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chronicler. . . . The History of Macaulay, whatever else it may be, is the work of a great artist, and a great artist who lavishly bestowed upon it all his powers. It has the character of a true and very high work of art. Whatever and whenever read, he will be read with fascination, with delight, with wonder. For his works are in many respects among the prodigies of literature; in some they have never been surpassed. .. But the tree is greater than its fruit, and greater and better yet than the works themselves are the lofty aims and conceptions, the large heart, the independent, manful mind, the pure and noble career of the man who wrote them.. William E. Gladstone.

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LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[ For the convenience of readers THE WRITER Will send a copy of any magazine mentioned in the following reference list on receipt of the amount given in parenthesis following the name- the amount being in each case the price of the periodical with three cents postage added. Unless a price is given, the periodical must be ordered from the publication .office. Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies containing the articles mentioned in the list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER when they write. ]

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THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH. James Champlin Fernald. Harper's Magazine (38 c.) for September. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA." Illustrated. James Douglas. Harper's Magazine (38 c.) for September. THE CHOICE OF READING FOR CHILDREN. Editor's Study, Harper's Magazine (38 c.) for September.

Is MARK TWAIN DEAD? (A satire on Mark Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead?") Eugene H. Angert. North American Review (38 c.) for September. TENNYSON AND THE SCIENCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Popular Science Monthly for September. HENRI POINCARE AND THE FRENCH ACADEMY. Frederic Masson. Popular Science Monthly for Sep

tember.

M.

THE "AUTOCRAT'S" THEOLOGY. Unpublished let ters of Oliver Wendell Holmes. With portrait. Explanatory notes by Emory S. Turner. Putnam's Magazine (28 c.) for September.

MACAULAY: THEN AND Now. Edward Fuller. Bookman (28 c.) for September.

CONCERNING MR. JOSEPH R. KIPLING. Harry Thurston Peck. Bookman (28 c.) for September. COURSES OF NOVEL-READING. Hamilton W. Mabie. Ladies' Home Journal for September.

DOCTOR HALE AS I KNEW HIM. William H. McElroy. Woman's Home Companion (13 c.) for September.

A MOTOR TRIP ΤΟ THE BOYHOOD HAUNTS OF TENNYSON. Thomas W. Wilby. Travel for September.

THE CANNED DRAMA. Walter P. Eaton. American Magazine for September.

KICKING OUT THE GREAT AMERICAN DRAMA. By a Professional Play-reader. Munsey's for September. THE VICE OF PLAY WRITING. Jesse Lynch Williams. Metropolitan for September.

RECOLLECTIONS OF IAN MACLAREN." With portrait. Rev. Hugh Black, D. D. Youth's Companion (8 c.) for August 5.

THE EARLY HOME AND HAUNTS OF TENNYSON. Illustrated. Rev. W. Bainbridge. Christian Endeavor World (8 c.) for August 5.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. With portrait. Rev. R. P. Anderson. Christian Endeavor World (8 c.) for August 5.

THE TENNYSON FAMILY. Jane A. Stewart. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 5.

TENNYSON'S CENTENARY. Eugene Parsons. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 5.

TENNYSON. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 5. A SCIENTIST'S SUNSET YEARS (Professor Ernst Haeckel). Illustrated. Joseph McCabe. Harper's Weekly (13 c.) for August 7.

IN PRAISE OF NOVEL-READING. Florida Pier. Harper's Weekly (13 c.) for August 7.

ROMANCE. Harper's Weekly (13 c.) for August 7. THE POET OF VISION. Outlook (8 c.) for August 7. FORCES WHICH SHAPED THE AUTOCRAT (Oliver Wendell Holmes). Jesse Bowman Young, D. D., Litt. D. Zion's Herald (8 c.) for August 18.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. With portrait. Zion's Herald (8 c.) for August 18.

EXPERIENCES OF A WOMAN REPORTER. Anne Eliot. Collier's (13 c.) for August 21.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Samuel A. Eliot. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 26.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Rev. George F. Piper. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 26. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Ellen Burns Sherman. Christian Register (9 c.) for August 26. MRS.

HUMPHRY WARD AND HER WORK. Illustrated. Charles S. Olcott. Outlook (18 c.) for August 28.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. With portrait. Outlook (18 c.) for August 28.

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Atlantic

Bliss Perry, editor of the Monthly, has gone abroad to serve as American lecturer for 1909-10 at the Sorbonne and the provincial universities of France. He will return in August, 1910.

William Winter, for forty-four years dramatic editor and dramatic critic on the New York Tribune, has resigned from its staff. In a letter published in the Evening Post of August 20 Mr. Winter explains that his resignation is due to a recent change in the policy of the Tribune, which, he says, will no longer print articles condemnatory of bad and vulgar plays on Sundays, when its advertising support is specially strong.

Word comes from London that William Watson, the poet, was married at Bath August 11 to a beautiful Irish girl, Miss Pring, of Hill-of-Howth. Mr. Watson has just passed his fifty-first birthday.

Miss Lillian Whiting has finished the biography which she has entitled "Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend," and which is her nineteenth book.

A collection of George Meredith's letters is to be published under the direct supervision of Lord Morley.

Mrs. Lecky has written a life of her husband, W. E. H. Lecky, which will be published by Longmans, Green & Co.

Walter Sichel's life of Sheridan, which Archibald Constable & Co. are to publish in two illustrated volumes, is based on new and original material from many sources.

The Life of Edward Bulwer, First Baron Lytton of Knebworth," which is to be published this fall, is the work of T. H. S. Escott.

"The Life and Letters of Mrs. Craigie ("John Oliver Hobbes") will be published soon. It has been edited by her father, and will have an introduction by the Dean of Manchester.

The book on the author of "The Decameron," which the John Lane Company will publish this season, is to be called "Giovanni Boccaccio: His Life, His Love, His Work." It is by Edward Hutton.

"The American Newspaper," a study by James E. Rogers, is published by the University of Chicago Press.

W. M. Clayton, 452 Fifth avenue, New York, announces that, beginning October 1, he will publish the Monthly Book Review, a thirty-two-page magazine, to be devoted to reviews and criticisms of new books and to literary news and notes in general. It will be under the editorial charge of Temple Scott, while the new books will be reviewed by Charles Hanson Towne.

A new agricultural paper, called the Associated Farmer, is published at Peoria, Ill., by Charles H. May, proprietor of the Peoria Herald-Transcript and the Springfield News, from the office of the former.

William S. Crandall has bought a controlling interest in Spare Moments, Rochester. William Darbyshire will continue as editor, and is president of the new company.

The plant and other property of the Outing Publishing Company at Deposit, N. Y., has been sold at auction for more than $52,000. The best offer at private sale was $25,000.

Charles E. Page, formerly with L. C. Page & Co., and Philip Lamson Brown, formerly with Little, Brown & Co., have formed a partnership under the firm name of Brown & Page to do a general publishing business in Boston.

The first of a series of short stories by Rudyard Kipling is published in the September Delineator, and the first installment of a two-part story by Kipling is published in the September Harper's.

Dr. George D. Dowkontt died in New York July 31, aged sixty-seven.

Sir Theodore Martin died in London August 18, aged ninety-three.

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A MONTHLY MAGAZINE TO INTEREST AND HELP ALL LITERARY WORKERS.

VOL. XXI.

BOSTON, OCTOBER, 1909.

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Most writers of stories find great difficulty in determining upon some incident that shall constitute the initial chapter to be written. After that the plot may easily evolve itself. It is the beginning that will not readily take form out of the void. When one has organized himself, so to speak, so that he can write the first chapter, he has measurably cleared up the problem of the whole story. Hardy, in the opening of his "A Pair of Blue Eyes," touches upon this point, and so does Barrie in the start of "The Little Minister." Scott's introduction to "Waverley" gives some of his reasons for the selection of this title over others he names, and thus indirectly shows the great study, he gave to this one element of the story before he could "christen" it.

No. 10.

A glimpse at a few of the first chapters of the best-known novels will perhaps convey some idea of the difficulties of beginning, and show how the author, with the initiatory movement as a basis, built the story upon it. The first chapter will not, in many cases, prefigure the character or progress of the story. In the development of a plot at first there is no clearly-defined point for starting for the story writer, such as history or science affords for the historian and scientist, and the puzzle is what to originate, or what to take, as a basis from which to proceed.

Le Sage's "Gil Blas" is related as an autobiography, and the first chapter is an account of the young life of the hero. After this he sallies forth "to see the world," and, as in some of our latest novels on the market, "things begin doing then at once."

The greatest satirist in the Spanish language, or perhaps in any language, for that matter, begins the "offspring of his brain" -"Don Quixote"-by giving some account of the "quality and manner of life of our renowned hero," speaking of his food, his clothes, his family, his age and name, his strange bias for "books of chivalry," his peculiar fancies, his refurbished old rusty armor, his blemished steed that after much deliberation he called Rozinante, and his abnormal imagination. Subsequent chapters recite his notorious windmill vagaries and speak of his sound, practical Squire Panza.

Lamartine's "Fior D'Aliza," a very touching little story, told in the first person singular, begins with a statement of how the author found his "poem in nature or human action," and the very beautiful Fior d'Aliza is described in dreamy-like terms of pathos and love. Then the story-teller meets the members of the family in the cottage they own, and sees the old chestnut tree and vine,

the history of which is the foundation for the story.

The very pathetic story of "Paul and Virginia," by Bernardin de St. Pierre, is not divided into chapters or parts, but is one unbroken story from first to last. It opens by a description of a splendid landscape and the two cottages of the families concerned.

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That beautiful story, "Picciola," by Boniface-Saintine, begins with some account “of a learned man, but not of a philosopher," and one at first is reminded of the squire in Robert Elsmere." The learned, brilliant, wealthy Count de Charney was seized in a conspiracy against Napoleon and detained in prison. Picciola" is a new flower, "a pale and sickly scatterling of vegetation," that the Count watched in his prison life with tender solicitude as it grew solitary from between the flags of the court, only to see it ruthlessly destroyed in the end. Balzac begins the "Chouans" with a description of a motley squad of peasants and townsmen, in garments that tell something of their unequal conditions. This group of men was pressed into military service, specially employed in fighting the Chouans," or "Owls." The landscape is made a grateful part of the scene of the march. Then follow some revelations and motives that lead up to the story.

After the Dedication and the Prologue, the first chapter of Sue's "Wandering Jew" opens with a date, followed by a description of an uncanny loft reached by a ladder and occupied by the "brute-tamer" and "convert," Morok, who previous to his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith fled in terror before wild beasts. An emissary brings him news of some travelers, two lovely young ladies and their guardian with gray mustache, whom Morok is spying upon for mean purposes.

Dumas sets out in "The Count of Monte Christo" with an account of the arrival of a ship at Marseilles, February 24, 1815, and the further account of the death of the ship's captain on the voyage and the devolution of the command upon Edmond Dantes. There is some significant talk between the ship owner and Dantes about the "Emperor at

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The first chapter of "Les Miserables" relates something of the life of Bishop Myriel, in pure narrative form. The hero, Jeah Valjean, does not appear till the fifteenth chapter.

Du Maurier opens "Trilby" by a minute description of the studio occupied by Taffy, Sandy, and Little Billee, and then proceeds to depict these occupants in measured and accurate, but charitable, terms.

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Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," Goethe's best prose work, begins with the impatience of the old female servant waiting for her gay young mistress to return from the play, where she had played the part of a boy. While waiting the old servant has opened a package containing some presents from a gallant" for herself and mistress; and on the return of the mistress she cannot be made interested in the gifts, even repulses her old servant, and says she is expecting a visit at that very time from her young lover, Wilhelm Meister. The chapter closes with his entrance and the vivid embrace of the two lovers.

Tolstoy's novel, "Resurrection," tells first of the glad springtime, and notes the indifference of men in official pursuits to the new grace and joy of the year. It tells of a hearty, full-vigored female prisoner, and of her journey from the prison to the place of her trial, where she has to defend herself against a charge of robbery.

Smollett's "Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" is cast in the form of letters, and the first one is a petulant, nervous, growling letter from M. Bramble to Dr. Lewis, that ends: "Forgive all this trouble from, dear Lewis, your affectionate M. Bramble." In general, the letters are not very long.

That much-vaunted story, "Vathek, an Arabian Tale," by William Beckford, begins with an account of "Vathek, the ninth Caliph," describing his person, his love of

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The first chapter of The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," by Samuel Johnson, contains a description of a palace in the happy valley in the Kingdom of Amhara, and also a description of this wonderful valley.

The perpetual joy of "The Vicar of Wakefield," by Goldsmith, is due to the simplicity of the tale and the directness of the telling. The opening chapter is a depiction of the family of girls of the pure-minded Rev. Mr. Primrose, the poor vicar of Wakefield. is a direct domestic story, simple, clear, honest, without cynicism or suggestion of doubt or insincerity in the honor and reality of the characters.

It

It is a singular book, entitled "Tristram Shandy," that Lawrence Sterne, that everlasting cynic and jester, gave the world. In every chapter the writer leads the reader to anticipate something that is never related, deviating to something else utterly irrelevant. In the first chapter the author laments that his parents were not more mindful in his creation to endow him with greater genius.

"Griffith Gaunt" begins by describing the high-minded girl, carrying her into the hunt, and disclosing a quarrel at the end of the fox chase that is precipitated through the jealousy of Griffith. The lovers part there in no happy frame of mind. Charles Reade showed his dramatic skill in this as in "Peg Woffington," "Foul Play," and others of his novels. It was said of him in his palmiest days that he missed it but a hair's breadth of being England's greatest novelist.

As already intimated, Scott's first chapter of "Waverley" is primarily introductory, and goes into confidence with the reader as to why he selected the title, and he forecasts several stories that the reader must have anticipated had the story been named differ

ently. Then he states what "Waverley" is, a tale that is more a description of men than manners." His purpose is "to throw the force of the narrative upon the characters and passions of the actors." Edward Waverley, the hero, is a soldier.

David Copperfield, Dickens proceeds first to tell us, was born on a Friday night, and the very first thing he did was to test his lungs by crying. In speculating about the new-born child, some women said he was unlucky born, and would therefore be unlucky in life, and would also see ghosts. Telling his own story, David proceeds to relate how his caul, after a long time, was finally sold to an old woman who was preserved from drowning by this caul because she was never upon the water. As a posthumous son he tells of the domestic infelicity of his great-aunt, called Betsy, and how she introduced herself in eccentric manner into his mother's home just anterior to his birth. He thinks her severe presence affected his whole life. The carping old critic makes Mrs. Copperfield fear her, and she even sneers at the name of the servant girl called Peggotty. In the event that the child should be a girl, Miss Betsy wanted it named in full for her, and then she would see to the little one's future welfare. And here by offensive direct questions the old lady develops all the events of Mrs. Copperfield's life, chiefly those things that Mrs. Copperfield would like to have remain in the background. And the timid medical attendant is almost frightened to death by Miss Betsy's bluff, domineering ways. This is all in the first chapter.

"Vanity Fair" opens humorously on the arrival of a large family coach at an academy for young ladies, and the conversation between the two running the academy. Then is presented a copy of the letter of the lettered senior sister to the mother of the young lady who was to return home in the coach, taking with her all the accomplishments secured in a six-years' residence in the academy. The austere senior sister had established the practice of giving to each pupil sent out with a finished education a copy of Dr. Johnson's "Dixonary." But her threadbare feelings would not permit her

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