed. Its value is not confined to what it imparts touching poetry; the analysis of art is as broad as the higher human aspirations. Many singularly lucid and penetrating rays of criticism are cast into the fields of artistic production bordering on the flowery domain of song, but not belonging to it. The whole history of poetry from Job to Tennyson has its essentials cast into these pages; and, when we regard it comprehensively, it is almost startling to note into how small a vial the'e precious extracts can be filtered.

* * *If, in attempting to be cosmopolitan, Mr. Stedman has made singularly conspicuous a trace of provincial doubt touching his own neighborhood's standing with the rest of the world, he has not made his book a provincial one on the whole. It is cast to a model of large lines. The student will climb toward noble conceptions while he reads it. No recent criticism, in any language, has taken higher ground, or

maintained any ground, with so even, so rich, and so powerful energy. Take this book as an appendix and a finishing chapter to Mr. Stedman's monumental works on the "Victorian Poets," and on "Poets of America," and it will show how admirably our critic has accomplished the task he set for himself; the three books stand for the highest and broadest achievement of American literary criticism. They are never dry, never dull, never twinkling on the verge of insincerity; they are rich, ripe fruit of honesty and

earnestness.

Mr. Stedman is probably at his best when he comes to discuss "Imagination." Learning here gives way to the exhibition of comprehensive understanding. Creative imagination is here handled by creative imagination, and the reader is shown how it is the original and initial force by which all great achievements in politics, war, religion, morals and art are attained. This essay by itself is enough to make the book a permanent contribution to higher literature.

N. Y. Independent.

TWO LINCOLN BIOGRAPHIES.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. A Story of a Great Life. By William H. Herndon and Jessie W. Weik: With an introduction by Horace White. Two volumes. Illustrated. 331, 348 pp. Indexed. 12mo, $2.25; by mail, $2.51.

IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN. A Tale of the Tunker School-master and the Times of Blackhawk. By Hezekiah Butterworth. With portraits, illustrations and fac-similes. 266 pp. 12mo, $1.10; by mail, $1.26.

Mr. Herndon's work is in some respects the most important for American students of all the varied biographies of Mr. Lincoln. The elaborate work of Nicolay and Hay is invaluable as a record of the events of his administration, and scores of biographies have been written mostly by men who are unable to throw much light upon his character and qualities, but the work of Mr. Herndon is specially valuable because of its plain, matter-of-fact record of the truth of Mr. Lincoln's life until he entered the Presidency. He had been associated with Mr. Lincoln as his law partner from 1843 until Lincoln's death. When elected to the Presidency it was Mr. Lincoln's special desire that his business relations with Mr. Herndon should not be terminated, as he evidently contemplated that he might return to his old Springfield home to renew his professional efforts. In him Mr. Lincoln confided more than he did in any other living man, and yet he confesses that he never fully understood the man whom he saw in every day life for nearly twenty years, and was his most trusted and intimate business and personal associate. Others who knew less of Mr. Lincoln have claimed to have understood him much better than Mr. Herndon, but they simply knew so little of Mr. Lincoln, and what they did know was so superficial, that their attempts to prove how Lincoln had confided in them, became

grotesque when compared with the perfectly frank unvarnished story told of him by Mr. Herndon.

The work is unpretentious as a literary effort, as Mr. Herndon had no taste for such labors, but it is the most complete and unembellished record of Mr. Lincoln from his birth until his election to the Presidency that ever has been given to the public, or that can ever be given by any. It deals with every phase of Mr. Lincoln's varied characteristics, and it is only by the careful study of the singularly diversified characteristics he presented that any just appreciation can be reached of the general qualities of the man.

He was in many things, as shown by Mr. Herndon, a law unto himself, and he gives all the moods and pranks and weaknesses and grandeur of his character, so happily and so truthfully blended that the student who reads his book feels that he has the best attainable knowledge of the true character of the greatest of all our American statesmen.

Although commenced after the death of Mr. Lincoln the work was not completed until four years ago, and probably would never have been completed but for the valuable assistance given by Jesse W. Weik, of Indiana, after Mr. Herndon's health had been broken.

Lincoln's early life it will be read with avidity, and especially by the young people of the land. It is written in an admirable vein. The story is well maintained, and there is quite enough of matter of fact in it to give the richest zest to the romance interwoven with it. It is not one of the books on Lincoln that is destined to endure, save as the future student o Lincoln's wonderful life and character shall seek to store his library with all that pertains to the man.

Philadelphia Times.

COFFIN'S LINCOLN.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Charles Carleton Coffin. Illustrated. 542 pp. Indexed. 8vo, $2.25; by mail $2.53. Mr. Coffin's account of Lincoln is, as he himself says, a sketch of the life and times, rather than a strict biography. Mr. Coffin rightly estimated that Lincoln's great qualities would be seen far better in a historical narrative than in an analytical treatise confined exclusively to the man. He has adopted that style of writing, which he made use of so successfully in his earlier histories. Illustrations abound and are made to do an important share of the work. The boy who familiarizes himself with what is contained in the 542 pp. of the book not only will know well enough what happened during one of the critical periods of the country's existence, but will make the acquaintance of about all the leading men of that time, and-thanks to excellent portraits-will know how each of them looked. The information which Mr. Coffin has used is authentic, he says. He visited the scenes of Lincoln's early days-the place where he was born, and his Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois homes. From those who were playmates and schoolmates he obtained much that he considered valuable as tending to show what sort of boy Lincoln was and what were the circumstances of his beginning. He had some personal acquaintance with Lincoln, and saw him frequently while he was President. In that period Mr. Coffin was serving as a newspaper correspondent, and at Richmond he walked with the President through the streets of the burning city, and at night telegraphed the story to his newspaper. That story, by the way, Mr. Coffin has reproduced in his book.

Mr. Butterworth's work portraying the boyhood of Mr. Lincoln presents a fascinating mixture of biography, history and romance. It is an interesting story of early Western life in which Mr. Lincoln's boyhood is made conspicuous, and it presents a graphic picture of the Tunker (or Dunkard) pioneer schoolmaster on the sparsely settled prairies of the West two generations ago. Like everything that relates to Mr.

N. Y. Times.

A NEW MOLTKE VOLUME. MOLTKE, HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. Sketched in Journals, Letters, Memoirs, A Novel and Autobiographical Notes. Translated by Mary Herms. With illustrations. 332 pp. 8vo, $2.25; by mail, $2.47. Further light upon a distinguished figure of modern history is afforded in the present translation by Mary Herms. Like the writings of Moltke which have heretofore appeared, this is a volume of curious interest, and of interest for the general reader as well as the student. It seems to be, and must be, a perfectly truthful and ingenuous picture of character; and yet how surprising a portrait of the man who led the German armies into Paris. It is as strange to think of Moltke writing a novel as it is to think of Carlyle doing the same thing; but here is the novel, "The Two Friends," and from the look of it we think we should rather read it than Carlyle's. The letters here describing a journey to Constantinople and other travels will repeatedly amuse the reader. Moltke speaks, for instance, of the assorted company on board a "big ship with a small engine" on which he journeyed down the Danube. "Our Captain," he says, "is a Rhinelander, the chief engineer is English, the cook Italian, the pilot Hungarian, and the stewards are pigs." There is a fine Teutonic climax to that, and anybody who knows a strong and good thing in German knows the delight that Moltke felt as it issued from his pen. On board this ship were three American passengers, whom Moltke calls Mohicans. He adds: "Albion's stepsons are not very amiable; if the Yankee turns out thus after having traveled all over Europe, how disagreeable must he be at home!" That was a good fling, too; such a one as a patriot delights in. The book is illustrated very interestingly from a number of the author's drawings, and contains portraits and fac simile letters. N. Y. Sun.

whole field; but it is not this so much as the spirit and method by which the work was done. Green wrote history as no Englishman before his time had written it. He, first among men, put into splendid practice the theory that a nation's life and history are not comprehended in chronicles of battles, the doings of Courts, and the rise and fall of dynasties. Green himself wrote that it is not in the spire of Sarum and not in the martyrdom of Canterbury that the vital facts are to be found, but in "the mill by the stream, the tolls in the market place, the brasses of its burghers in the church, the names of its streets, the lingering memory of its guilds, the mace of its Mayors." In that spirit Green wrote of his native land, from the time of the coming of the Angles until a British soldier became the victor at Waterloo.

Since Green published his works, back in the seventies, some hundreds of thousands of volumes must have been printed, counting all the editions, and now we are to have what is the most significant tribute yet paid to the genius of the author and the solid worth of his writings-an edition of the "Short History" from the Harpers in four volumes, printed on fine paper, with a series of illustrations of great historical interest and authenticity. The aim in the selection of these illustrations has been to show "how men and things appeared to the lookerson of their own day and how contemporary observers aimed at representing them." The editors are Mrs.