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The Marion Harland's Span of Life. NOT many writers bave had published more volumes than Marion Harland. None exceeded the span of her literary productiveness, which stretched over seventy years. She was a famous novelist ten years before the civil war, and it was only three or four years ago that she rested from her labors. To visualise the length of a life like **vio wc iiiusi reuieiuoer mai ? ien she was born Jackson was beginning his first term; Gen. Monroe Was still alive; Lincoln had just moved to Illinois; Poe was a cadet at West Point. James G. Blaine and Chester A. Arthur were born the same year, 1S30. But work is more important than years. Marion Harland took full advantage of time. Her novels, beginning with "Alone," which she wrote seventy years ago, entertained two generations. And her cookbooks, her household guides?how many homes were made haDDV bv them, how many brides were saved from shipwreck by tbese charts of the treacherous culinary seas!?From an editorial in The New York Herald. ? The Range of Tolstoy. WITH Tolstoy observation and reflection did not go hand in hand. His capacity for experience was enormous, and his opportunities exceptional. But if we read bis work in chronological order we And that he is, at flrst, chiefly occupied in amassing data about life. What sorts of people are there, and what are the motives that drive them? He seems to know them all, 11VUI1 ClUirciUI IU pcasaill, I1IS IIIsight is swift and delicate. Never since Shakespeare has so large and justly observed a human panorama been spread before us by one man. And at first he was partially contented with exhibiting life. We say partly, for from "The Cossacks" to "Aifha Karenina" there is a growing disposition to brood over the meaning of the pageant. It was Dostoievsky who stated, after reading part of "Anna," that Tolstoy would not always be content to write novels?that the search for the meaning of life would not long remain a kind of literary activity but would become an obsession to which everything would be sacrificed. It was a wonderful example of Dostoievsky's insight, but we now?after the event?can see the grounds for it.?From the London Times. * * Tolstoy Seeking the Truth. WELL, many of his conclusions are not of any great importance. But what is of importance is the process by which he gets to them. They are the results of an immensely troubled, immensely sincere striving for the truth. Tolstoy's arguments are truly arguments written in blood and tears; they are poles asunder from the facile deductions of the merely intellectual debater. That is why, although we can sometimes ignore his conclusions, we can ucrer jguure ins account 01 me spiritual experiences on which those conclusions were founded. "We may not agree, for instance, that Tolstoy's doctrine of non-resistance to evil is a practicable rule of conduct, but we must profoundly respect the passionate belief in the soul of man which led Tolstoy to formulate his doctrine. And it may well happen that even when we most disagree with him we have to admit that we are more shallow and less sincere than he. We read the late Tolstoy not for his intellectual conclusions and still less for his artistic merits but for the fuller understanding of our own spiritual troubles that this immensely more experienced, immensely more receptive man can bring us. It is not that Tolstoy is a father confessor for our generation. He reached no absolute con WUDJUIia, lie lias IIU UII1>V.I OU1 |fUiia cea. But he trod the road before us, and he probably went further than we Bhall ever go. Henoe if he cannot give us peace he can often give us understanding ? From the London Times. Conrad's "Lord Jim." BOOKS have, for me, a value beyond that of music or of odors as memorials of time and place, and In a moment I was carried back ten THE NEW YOR: j World of years to a noisy little restaurant on Washington street, Boston, where I first heard of Conrad, of "Lord Jim," and to the day spent on a park bench on Boston Common, when I first read it. This first memory has been in no way effaced or supplanted by many subsequent readings; but the latest one I recall with particular relish, because of the 'combination of events which made it possible. I shall always regard it as one of the excellent minor result^ of the building of the Panama Canal, more than adequate compensation for weeks of anxiety on a thirty ton cutter, and the good in an ill wind which drove a three masted lumber laden | schooner on the rocks at Pitcairn.? Front "Sir John, Miss Amp, Joseph and Chariot." By James Norman \ Hall in the Atlantic Monthly. Thomas Hardy and the Past. HARDY has a deep and almost tender interest iir the remote past. He likes to Bit upon the ; mounds in southern England and think of the generations and races that have come and gone, leaving nothing mere than a few piles of stone. He chose for the scene of j bis novels bis native Dorset, bei cause there, as it seemed to him, ' the mid-nineteenth century peasant j formed a sort of backwater that the > current of time had passed by. He was not greatly different from his ancestors of a thousand years before?and the truth is that Hardy thinks none of us really is. Teas, the dispossessed heir of a noble tribe, meeting her tragic fate at Stonehenge, that pile that is older than history, typifies Hardy's sense of our inescapable link with the hidden past. This past was a Bad one, and the life of mankind is and will be like it, according to his view.?r rum 1 he ivkw iukk oin. * * v Dickens Going to Genoa. HE went as a sentimental Traveler, after letting his house in Devonshire place. His first care was to find a roomy carriage for his family party and a courier. The < carriage he desired was "some good old shabby devil of a coach?one of those vast phantoms that hide themselves in a corner of the Pantechnicon," and he found it. He found a good courier. He was given a farewell dinner at Greenwich, to which Thomas Carlyle would not come; he wrote to John TTnrstor that ho hart a triio Invo for Dickens, but would rather express it otherwise thqn by dining out in the dog days. The party arrived at Marseilles on July 14, 1844. Not many hours later Dickens saw ; the Marie Antoinette, a handsome steamship, lying in the harbor, bound for Gefcoa. They boarded her. "The vessel was beautifully clean: the meals were served under ( an awning on deck; the night was calm and clear; the quiet beauty of the sea and sky unspeakable." Early next morning they were off Nice, an.1 by 3 o'clock in the afternoon they saw Genoa rise out of the sea? "terrace rising above terrace, garden above garden, palace above pal ace, height above height." On landing the party went out of Genoa to its near suburb, Albaro. But on their way Dickens saw and smelt Genoa.?From John o' London's j Weekly. Brummell, King of tbe Dandies. I HAVE said he was the last who gave up himself to his one dominant idea; and this is subs tan-1 tiallytrue. He was tbe first and the iast of the dandies. The latter title has generally been given to D'Orsay, | and inasmuch as he was perhaps the final exponent of consummate art in dress, he might be thought to have good grounds for contesting the claim with Brummell. But D'Orsay was a very different man from his predecessor. To be a dandy one can be nothing else. All thoughts, feelings, aims must be concentrated in one overmastering passion. That is why a man of intellect could never attain pre eminence in tnis direction, a great commander may be a great dandy. Wellington, to some extent, was, and the Earl of Anglesey; a literary man (unless he relies entirely on biB writings for income, of course) ' K HERALD, SUNDAY, Letters As may be. as Barbey d'Aurevilly was and Rostand, and even, in their salad days, when men took thought about such things, Dickens and Thackeray. Bulwer-Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth. But these, and such as these, could never attain that single purpose to which a man like Brummeli gave up hi6 existence. And it is also for this reason that D'Orsay, superlative beau as he was, could never quite attain the summit where Brummeli stands alone and unapproachable.?From "Brummeli and D'Orsay." By E. Beresford Chancellor in the Fortnightly Revietc. "Best Sellers" of Old. ONE striking case in point is the work of Cowper's friend. Hayley, which was almost as successful as that of Cowper himself. He was making his bid for fame at the time of the publication of "Tintern Abbey" and "The Ancient Mariner." Of these poems less than five hundred copies were sold; but Hayley's "Triumphs of Temper," of which no reader of this article probably remembers a single line, ran through twelve editions and brought its author "a cordial declaration from a good and sensible mother of large ; family that she was truly indebted to the work in question for an absolute and delightful reformation in the conduct and character of her ; eldest daughter." Nor is this instance an isolated one; nor do the critics and those who should have 1 known better appear to have done much to correct the instinctive ver-; diet of the "general reader." A world which neglected Shelley's "Odes" deliehted in the suear of Letitia Landon; while the most successful poets of the year in which "Lyrical Ballads" appeared were Charlotte Smith and William Bowles. The latter may be remem-\ bered because Byron satirized him; | but the former is forgotten and the works of reference have little to say about her sonnets except that they were "lachrymose." Yet I they ran through nine editions, and . Coleridge had a good word to say for them, and a list of the subscribers to the illustrated edition includes the names of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cowper, Charles James Fox, Horace Walpole, Mrs. Siddons and both the \^5?rtons.? t rom ine isonaon Times. ... The Secret of the "Best Seller." j IT is an interesting pastime for! critics who have no more popularity than would go into a cardcase to read popular novels with the bright idea of extracting the wonderful secret of being a best seller. Net that anything could be done with the clew if it were found; though it never is found. One might as well pray for a revelation of the secret of Mr. Selfridge, in the hope that a large shop might be opened with it; if we had a dozen such secrets of success we could do nothing with them, except take them with us to the bank A -A rijpicj ciiun as |iiuui ui uui jnuut intent. As to the clew to the popularity of the novel I have been reading, one important judge, a lady, declares that it is to be found in the fact that its hero shows the finest qualities of a man. Well, certainly he was a good natured fellow, but he was also a fool beyond the point when ignorance is merely amusing; he went as far as being an anxiety to hi^ friends. He was strong in moral courage, but his critical intelligence had not developed out of the boyish stage of enthusiastic curiosity over the facts about him. so that be was happy in merely contemplating them, and made no attempt to re late and resolve them. Naturally therefore, like a nice boy, be was always getting into a mess, for he did not know what things were, and appeared unable to learn. His wife, one is not surprised to hear, used to laugh at him.?From th< London Athenaeum. The Energy of Ma rie BaskkirtcefT. , IT is said that the new portions of the "Journal" are more intimate and revealing than the old. They will, at all events, give an independent outlook on art and life from one who, when she was a girl of 15, was bold enough to speak -of 1 "the cardboard pictures of Raphael" t JUNE 11, 1922. Others Se ; and "the stupid if glorious Venuses of Titian." Marie BashkirtseiTs character was diagnosed in the letter of introduction from a physician which her mother and aunt I presented when they introduced Hat* q o a nnnil tn thn ortief Tnlian "I have sent you a monster," the physician wrote. "Indeed," says Mathilde Blind, one of Marie's biographers, "Julian found her a little monster of energy, of talent, of concentrated will." In energy as in character Marie was abnormal, and nothing that she wrote is likely to be commonplace.?From the Manchester Guardian. 0 0 0 Thomas Day, Author of "Sandford and Mertoa." HE was born in June, 1748, in Wellclose square, not far from London Docks, and was brought up at the Charterhouse and at Corpus Christi, Oxford. There, at 17, he was already what he was to. be through life?an oddity. His character resembled the character of the in "DIaSvipV" <hn rtirt gcukicuiau iu t KttnivB ??uv ui? everything on principle, down to eating mufltns. Day, on principle, drank only water, dressed as plainly as a Quaker, and refused to brush his hair. On leaving Oxford which he did (on principle) without the vainglorious act of taking a degree, he began to eat his dinners at the Middle Temple. Among his associates was Sir William Jones, afterward the famous Oriental scholar. One day, as Jones was pulling down a dusty volume, a large black spider dropped upon the floor. "Day!" he cried out, "kill that spider!" "No," said Day. "What right have I to kill it? Suppose a superior being said to a companion: 'Kill that lawyer," how should you like it? And a lawyer Is more noxious to most people than a spider." Unwilling, it is to be presumed, to become more obnoxious than a spider, Day speedily shut up his Blackstone.?From. John o' Isondon'a Weekly. Thomas Day in Search of a Wife. DAY took up his Rousseau, and. following that oracle, resolved to rear a wife to his own mind. From the Shrewsbury Orphanage he chose a pretty little girl of 12, blue eyed and flaxen haired, whom he calleld Sabrina Sidney; while from the London Foundling Hospital he chose another, named Lucretia, a brunette with jetty locks and cheeks of roses. These two girls lie uuueriuuK tu ruurait iiuu iu maintain until they married?he himself to be the spouse of one of them, if one turned out as he ex pected. He entered on his system: but never was a poor philosopher so pestered. His pupils quarreled; they pulled each other's hair: they caught the smallpox; they fell out of a boat, and he was forced to fish them out, soaked, screaming and half drowned. Then poor Lucretia was discovered to be "invincibly stupid," and had to be given up as a dead failure. Day placed her i with a milliner, in whosegestablishment a wealthy draper fell in love with her black eyes and she became i his wife. Sabrina seemed at first more promising, but, alas! she wanted strength of mind. When he fired pistols, which she believed to be loaded with ball cartridge, at her petticoats, she screamed with terror; when he dropped melted j sealing wax on her bare arms sh? j cried out with the pain. At last, in desperation, she was sent to school, and Day turned his eyes i upon Eliza Sneyd, a somewhat : scornful beauty, who objected j strongly to his want of polish.? ; From John o' London's Weekly. m Thomas Day Finding a Wife. NOTHING is so ridiculous as a philosopher in love. Day crossed to Paris, and there passed the winter in acquiring airs and graces. He danced, he fenced, he brushed his hair, he was to be seen reading with his legs screwed up l>etween two boards in the vain hope of making them a trifle straighter. But alas for woman's perfidy! When he returned to England with his new accomplishments the fair Eliza told him, with engaging frankness, that "she preferred the blackguard to'the jack-a 9 e It dandy." At last, In the year 177S, he found the object of his quest. Miss Esther Milnes of Wakefield, a lady of beauty, fortune and refinement, who had admired some lines of hi6 about a negro, consented to become his wife on his own terms. The pair settled at a little farm at Abridge, in Essex, and there it was that "Sandford and Merton" came into me world and made its autnor famous in bis own despite. The book has less than might have been expected of the whimsicality whtctl pervaded Day's whole life and which at last resulted in his death. For, having taken up a notion that a colt, if reared with kindness, would require no breaking, bq treated one accordingly and went out to ride it. The colt shied at , rustic carrying a corn screen, pitched its rider headforemost on a heap of flints and killed him on the spot.?From John ?' London'a Weekly. Sitting "Bolt Upright." IN his newly published "PuppeJ Show of Memory" Mr. Maurica Baring says that nobody ever aat "so bolt upright at a table" as bis great aunt, Lady Georgians Grey, vhn hart nlavnd the ham to Rvrrn and survived till 1900. She cad hardly have been more upright in her demeanor than Ruskin's mother, who, as her son relatee, used to "travel from sunrise to sunset on a summer's day without once leaning back in the carriage." Though so keen on deportment, Mrs. Rusk in did not hold with exercise in any form except walking. "She wouldn't let me ride," says Ruskin, "lest I should be thrown; boating was dangerous because 1 might be drowned; and boxing my mother, thought a vulgar form of exercise." However, Ruskin. according to hie biographer. Sir E. T. Cook, "sometimes slipped the chain, and with Mr. Allen as aceomDlice. sworn to secrecy, would indulge in evening rows on the Thames."?From th$ Manchester Guardian. New Light on Marie Bashkirtseff, NEW light is promised on th? life and character of Marie Bashkirtseff, that young Russian artist of genius, whose work in the plein air school of Bastien-Lepage made so great an impression in Paris in the eighties, and whose I "Journal," published after her early 1 death, caused a profound literary sensation. The "Journal" was acknowledged to be a mere selection ; from the voluminous diaries which i the writer, had kept from childhood, and the portion published was said to have been unjustifiably "edited." For years the complete ^ diaries remained in the possession of Marie's "two mothers"?Mme. , Bashkirtseff and her sister.?both ' of whom lived in their villa at Nice in close seclusion. In 1917 the Russion Revolution brought upon them a complete material ruin which neither of them long survived. Now the literary treasures of the villa, which, besides the diary, included many records of family interest, have been rescued from dis; persal by the timely intervention of a French journalist.?From the f' Manchester Guardian. / * * i Disraeli as a Schoolboy. MOST of the young Disraeli's time at Higham Hall?as Essex Hall was then called?was spent in studying the classics, and ^ Dr. Cogan is said to have remarked, 1 "1 don't like Disraeli; 1 never i could get him to understand the : subjunctive." Disraeli, in speaking of his old school, said. "Nothing was thought of there but the two dead languages; but he was an admirable instructor in them . . | The scholar seems to have been j singularly successful in escaping instruction, for it is generally ad, mitted that Disraeli's know ledge of I-atin was little, and of Greek less. The room above the stables? pan1 eled half way to the ceiling?still contains the old wooden desks used by the scholars, and is reached by a rickety outside wooden staircase. The house itself must be at least | 300 years old. Dr. Cogan and his academy appear in several of his pupil's novels, notably in "Vivian Grey," "The Young Duke," and es, pecially in "Contarini Fleming."? From the MaOJictter Gusr dtaa.