VALUE OF IDEAS IN JOURNALISM. M. Y. Beach.
THE ART OF GOOD WRITING. Oliver McKee.
An IndetermINATE PRONOUN. Forrest Morgan.
THE INDENTIng of SonneTS. Sophie Bronson Titter-
ington..

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ARE LITERARY WOMEN UNPRACTICAL? Bertha F. Herrick.

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Danske. Dandridge is not an alliterative nom de plume, but, instead, the real name of the young woman whose face, charming and sensitive, accords perfectly with her delicate and delightful verse. American by parentage, she was born in the country of Hans Christian Andersen; and to the cradle of the little Danskewhose name means a Dane-it seems as if the northern elves had brought a christening gift of fancies and rhymes.

Her father was Hon. Henry Bedinger, appointed minister to Copenhagen by President Buchanan; her mother was Mrs. Caroline Lawrence Bedinger, granddaughter of Mrs. Eliza Southgate Boune, whose "Letters of a Young Girl Eighty Years Ago" gave so graceful a picture of New England society in the early years of the century. Mr. Bedinger's death

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No. 12.

took place shortly before the beginning of the War of Secession, and his widow returned with her three children- of whom Danske was the youngest to the homestead at Shepherdstown, West Virginia. She did not survive her husband many years; and the orphans were taken into the care of their grandfather, Hon. J. W. Lawrence, at Flushing, Long Island. In 1877, Stephen Dandridge made Miss Danske Bedinger his wife, and brought her again to Shepherdstown. The name of Dandridge assonant with her baptismal title is well known in Virginia, and was, it will be recalled, the maiden name of Martha, Lady Washington.

SO

Mrs. Dandridge possesses the artistic temperament, which was early developed by the practice of singing, and, later, by the study of the composition of verse. She has written in rhyme from childhood, but has had the modest good sense to refrain from publishing until her work was no longer immature. Her first printed poem was in Godey's Lady's Book for February, 1885. In the following summer she wrote for Lippincott's Magazine "The Lover in the Woods," and "Twilight in the Woods" for the New York Independent. To the latter journal she has been a constant and favorite contributor, writing also for various magazines and other periodicals.

Her first volume, entitled "Joy, and Other Poems," a collection of fugitive verses, was published in 1888, and made a distinct and delightful impression. The critics united in praise of the delicate, aerial music, the sensitive sympathy with nature, the luminous and capricious fancy, and the bright and healthful tone of these poems. Mrs. Dandridge never overstrains the clear light voice that is hers; not even when

she touches tragic notes, as in the finely imaginative ode, "The Dead Moon," or in the more directly human theme of the terse and significant lyric, "Fate." Her comprehension and utterance of the realities of life appear delicately remote, such as Miranda might have had upon her enchanted island, with Ariel for singingmaster. Indeed, it would hardly be possible to describe the verse of Mrs. Dandridge in words more fit than these, cited from "Joy":The spirit, for a while,

Because of beauty, freshly made,

Could only smile.

Then grew the smiling to a song,

And as he sang he played

Upon a moonbeam-wired cithole,
Shaped like a soul.

The second volume of poems by Mrs. Dan

dridge was published in 1890. It took its title, "Rose Brake," from the name of her husband's estate in Shepherdstown, where they live in tranquil happiness, with their two children, a daughter and a son. There, in a garden, entangled with briers and bloom, - a little world of roses, crimson, pink, white, golden, in the soft Maytime weather of Virginia, the poet swings in her hammock, while flying petals and odors of roses mingle with fantasies and rhymes. So that even now, in December, when surely winter walks in the garden, between stems that are bare of all but the thorns, the pink and golden bloom of Rose Brake remains for us among the pages of a dainty book of verse. E. Cavazza.

PORTLAND, Me.

A valuable newspaper man is not necessarily a writer. If he can furnish ideas for a paper, he need never write a line for publication, and he will rank first in the salary list, too. The late John Roach, celebrated as America's pioneer iron steamship builder, could not write a properly spelled English sentence, yet he had more ideas newspaper ideas, too-in his little finger than the average man has in his whole body. Respected John Roach simply bubbled over with first-class ideas—ideas relating not only to ship-building, but also to the making of a newspaper. Had Mr. Roach followed journalism, he would have been a tremendous power in that field of usefulness simply as a man to suggest and direct the policy of an influential journal.

I once knew the art editor of a leading illustrated journal. This editor could n't draw a simple outline picture, yet his capacity to suggest ideas for cartoons and other pictorial features made him the most valued man in the art department. By the publication of a series of war articles the Century Magazine increased its

circulation and fortune tremendously. Yet the ablest writers of that periodical had nothing to do with the idea which set the war article series in motion. To be sure, one of the sub-editors had thought of it, but a man on the staff whose business it was to attend to matters outside the editorial rooms conceived the idea, and through his efforts this idea was pushed to a successful culmination, and it was probably one of the most successful magazine ideas of the past decade.

What is the most important function of an editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper? Certainly not to sit down and grind out editorials. That might have been well enough during the last generation. Horace Greeley did it. Could his successor, Whitelaw Reid, do it, and, at the same time, do full justice to the demands of a great paper like the New York Tribune in this new era of journalism?

I think not. While Mr. Reid is one of the ablest editorial writers this country ever had, he finds it necessary to outline his ideas briefly to other brilliant writers, and let them prepare the needed editorials. So it is with other chief

editors. They are the men to furnish ideas when important questions concerning the policy of their papers come up for solution. The subeditors are none the less important as aids to their chief. In fact, they frequently suggest ideas which their chief adopts. The under editor without a fund of ideas soon becomes a back number, and is dead-wood on the staff.

The more serviceable ideas a man has, whether he can or cannot write newspaper articles, the more valuable is he. Some newspapers offer prizes for ideas for the accomplishment of this or that end. Such offers are not sought by the man who is really an idea man. The idea

The ideal book on the art of literary production is yet to be written. At least one book a year is brought out in the attempt to fill this void in didactic literature. It is, nevertheless, and doubtless always will be, quite impossible to write such a book, as much on account of the fact that human expression has its limitations as because the ideal in anything is never attainable by human effort. Yet, in Professor Barrett Wendell's work there is afforded a most intelligent exposition of the elements of good composition; and while it will not teach a poor writer how to write well, it will certainly show him, by well-chosen examples, where the strength and the weakness of writing may lie. It will also, doubtless, impress the reader with the fact of the immense possibilities of the language, and show him that good literary style can be achieved, if at all, only by diligent study and practice. There can be no hesitation in recommending this work to all who would perfect themselves in the art of writing.

Professor Wendell defines style as the expression of thought and feeling in written words. It impresses us either intellectually, emotionally, or æsthetically. It must possess or lack clearness, force, and elegance. On the

subject of clearness, he says: "To be thoroughly clear, it is not enough that style express the writer's meaning: style must so express this meaning that no rational reader can have any doubt as to what the meaning is." In order to attain clearness, the writer must bear in mind the range and limit of the reader's information. The information of the average man is a pretty good target for a writer to try to hit, a formula which, while it may shock the dilettante believer in what is called "aristocracy in intellect," is yet shown to be the one upon which the greatest works have been founded. "The language of the simple" is good enough for any literary production. Professor Wendell shows, by several examples from the compositions of Harvard men under his teaching, how easily clearness may be sacrificed. For instance, in describing a visit to a cathedral in Quebec, a student spoke of it as having "plain rough walls." The inadequacy of this description is perfectly evident, especially as the average reader's information regarding this particular cathedral is

ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Eight Lectures Given at the Lowell Institute. By Professor Barrett Wendell, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard College. 316 pp. Cloth, $1.50. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Company. 1891.