THE PERSONALITY OF AUTHORS.

The poet Whittier's recent cremation of his private correspondence as a prudent check-mate to future biographers again suggests the right of authors to keep the public in ignorance of what is not their business to know. A man's private letters are his own-absolutely anp sacredly; and it seems most unjust to his memory that they should ever be published. There are a thousand thoughts, associations, moods, feelings and personal instincts that cluster round free and unrestrained correspondence that the public do not know and cannot comprehend. Without knowing these they cannot view them in the light in which they are written. How many lovers of Carlyle have had their feeling of admiration for the man and his works turned to disgust and pity after reading his biography. 'Tis a most delicate boundary line to watch this blending of a man's public and private life, and it requires most sympathetic tact rightly to discriminate. What an author has written or is writing belongs to the public; it is theirs to handle, to criticise and to use as they will. This is a simple matter of bargain and sale for a bona fide consideration paid in coin or in fame. His literary career is and should be ever open to the public for comments and discussion; but when he crosses the threshold of his home this right ceases, subject only to such information as the author may see fit to give.

UNIQUE.

After a word has done its duty faithfully in the language for years it deserves public recognition of its services and respect for the position it has held, and a really dignified word should not then be made to fill the place of a verbal menial. This is the case with unique; its ancestry to the very root shows it to be "alone" and "unequalled;" yet our best literary papers use this word as if it were merely odd, whimsical or peculiar. If it means one, alone of its kind, there can be no degree of its singleness; but in the face of this self-evident fact, publishers and authors claim that their last novel is the most unique book of the year, or at any rate, more unique than some other of the same set. This is carried to such an excess that nearly every book that is issued is termed unique in some particu

lar. It is like the war remnants of the noble South, every one of them is a Colonel. A really beneficial labor in literature would be to make some of the works of this day and generation actually unique. If, for instance, all the dime-novels in America could be telescoped down to one copy, there might be some chance of eliminating it. A crusade could next be started against poems on Spring; minify these to the last survivor, and the work of regeneration would be nobly hastened. What a mission for some grand literary Napoleon!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The title of a book is conventionally supposed to be a word or combination of words designating the contents, just as a chemist puts labels on his bottles to enable him to tell at a glance what each contains. This is the ideal meaning, but the real is far different. It was not so in the good old-fashioned days of which the poet sings, when the titles of books were long, full, and extensive, often wandering gently over into the next page to prepare the reader fully for the literary treat in store for him. Of course they erred in over faithfulness. To-day, on many of the current works of fiction, poetry, etc., the title is a mere trade-mark or label, and has not the slightest relevancy to the subject matter. A collection of poems comprising the usual "Love-songs," Farewell," "Ode to Beauty," "Sonnet to My Love," and "The Sailor's Return," would be modestly termed "A Bunch of Wild Roses." An essay on the Irish Question should, according to precedent, be called "If Not, How?" or "As If It Were!" or any other combination that will catch the eye of the reader to arrest his attention for the moment. This savors too much of advertising, and is not at all the dignified role that should be assumed in literature. These are but a species of the innumerable family of titles that might be mentioned.

BREVITY IN FICTION.

A most excellent quality in novel writing is brevity, and many books of real merit and sterling strength have been spoiled by being long-drawn out. When

James' "Portrait of a Lady" dragged its slow length along as a magazine serial, month after month, some tired watcher yawningly remarked "It's more like a panorama than a portrait." It is not pleasant to sit all day at a feast no matter how rich and dainty the viands may be. The plain common-sense rule to stop when he has finished should direct the author. Some writers will spend half a page in describing the eyes of their heroine as 66 not really blue nor yet would you call them gray, but rather a happy mingling of both colors, or more properly a delicious blending, an artistic communion of the two." After this the eyelashes have to pass a rigid analytical examination; the tinge of the cheek merging from rose to carmine painfully investigated and conscientiously noted, then the teeth are mercilessly extracted, counted, described to the reader, restored to the owner, and the narrative moves slowly on till the next heroine, scene or study cries "halt!" and the operation is repeated. The success of some of the recent novels can be traced directly to the terse bright way in which the story is told and the rapid off-hand sketches of character which were as accurate portraits as if they were live steel engravings. It is the acting and not the scenery that the audience wish to see.

In 1850 the total wealth of the United States was $8,430,000,000 while that of the United Kingdom exceeded $22,500,000,000, or nearly three times that sum. Thirty short years sufficed to reverse the positions of the respective countries. In 1882 the Monarchy was possessed of a golden load of no less than eight thousand, seven hundred and twenty millions sterling. Just pause a moment to see how this looks when strung out in cold figures; but do not try to realize what it means, for mortal man cannot conceive it. Herbert Spencer need not travel so far afield as to teach the "unknowable!" He has it right here under his very eyes. Let him try to "know" the import of this-$43,600,000,ooo! It is impossible. But stupendous as this seems, it is exceeded by the wealth of the Republic, which in 1880, two years before, amounted to $48,950,cco,cco. What a mercy we write for 1880; for had we to give the wealth of one year later another figure would have to be found and added to the interminable row. America's wealth to-day greatly exceeds ten thousand millions sterling.

Triumphant Democracy,"

By ANDREW CARNEGIE.

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DIARY OF AN EGOTIST. Resolved to lose no opportunity of improving my. self. While I was cleaning my teeth this morning, reflected upon the solemnity of life. In my bath, thought of our first parents in the garden of Eden. While buttoning my braces, asked myself the question, "What do I live for?" Much moved at family prayer with feelings of thanksgiving- * * that I have the inestimable blessing of a mother who can read Greek. Resolution at breakfast table not to talk much. or make myself too agreeable. A profitable morning. Herodotus, Trigonometry. For mortification at dinner, put sugar into beer, and mustard into pudding, but secretly, lest being observed pride should intervene. * How many have died young! Why should not I? * Self-examination. Oh, how I have wasted to-day! Opportunities neglected! Eaten too much at tea. "Life of a Prig."

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ANOTHER LITERARY FASHION. Apropos of Book-Chat's article on the fashion in literature, permit me to express a thought or two. Of the half-dozen novels there quoted as similar in plot, there must have been a leader of this fashion who anti-dated the six authors some months, and I feel satisfied that if it had occurred to you, that the personal mention of the novelist whose work could have produced six imitations as to style or incident in one month, would have been a matter of interest to your readers, you would have given the name to the public with pleasure, and with greater pleasure if convinced that it would have been a gratifying encouragement to originality in authorship.

It is when an author is struggling into the light of reputation, that kindly mention is needed as a help more than at other times-it is not after fame is won that the magazine devoted to the authorship can render the most important aid in this respect. But it is too true most frequently, that it is only when fame and means back the efforts of the authorship that it secures due credit. It then needs this less from its critics or I may say it is then no laudible gratuity for those are best honored who honor it. Had Howells or some other distinguished writer introduced the fashion you make the subject of your brief pointed and I must say appropriate editorial comment, among his contemporaries of fiction, the fact could hardly have been referred to without a specific allusion to him personally. I know that the silence which often in this way, surrounds the name of unknown authorship when it accomplishes anything so slight in the great field of letters is not an intentional neglect, it arises from habit among those whose business it is to look after the book makers, it is a fashion also, very old and one that occurs to be perversely unchanging.

The idea seems to be cultivated that an author may be too insignificant to mention because of his connections or his inability to crowd upon the charmed circle of higher places, and yet his thoughts, impressions, ideas and even language-property to construct a point, to build an article and to adorn learning or extend research, while it would be gross wickedness even to touch the crumbs of the intellectual repasts of the elect literature without acknowledgment or honor to their tables.

A CREDITOR,

BOOK LOVERS.

The pleasures of possessing a unique volume does not lie solely in the fact that by so much one is wealthier than any body else at the same time; it depends rather on the laying hold of the associations which constitute the real value of the book. The worth of a copy of the first edition of an early work by a famous author, arises not so much from its containing the original expressions of thoughts which, in subsequent issues, get so polished or twisted as to become, in many instances, scarcely recognizable, as that it tells to one capable of creeping into the author's soul the tale of his hopes and fears, his ambitions and disappointments, his yearnings and successes. The book speaks to an appreciative possessor of the circumstances, happy or sorrowful, under which it was conceived, written, published; the difficulty or ease with which it found its way through the press to the public; and its reception, favorable or otherwise, by critics and general readers. Nothing, in short, is too trivial about a book to interest a genuine book-lover; the amount gained or lost by its publication; the particulars of the disposal of the copyright; the letters or opinions of competent judges regarding it, all help to fill up the nook allotted in his mind to that particular work.

"The Pleasures of a Bookworm,"

By J. ROGER REES.

DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS.

A wild suspicion that had previously flashed through Zemar's mind now forced itself as an awful certainty -Atlantis, Queen of the Sea, was disappearing beneath its waves! Panic-stricken men and women rushed through the streets or crowded the heights; flocks of birds circled over the city not daring to alight; ferocious beasts and domestic animals dashed across the plains in promiscuous herds, or struggled up the hills together, all other instinct lost in that of self-preservation. A crash broke the ominous silence-a grinding abysmal crash, as if the very ribs of earth were giving way beneath the weight of a continent-a crash that seemed infinite in depth and awfulness; that jarred the clouds, the earth, the ocean. Was it an echo of the the crash, a reverberation that rolled beneath the lake with such horrid distinctness!

The volcanoes opened their throats, and their bellow became one incessant roar. Dun smoke streamed from a hundred craters, and, assuming frightful shapes, crawled round the stony dome-like shadows of gigantic bats and dragons. Pumice and ashes were hurled unto the clouds to fall again into showers. Daylight was blotted out, and from the murky sky thunder echoed the roar of volcanoes; lighthing vied with the fire of the craters in illuminating this wreck of the world.

"Atla,"

By MRS. J. R. SMITH.

COMING!

A most interesting contribution to the art of religion, is "The Portraits of our Saviour," in Harper's for May. It is a collection of the historic paintings from great cathedrals, &c., and form a study of the varied ideal faces that different painters consider as representing the holiness and sadness of His life.

The generous bequests of Jas. Lick to California, is the subject of a sketch in the May Century, descriptive of the Lick observatory; its situation, construction, departments, telescopes, &c., which gives such astronomical advantages to California.

The May St. Nicholas is a wonder number. There are wonders of botany; the lace-leaf of Madagascar, the traveler's tree; the caricature plant, and similar freaks of nature; wonders of the alphabet, wonders of dogs, and happy entertaining articles on other subjects.

Mr. Howells, it seems, is to receive no rest from the critics. The latest form of notice is a cartoon in TidBits, representing him as a professor, scapula in hand, "demonstrating" the American girl, presumably to a class of medical students.

A history of the rise and fall of baloons and balooning, is given in the April Blackwood's. Great progress has been made within the last few years in France in aerial navigation, making it quite possible that very shortly every man may be able to paddle his own balloon."

Augustin Daly has written an interesting paper on the American theatre and dramatists, in the North American Review for May, giving promise of great success to American drama, after time has been given it to properly develop.

The Cornhill Magazine for May will contain the initial chapters of a new story entitled Jess, by H. R. Haggard, author of King Solomon's Mines, recently published by Cassell & Co.

Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox relates, with vim and feeling, some of her literary experiences and early struggles for recognition, in Lippincott's, for May. Incidentally she gives a sad and striking commentary on morbid taste in literature, in her words "the hue and cry raised against the alleged immorality of the book and its consequent large sale, was a stunning surprise to me."

Quite a bright and unconventional work on ornithology might be made by happily combining the essays and pictures of bird life that have appeared in the recent periodicals. The English Illustrated Magazine contributes to the fund, sketches of bird life in South Sweden; the Century, fancy pigeons; and the Atlantic, genesis of bird song.

"Ion" is a tragedy by T. N. Talfourd, first publicly produced in London in 1836. The plot is thoroughly classical; the oracle of Delphi had declared that the pestilence which raged in Argos was sent by way of punishment for the misrule of the race of Argos, and that the vengeance of the gods could be averted only by the extirpation of the guilty race. Ion, the king's son, offers himself as a sacrifice. It is found in French's plays.

15. There is a poem entitled "The Children," commencing:

"When the lessons and tasks are all ended,

And the school for the day is dismissed."

It is credited to Chas. Dickens, and to Chas. Dickenson. Who did write it? TORONTO, CAN.

BISQUAY.