C

ERTAIN persons meeting me seem to feel an obligation to say at once, "What are you reading now?" as if books were my only interest. I refuse to talk on books, new or old, unless with a rare thinker who makes it worth while, so I reply evasively and try other topics.

But what have I been reading of late? Well, I have tried to understand that great independent thinker of Germany, Friedrich Nietzsche, who, like Hegel, is considered "an European event" and has a following of his own a distinct school of thought. His last years were spent in an insane asylum, and that sad taint is mixed with most of his estimates, apothegms, and darts. His Editor allows that "To a large extent because of his highly condensed, epigrammatic, and elliptic style, which sometimes made the full meaning difficult even for a German to attain, he has been almost unknown in this country until a few years ago."

Almost all great geniuses have possessed a certain amount of both conceit and insanity, and he does not lag behind. He says, "I have given to the Germans the profoundest books they at all possess a sufficient reason why they should not understand a word of them."

"Emerson much more enlightened, more discursive, more varied, more refined, than Carlyle; above all, more fortunate. One who instinctively nourishes himself solely with ambrosia, leaving alone what is indigestible in things."

Carlyle, who had much love for Emerson, said, nevertheless, "He does not give us enough to chew," which may be rightly said, but not to Emerson's prejudice.

His hatred of Christianity is too blasphemous to repeat, and sounds like crazy ravings. His epigrams are good and original:

Even the boldest of us have but seldom the courage for what we really know.

From the military school of life, What does not kill me strengthens me.

Help thyself; then every one helps thee - principle of brotherly love.

Contentedness is a prophylactic even against catching cold. Has a woman who knew she was well dressed ever caught cold? I put the case that she was hardly dressed at all.

If a woman possesses manly virtues, she is to be run away from; and if she does not possess them, she runs away herself.

At last, and quite behind the times, I tried to do what Emerson advised against with Grote's History of Greece, and "wade through the voluminous annals," in two large volumes, of Prince Chlodwig of Schillingsfuerst; but the first volume is heavy, and the second, while of vital interest to those who were personally concerned, and all in the German nation who enjoy dangerous frank

ness, spicy gossip, State secrets laid bare, and a rare chance to see the inside wheels moved, is too big a task for a busy American woman.

Then it has been reviewed universally by the best critics.

[Macmillan Co. $6.00, net.]

There are many other new and important publications in two volumes which deserve enthusiastic praise.

"The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn." By Elizabeth Bisland, who, with tact which proceeds from unselfish, devoted friendship, has kept her work in the background and allowed the man to speak to us through letters far more engrossing than those of any of the world's famous letterwriters and through occasional bits of pathetic autobiography. And unlike some of the highly praised but artificial epistolary efforts of the last century, written for the public eye, and sometimes addressed to two or three admirers, Hearn's heartrevelations and exchanges of thought were poured out to one friend who was begged to keep them entirely to himself. Hence their peculiar charm.

He felt he could write most successfully on the exotic, the eccentric, the fantastic, minute, or supernatural; but in fact he excelled, whatever theme was taken.

He fascinates me, more even than did Amiel with his Journal, and I could quote all day as he talks on the ancient music and musical instruments; creole and negro ditties; the earliest religions; legends of strange faiths; folklore; studies of Japanese life, literature, and religion; Chinese ghosts; our many incarnations; metaphysical idyls; French translations. This is but a hint of the variety of his themes and his skill and scholarship in treating them.

And all this accomplished while working daily for bare support as journalist or teacher - held back by distressing handicaps, as the loss of one eye, weak lungs and heart, and terrible, constant risk of utterly losing eyesight by incessant work, which must be done.

When I think of his superb courage, and of Stevenson's, who after a severe hemorrhage dictated the last part of "Weir of Hermiston," in the deaf-mute language, a bit at a time, to his stepdaughter, I simply bow in silent reverence and pray to be always brave and cheerful.

The tributes from his Japanese admirers to Hearn at his funeral were beautiful. One said, "Like a lotus the man was in his heart; a poet, a thinker, loving husband and father, and sincere friend. Within that man there burned something pure as the vestal fire, and in that flame dwelt a mind that called forth life and poetry out of the

dust, and grasped the highest themes of human thought."

Another wrote, "Surely we could lose two or three battleships at Port Arthur rather than Lafcadio Hearn."

[Houghton, Mifflin and Co.]

I was shown an enlarged copy of Richard Hengist Horne's "New Spirit of the Age" the other day in a friend's library, and longed to pore over it for weeks. ("Browse," some say; but why do they use that word when its meaning is "to nibble at twigs, as a sheep"?) William Hazlitt wrote the original "Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits" in 1825, and Horne edited the "New Spirit of the Age" in 1844.

A properly "enlarged" book is a precious thing. Curtis Guild, Sr., has several very fine specimens; but these six volumes are especially valuable from the number of letters, the very letters of each author mentioned, either of a social, business, or literary nature.

There is a portion of the original MSS. of Ion, by Thomas Noon Talfourd, and I enjoyed a characteristic note from Charles Lamb to Charles Cowden Clarke, who had sent him a story of which he wrote: "Who the devil wrote that novel? I am too old to care for narrative; but Mary was delighted."

You read in Horne's hand, "The annotations in pencil are all by my friend Leigh Hunt, to whom I lent the volume."

The first volume gives sketches and portraits of Dickens, Thomas Ingoldsby, Landor, William and Mary Howitt, Dr. Pusey, G. P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, Captain Marryatt, Mrs. Trollope, Talfourd, Milnes, Hartley Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Leigh Hunt, with many autograph letters.

I give one letter from Miss Barrett to Horne in 1841:

Writing is so bad; having to write is so bad, and I don't suppose you could write in the way I do, leaning backward, instead of forward; lying down, in fact.

How you would smile sarcasms and epigrams out of the "Hood" if you could see from it what I have been doing, or, rather, suffering lately. Having my picture taken by a lady miniature-painter, who wandered here to put an odd vow of mine to proof. For it was n't the "ruling passion strong in death,"- I thought by your smiling you may seem to say so,- but a sacrifice to Papa.

The only thing fixed is a journey from here; and "if I fall," as the heroes say, why you and Psyche must walk by yourselves. She, at least, won't be the worse for it. We are to have one of the patent carriages, with a thousand springs, from London, and I am afraid of nothing. We shall set out, I hope, in a fortnight.

But I must not tarry, for there are many other books I "am reading."

Yes, I "am reading," have been reading, and shall continue to read four biographies, all so full of "meat" that they cannot be dismissed lightly and can only be given honorable mention now.

First, “The Autobiography and Memoirs of the Duke of Argyll (1823-1900)." Edited by the Dowager Duchess of Argyll, with portrai s and illustrations.

George Douglas was the eighth Duke of Argyll, K. G., K. T., a noble man in every sense of the word.

A remarkable brain, soul, heart, were his; and he was interested in everything worthy of his study, be it ever so unusual.

From boyhood his special tastes and reading were directed to the biological branches of natural science, especially ornithology.

He describes with enthusiasm "Fossil Leaves in Mull": "Fossilized wood at Dunrobin with shales;" in one of which he detected the tail of a fossil fish, and in another the scale of a gamoid fish.

He writes: "That scale told a tale indeed. It had belonged to a fish that swam in the old red seas or lakes. The mud of that sea had been converted into stone. It had then been elevated into dry land. It had next supported a fine forest of Araucarian pines. These, again, had been destroyed and submerged and fossilized. And a root which had supplied the quantities of fossil wood had never let go its grip upon the rock on which it had stood, which told of a much older world, as compared with which the now longvanished Araucarians were young indeed."

He visited Hugh Miller, whom he said, "first cast the light and charm of poetry on the dry paths of science."

At one time he would be studying "Animal Mechanics;" then, "Aquatic Larvæ;" next, writing poems on the song of the willow-wren, the wind on the lonely moor, or some favorite view which he could also paint skilfully.

His close observation of nature is illustrated by this story:

Noticing a raven flying over his head with something in his bill, he shouted and the bird dropped his find. It was a fir-cone covered on the inside with a small parasitical fungus. He says: "I sent it to Sir William Hooker, and he writes to me that it is the Parichena Strobilina, of which only one other specimen has ever been found in Scotland, and that it is very rare anywhere. Had the raven a private museum ?"

Now all this would not be so noteworthy if the

observer had been a man like the one who regretted he had not given his whole life to the dative case, or the person described by Dr. Holmes who only studied one kind of beetle, until he resembled it!

The list of his published works fills more than five pages of the book, and in fine print. He was an accomplished agriculturist; beloved by his tenantry; his oratory was of the first rank. Chamberlain regarded him as one of the greatest figures of his age.

He was called the "Nestor of British politics," yet at the beginning of one chapter he says, “I must now with regret turn to politics."

Gladstone considered him the greatest orator of the House of Lords.

He was a noted champion of the Church of Scotland; sincerely interested in many philanthropies and charities, as the Lifeboat Cause.

He knew all the famous men of his country, and describes them impartially; his reports of their conversations are to me the best part of the whole.

A witty Scottish nobleman is alleged to have remarked, when search was made for a biographer of the late Mr. Gladstone, that it would require a joint-stock company to write his life. The same remark applies to the Duke of Argyll. "There was no field of human thought which he did not enter, no region of science which he did not explore; there was nothing in nature which did not interest him, and there were few subjects upon which he could not discourse."

And leaving him reluctantly, I give his impressive verdict: "There is always plenty to learn, even to the end."

[E. P. Dutton and Co., New York. $10.00, net.] The other three biographies, to which I can now only allude, are:

"Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones." [Macmillan Co. $4.00.]

"The Life of Goethe." By Albert Bielschowsky. Translated from the German by William A. Cooper. Illustrated. [G. P. Putnam's Sons.]

"The Journal and Letters of Samuel Gridley Howe." Edited by his daughter Laura E. Richards, with Notes and a Preface by Frank B. Sanborn. [Dana Estes and Co.]

First volume "The French Revolution."

The remainder of my reading must now be condensed in literary tabloids:

Mark Twain has sent forth his pronouncement on Christian Science, but it is neither convincing nor amusing. Of course it will sell.

Dr. Streeter, of "Fat of the Land" fame, tried farming in bed, and Mr. Clemens has apparently gone to bed for the rest of his life. It is there that

he eats, composes, and smokes. I forgot, as Elbert Hubbard says; "Every once in a while " he emerges to display his snow-white costume (not a robe de nuit, but a flannel suit), with a Cavalier or Troubadour cloak of same unsullied hue slung jauntily over his shoulders.

If Mrs. Clemens were alive I - but never mind. [Harper's. Illustrated. $1.75.]

Sincere praise for Benson's last but one, "From a College Window." [Putnam's. $1.25.]

"Newer Ideals of Peace," by Jane Addams, makes one think soberly and believe in her suggestions and statements: a grand presentation of conditions we ought all to know about. [Macmillan Co. $1.25.]

Dr. W. H. Thomson's study of "Brain and Personality" will be spoken of later - a most important contribution to our slight knowledge on this subject. [Dodd, Mead and Co., New York. $1.50.]

"Studies in Seven Arts," by Arthur Symons, gives the most original and worth-while criticisms that I have come across on the special themes he takes. [E. P. Dutton and Co. $2.50.]

KATE SANBorn.

Striking Instances of Wit in Noted Men

IT

T is interesting to observe some of the quoted wit of great men. For instance, the bright and solitary instance given by the solemn poet Wordsworth.

He said to a party of friends, "Gentlemen, I never was witty but once in my life."

This remark roused a clamor for that one scintillation, so he kindly gave it. "I was standing at the door of my cottage one fine morning when a laborer passed along who stopped to inquire if I had seen his wife go that way.

"And I said to him, 'My good man, I did not know until this moment that you had a wife.""

The laugh which followed was long and loud, but it was hardly a tribute to Wit.

Then in Parker's Life of Choate, who was most brilliantly keen and witty, one instance is given of his "delicious humor" which impresses me as far from delicious or in the least humorous.

It was a fiercely cold day in winter and, some friend commenting on the unusual frigidity, the legal fencer and eloquent pleader replied, "Well, it's not absolutely tropical."

If a woman had made such a self-evident re

mark, would it have been considered so deliciously humorous that it must be preserved?

Herbert Spencer said of his own wit: "My tendency towards facetiousness was the result of temporary elation, either caused by pleasurable, health-giving change, or, more commonly, by meeting old friends. Habitually, I observed that on seeing the Lotts after a long time I was able to give vent to some witticisms during the first hour or two, and then they became rare."

If examples of his wit as given by himself and friends be fair representatives of his wit when cerebral activity was propitious, no one need regret their paucity.

He tells us that once when in the Isle of Wight and sittingdown to dinner at Freshwater, "I made Lewes laugh by exclaiming, 'Dear me, these are very large chops for such a small island.""

Which reminds me of a similar remark by a woman when some fine wine which her host bragged of as very old was served to her in a tiny glass: "Is n't it rather small of its age?"

Here is one more of Spencer's awakenings as repeated by one of the sisters with whom he boarded for some time. She writes: "Mr. Spencer had no great native fund of wit, and it is to be feared his jokes were sometimes of a rather heavy type. For instance, when telling us little anecdotes about George Eliot he added, in a whimsical way, that he had often joked her about her diabolical descent. It may have been that we looked a little blank at this, not understanding what he meant, or perhaps he thought the joke was too subtle for our understanding, for he proceeded to explain that as her name was Marian, she was also a Polly Ann (Apollyon).”

Help! Help!

The dreary old jokes brought out, over and over, by famous raconteurs like Chauncey Depew show a low ebb of real spontaneous wit at men's dinners. I'll quote a few words written to me by an editor of one of the most important New York dailies, to show the honest impression of cultivated men about wit being only a man's prerogative:

"I used to think that there were no humorists of the female sex; but one day, in Puck, Madeline Bridges, in the course of a colloquy between desert nomads, made one of them ask the other to 'come in out of the simoon,' as we in American slang ask people to 'come in out of the wet.' Whereupon I concluded that a sense of humor did exist in the feminine mind."

If that strikes any one as humorous, they must be easily satisfied. KATE SANBORN.

A

GREAT deal of interest is felt by the members of the various colonial and patriotic societies in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the petition of Hon. Winslow Warren and others for legislation to prohibit the use of the Old State-house and other historic structures of like importance and interest for commercial purposes, and also to promote their preservation. The petition, which came before the Committee on Cities on the morning of Friday, March 8, for a hearing, is embodied in Senate Bill N 189, as follows:

"To preserve the Old State-house as an Historic and Patriotic Memorial, and to prohibit its use for any other purposes.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

"Section 1. The Old Colonial State-house situated at the head of State Street in the city of Boston shall be preserved as an historic and patriotic memorial, and no encroachment upon nor alteration of said building, nor use of the same for business, commercial, or transit purposes, shall be made, except the use of the basement under the eastern end of said building and the space under the western end and beneath the ground or first floor thereof for transit purposes, as provided by the Boston Transit Commission: provided, that no entrance nor stairway to the tunnel or subway adjacent to said building shall be made on or adjacent to the Washington Street front thereof, and no part of the walls of said Old State-house shall be disturbed or altered except by way of restoring them to ancient condition as hereinafter provided.

"Sec. 2. The city of Boston is hereby authorized and required to preserve and maintain said Old State-house as an historic and patriotic memorial, and is authorized with the approval of the governor of the Commonwealth first obtained in writing to make such restorations therein as will restore the same to its form and condition in Colonial days.

restrain any violation of the provisions of this act."

Among the speakers at this hearing, which was largely attended by the members of the many patriotic societies, were Hon. Winslow Warren; the Hon. Eben Francis Thompson of Worcester, president of the Massachusetts Society, Sons of the Revolution; Dr. Moses Greeley Parker of Lowell, president of the Massachusetts Society, Sons of the American Revolution; Mrs. Evelyn Fellows Masury, state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and others as well known.

The Paul Revere Memorial Association has purchased the Paul Revere House at the North End, and plans for its restoration are now in the hands of Mr. Joseph E. Chandler, the architect, only about $4,000 being needed to complete the work. Mr. Walter Gilman Page, so prominent in the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, which started the movement for the preservation of the Paul Revere House, and chairman of the Committee on Coöperative Work, states that it is the wish of the association to restore the house and establish there a sort of coöperative settlement which shall be a permanent object-lesson in patriotism and in American history to that foreignborn population now settled in the neighborhood. With this house preserved and restored there will be a line of Paul Revere memorials, from the Old North Church to the Concord Bridge, to keep fresh the memory of the man whose romantic ride occupies a large part in the story of April 19.

Mr. Page, by the way, who has attained a national reputation as a painter of historical subjects, is painting a fine portrait of the patriothero, James Otis, for the Massachusetts building at the Jamestown Exposition.

On the twelfth anniversary of the founding of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, on Oct. 11, 1902, the ceremony of breaking the ground for the building of Memorial Continental Hall was appropriately celebrated. While the process of breaking the ground was going on, the site being a beautiful spot on Seventeenth Street in the national capital,— Mrs. Cornelia Cole Fairbanks, then presidentgeneral, and Mrs. Mary S. Lockwood, marched out to the centre of the grounds, and shovelled