QUARTZ FROM LITERARY VEINS.

In its department "Current Words," the International Magazine says that "Sienkiewicz" should be pronounced "She-en-kay-vitch."

When Coleridge died, in July, 1834, Charles Lamb felt his loss, and he said: "Coleridge is dead; his great and dearspirit haunts me." Lamb's time was near to closing. In December of that

same year he had a fall and bruised his face. Erysipelas set in and he died of it Dec. 27, 1834. Poor Mary had just then a gleam of reason, and she told of a quiet, unobtrusive corner in Edmonton churchyard where her brother had said he would like to rest, and there he was buried. Thirteen years afterward the sister joined the brother. For long years Charles and Mary Lamb's grave was neglected. Then Dr. Martin, and we are proud to say he was an American, upbraided English people for their indifference. Recently the resting place of the Lambs has been trimmed up and refurbished. Mr. Frederick Harrison, when unveiling the memorial to Lamb and Keats at the Passmore Edwards Public Library, told most pathetically of the lives of these great writers of prose and poetry.-See BOOK-LOVER, page 35.

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The effect of our American climate upon Thackeray is curiously described in a letter written to his daughter in 1855. He says: "I have found the effects of the air the same; I have a difficulty in forming the letters as I write them down on the page, in answering questions, in finding the most simple words to form the answers. A gentleman asked me how long I had been in New York; I hesitated, and then said a week; I had arrived the day before. I hardly know what is said, am thinking of something else, nothing definite, with an irrepressible longing to be in motion; I sleep three hours less than in England, making up, however, with a heavy long sleep every fourth night or so. Talking yesterday with a very clever man, T. Appleton of Boston, he says the effect upon him on his return from Europe is the same. There is some electric influence in the air and sun here which we don't experience on our side of the globe; people can't sit still, people can't ruminate over their dinners, dawdle in their studies; they must keep moving. I want to dash into the street now. At home after breakfast I want to read my paper leisurely and then get to my books and work. Yesterday, as some rain began to fall, I felt a leaden cap taken off my brain-pan, and began to speak calmly and reasonably, and not to wish to quit my place."

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association of Dr. Johnson with Fleet street is being broken by the demolition of No. 7 Johnson's Court, which is now in the hands of the housebreakers with a view to the dwelling of the great lexicographer being replaced by the offices of journals dealing with fashions and domestic affairs. The fact that the court bears the name of the sage of Fleet street is merely a coincidence, for the place appears to have been known by the same designation before he took up his residence there, in 1765. Maitland described Johnson's and Bolt Courts in 1739 as having "good houses, weli

inhabitated," and the adjacent Gough Square

(where is the house, bearing the commemorative tablet of the Society of Artists, in which Johnson began the publication of "The Rambles," completed the Dictionary, and suffered bereavement by the death of his wife) is styled by the same writer "fashionable." These localities have long since lost the characteristics which Maitland im

puted to them, and to the present generation are known as narrow passages, surrounded by offices and workshops of the publishing and allied trades. Even in Johnson's day the neighborhood of the house now in course of destruction would seem to have been losing the standing it had once enjoyed, for Boswell, who states that on returning to London, in 1766, he found Dr. Johnson in "a good house in Johnson's Court," speaks seven years later of the surprise with which he received an invitation to dine with his hero on Easter Day, and of his "curiosity to dine with Dr. Samuel Johnson in the dusty recess of a court in Fleet street." He considered a dinner there "a singular phenomenon," and crediting his readers with a desire to know the bill of fare, has left upon record that it "included a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spinach, a veal pie, and a rice pudding"-a satisfying rather than an epicurean menu.-Birmingham Post.

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ROUSSEAU RECALLED.

An interesting literary discovery has been made at Annecy. This is nothing less than the identification of the house occupied by Madame de Warens. This lady, it will be remembered, stole her husband's furniture and fled from Vevey to Evian, where she embraced the Roman Catholic faith and was rewarded with a pension by the King of Sardinia. The King, hearing it rumored that she was his mistress, packed her off to Annecy, where she resided for several years, and it was there that Rousseau called on her with an introduction from M. de Pont Verre, Cure of Cenfignon. She packed him off to Turin, but he found his way back, and she allowed him to live with her, and gave him good books to read, such as the "Spectator," the "Henriade," and the works of Saint Evremond. The story is told at length in the "Confessions." It had long been supposed that the house in which these things happened had been pulled down at the time of the demolition of a neighboring convent. Now that it has been proved to be still standing, it will, no doubt, attract literary pilgrims equally with the Chalet Les Charmettes, near Chambery, where the philosopher and his benefactress subsequently lived

AN ORIGINAL MAYFLOWER BIBLE.

So thoroughly has everything been investigated which pertains to the Pilgrims and their historic voyage in the Mayflower that any new discovery on that subject at the present day is one of the last things to be expected. Yet such unexpected occasions do arise at rare intervals, and one of these unlooked for incidents has just arisen regarding the Mayflower. This is no less than the discovery, if it may be so called, of an original Mayflower Bible, one brought over on that eventful journey, and, moreover, the identical Bible belonging to William White and his wife, to whom was born the first child in New England, Peregrine White, seeing the light of day on board the Mayflower while the ship lay in Cape Cod Harbor, November 20, 1620.

This interesting fact is mentioned on the margin of one of the pages in the Bible, and many other curious and entertaining marginal notes are written in the same way. There are also a few crude pen and ink sketches, one of a ship with three masts labeled the Mayflower, and another of a cradle, probably typifying Peregrine's early

existence.

The Bible formed the most interesting exhibit at the recent semi-annual meeting of the Mayflower Society, held last June at the Waldorf-Astoria. Richard Henry Greene, the historian of the society, read a paper upon the Bible, giving its history, so far as is known, and explaining some of the writings found in it.

The Bible is a "Breeches" Bible, interesting in itself, but its Mayflower associations far surpass all its other claims as a rare and curious book. It is really composed of three books bound in one; first, the Book of Common Prayer, etc., London, 1586; second, the Bible, translated according to the Ebrew and Greeke, London, 1588; third, Psalms and Hymns. Sternhold & Hopkins are the publishers. An interesting feature is that the writings are all upon the blank pages and margins of the Prayer and Hymn Books, the Bible itself, as Mr. Greene brought out, being "sacredly left unmarked, which shows that though some would seem to be the work of children, even they had a reverence for the sacred Scriptures, hence it has been owned by "Christian families."

The discovery of the book is typical of the manner in which many an interesting rarity has suddenly been brought from oblivion. It is owned by S. W. Cowles of Hartford, Conn., a well-to-do man with the tastes of a collector, and who, up to a few days ago, never realized the full value of his treasure. He purchased the book eleven years ago from Charles M. Taintor of Manchester, Conn. It was frequently shown by Mr. Cowles to his friends as a peculiar old Bible, but he was accus

tomed to look regretfully upon the writings as blemishes to an otherwise perfect "Breeches" Bible. Having read something about the value of old Bibles, Mr. Cowles took his book to a friend in Hartford for information. The latter at once realized the possible importance of the writings.

"Do you know what these writings are?" he asked.

"Why, no," replied Mr. Cowles innocently. "They do not injure the Bible, do they?"

This disproves the somewhat natural first impressions that the writings may have been put there for the purpose of securing a large price. But Mr. Cowles refuses to sell. He does not need

The previous value to the

the money, and he prefers to keep his Bible as one of his private treasures, but the Mayflower Society would ever after hold him in grateful esteem if he should deem the society fitting to become its permanent possessor in the future. owners, therefore, attached little writings. How it came to Mr. Taintor is unknown. The name of Thomas Corser, Bridgenorth, 1813, occurs in the book, but where Bridgenorth is Mr. Greene does not yet know. If in England, the Bible was taken back by some of its

former owners.

The earliest written note in the Bible reads, "William White, his Book, 1608." On another page is written, "At Amsterdam, Holland, April, Anno Domini, 1608," and still again, "Leyden, Holland, 1609." A further entry states, "Left Delft Haven in Holland, sailed for Southampton, August, 1619-20," the 20 being written over 19. These dates all agree with the history, as the latter date of sailing was August 1, 1620. A still more interesting note follows:

"This book is the property of William White and his wife Susanna, who embarked on board the Mayflower from Plymouth, England. We read with great comfort on board ye ship ye promises we find in this Book."

Another entry on a previous page reads: "William White, married on ye 3d day of March, 1620, to Susanna Tilley. Peregrine White, born on Board ye Mayflower in Cape Cod harbor, sonne born to Susanna White, Dec. 18, 1620, yt 6 o'clock morning. Next day we meet for prayer and thanksgiving, calling him Peregrine."

The date here is wrong, as it was November, and not December. William White died early in 1621, and the Bible passed into the possession of William Brewster, the fact being stated thus: "1622, Mr. William Brewster, his book, 1623, from Mrs. Susanna White." Another entry, which Mr. Greene believes may be White's handwriting, reads:

"Some of our strong men went inland and put to flight the natives whom we saw, they being afraid of the Powder," and the landing is thus

recorded: "Landed yt Plymouth December ye 11th, 1620."

Among several family records is the following of especial interest: "John Howland married Katharain Tilley, granddaughter of John Carver, Governor, appointed Anno Domini 1620, of Plymouth, now called New Plymouth. Infant sonne Born to John and Katharain Howland yt six o'clock morning, Nov. ye 23, Anno Domini, 1629."

One little notice gives a new scrap of information regarding Governor Carver. It is: "John Carver, sonne of James Carver, Lincolnshire, yoeman, called by ye Grace of God, Governor of our colony, Dec. ye 10th, 1620, for one year." The same error is made here as once before, December for November.

The writings are by different persons, and some of them appear to have been traced over, as though the first writing was very weak, or the tracing may have been done over the original at a later date. Mr. Greene, who is a recognized authority on Mayflower history and genealogy, sums up his conclusions as follows:

"Some have jumped to the conclusion that these writings are fraudulent. If so, there must have been an object, and I fail to see any motive or reason, neither do I find an indication of a purpose or any special emphasis given to anything in. the writings themselves. If we suppose them intended to contradict Bradford's history, then we must show that they were written since 1855, but there is no contradiction in fact, and besides, they corroborate his report, just as the Gospels support each other. I cannot explain all the writings and will not vouch for their reliability, but I believe this was the Bible of William White, and that it came over on the Mayflower with him; also that it passed into the possession of Brewster. I cannot believe the writings are fraudulent, but there are blunders and inaccuracies which are ittle credit to the authors."-N. Y. Times.

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FRENCH

RAKE.

"Memoirs of Paul de Kock." Written by Himself.
(London: Smithers.)

That amusing though styleless and somewhat rascally novelist, Paul de Kock, has pretty well lost his once considerable vogue in translation. It is "Gyp" and M. Anatole France and M. Henri Lavedan that the Pendennis of to-day reads, with the accompaniments of a domesticated sofa and a cigar, in order to acquaint himself with the onward march of literature. But we remember that once it was Paul de Kock who served this noble and elevating purpose, and we have a kindly feeling for an author whose name we know so much better than his work. That feeling will not

be diminished by the perusal of his memoirs, of which a fairly good English translation is now offered. The main facts of Paul de Kock's life are already familiar to those who care to know them; in this genial autobiography he fills up what has hiterto been a mere outline with sufficiently entertaining details. Born in 1793, he began life (unconsciously enough) by saving his mother from the guillotine. Even the stern Fouquier-Tinville was softened by the "baby laughter" with which the infant Paul greeted those who came to bear Madame de Kock before the Revolutionary Tribunal which had just condemned her husband. There are, as M. de Kock smilingly congratulates himself, "few cases of filial affection which can be compared on the ground of precocity with that." In 1799 Madame de Kock married again. Her second husband was a good fellow enough, but a confirmed gambler, who wasted his substance at the roulettle tables which were so common in Paris during the first third of the century.

Oddly enough, this weakness of his helped his stepson into the ranks of authorship. When the boy was eighteen he wrote his first novel, on the model of Miss Crawley's favorite Pigault Lebrun. No publisher would accept it, so he naturally turned to the young authors' second resource, and decided to print it himself. But he only had 200 francs; so he took his stepfather into council as to the possibility of increasing this small capital at the tempting wheel. The stepfather played with the proverbial luck of the novice, and brought back 1,200 francs, of which he would only accept a quarter as commission. It is interesting to see the budget of a French author in 1811. Kock's book was in two volumes-he had not the courage to test his reader's patience by extending it to the usual three:

"Each copy of the five hundred, including stitching and covers, cost me eightpence a volume. Then there was the discount to the bookseller, besides Pigoreau's commission, and besides that, a quantity of general expenses which I had not thought of; for instance, the carriage of the books to the shops; two presentation copies to each of the principal newspapers. If I wanted the journalists to speak of my book, I had, of course, to let them know of it. In one word, I might think myself very lucky if, after selling the whole edition, I got my money back again."

The selling price of the book was six francs a copy, and the booksellers demanded a third of this as discount. The first week four dozen copies were sold, and the young author in his exultation threw up his clerkship. But the total sale was not more than a hundred copies, and he had to plunge into the backwaters of literature, "sink or swim." His next venture was for the stage, for the simple reason that it took months of work to

write a novel, whereas a three-act play could be written in three weeks.

In the course of his literary career he made some amusing acquaintances, to whom we are duly introduced. The oddest of all was the vaudeville writer, Martainville, who was a lazy but clever person. On one occasion he had contracted to write a vaudeville by a certain time. On the appointed day he turned up at the theatre will a roll of MS., read two brilliant acts aloud with the greatest eclat, drew his cheque and departed to write the third act. After he was gone the manager unrolled the MS. to take a look at some of the best jokes, and found the paper blank; indolent Martainville had improvised the whole thing as he went along. Six months later, when the piece was actually written, those who had heard the reading declared that the first impromptu version was the better of the two. We have no space for further quotations, but enough has been said to show that these memoirs are really worth reading, though not altogether for edification.-Literature.

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The library of the Royal Geographical Society is of course special of its kind. It numbers 31,000 volumes. At first works of a purely geographical character predominated, but now books on ethnology, geology, history, and other allied subjects. have been added. The library contains the most comprehensive of collections of volumes treating of polar exploration. The division of travels begins with Eden, (577.) Hakluyt, (1589,) and Purchas, (1617.) In geography the earliest book is Ptolemy's "Geographica," the Latin folio edition of Strasburg, 1515. The library possesses the "Cosmographia" of Sebastian Minister, with the "Cosmographia" of Apian and Gemma Frisius. In Americana there is the "Raccolta di Documenti e Studi" of the Italian commission, with Arsenio's "Christobal Colon." The estimate shows that 51 per cent. of the works are in English, 20 per cent. in French, 16 per cent. in German, and 12 per cent. in other languages.

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TREATING A BOOK.-Scribe: Why do you turn down a leaf when you stop reading? General Reader: To keep my place. Scribe: Don't borrow of me, then. That treatment of a real book is barbarous. Excuse my plain speech. It is vulgar, and reveals a lack of refining influences in the early education of the reader. You can tell what a man is by the way he handles a book - whether he has any different feeling for it from that he has for a newspaper--and I hate to see even a newspaper torn and crumpled. Any print is worthy of some respect. But a book! Heavens, man, it has a soul!-though a lost one sometimes.-Editor's Drawer, Harper's Monthly,

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND HIS INFLUENCE.

BY JOHN G. ROBERTSON.

"In the literature of modern Germany Friedrich Nietzsche seems to me the most interesting writer." These are the opening words of an essay written by Dr. Georg Brandes in 1888. which marks the beginning of Nietzsche's career as a European personality. About the same time. Germany herself awakened to the consciousness that she possessed in Nietzsche an intellectual force of the first order; now, after the lapse of a decade, the genial significance of his work is recognized everywhere. To the readers of Reveu des Deux Mondes, for instance, no foreign name is at present more familiar. In French opinion Nietzsche is, to quote from M. Victor Basch's suggestive address on "Le mouvement intellectuel en Allemagne" (Rouen, 1897), "le dernier nom allemand qui soit devenu europeen." In England, again, Mr. Havelock Ellis, in an essay ("Affirmations," London, 1897) which remains the most satisfactory account of Nietzsche we have yet had in English, has claimed him as "one of the greatest spiritual forces which have appeared since Goethe." His influence is traceable in much of the Continental literature which professes to be "in the movement." M. de Wyzewa finds it alike in the recent fiction of Russia and in that of France. It extends from Sweden as represented by Strindberg to the Italy of D'Annunzio. In the present paper I propose to discuss briefly the extent of Nietzsche's influence upon the literature of his own country, to consider in how far his ideas and his manner of expressing those ideas are a source of inspiration for imaginative work in Germany.

First, however, to glance at the literature of which Nietzsche is himself the center. In the course of the past few years a library has grown up with almost incredible rapidity around Nietzche's personality and writings; his name is seldom absent from lists of German publications, and one rarely takes up a new volume of collected essays in which the place of honor is not occupied by a study of Friedrich Nietzsche. In fact, the books and pamphlets which have appeared in his name since 1889 afford an instructive object lesson on the fate of a man of genius in these days. Nietzsche is at the present moment in the position in which Ibsen stood ten and Wagner twenty years ago; he is the victim of his own disciples. By a veritable irony this relentless thinker, who desired only "ein paar Leser, die man bei sich selbst in Ehren halt, und sonst keine Leser," and preached only for the few who, like himself, had laboriously fought their way from the valleys

to the heights, has become the center of an orgy of unripe worshippers. This, at least, is the thought that forces itself upon one when passing in review the voluminous Nietzsche literature of the last few years. Here we have youths with the gymnasium hardly behind them to whom the whole past of human thought is virtually an unwritten page, hailing Nietzsche as the one and only thinker. Another form of panegyric comes from writers who themselves have shrunk from the conflicts and renunciations of life, and find in Nietzsche a shield for egotism and self-seeking. And still another, less harmful, if more superfluous, from women who, on the strength of an occasional meeting with the. philosopher, write impertinent books about themselves. In this extensive literature we find pamphlets written to prove that Nietzsche is the stanch supporter of the Christian faith, that he is an apostle of emancipation of women, and even of social democracy; indeed, it would be hard to mention another thinker who in his time had been so persistently misinterpreted and misrepresented. And the tragedy of it is that he must sit unconscious of everything in Weimar, powerless to raise his hand in his own defense. One could wish for nothing better than that the shadow which rests upon Nietzsche's life might for a moment be lifted to allow him to do execution upon the "Nietzschianer."

When we sift the literature that professes to deal critically with Nietzsche's philosophy we find exceedingly little of permanent value. There is the essay by Dr. Brandes, to which I have already referred ("Essays: Fremmede Personligheder." Copenhagen, 1889); there is a suggestive little volume by Dr. Rudolf Steiner ("Friedrich Nietzsche, ein Kaempfer gegen seine Zeit." Weimar, 1895), and a reprint of two papers contributed by Professor Ludwig Stein to the Deutsche Rundschau("Friedrich Nietzsches, Weltanschauung und ihre Gefahren." Berlin, 1893); lastly, there is Professor Alois Riehl's "Friedrich Nietzsche, der Kuenstler und der Denker." (Second Edition, Stuttgart, Frommann, 1898), which, although hardly more than a pamphlet, is the best monograph that has yet appeared on Nietzsche. Professor Rielh's aim is obviously to judge Nietzsche in accordance with the established canons of philosophical criticism, and, although he does not altogether succeed in bringing Nietzsche into line with his predecessors, he has given us a sympathetically written study; and it is something to have a book of this kind from a critic who does not belong to the inner circle of hierophants.

The impression to be gathered from recent criticism of Nietzsche is thus no favorable one. There is clearly not much hope of the general reader arriving at a fair appreciation of Nietzsche's work until some other interpretation is forthcoming

than that which his prophets have to offer. The devotee at Zarathustra's shrine who respects neither the "Republic" nor the "Critique of Pure Reason" is no less harmful than the Wagnerian who will not hear of Gluck or Mozart or Weber. We still await a liberal-minded critic who has not only a firm grasp of Nietzsche's thinking-and no philosophy in form is more elusive-but who has also assimilated the older philosophies and can interpret Nietzsche by the light of the development of human thought. This is what seems most conspicuously wanting in the literature that has hitherto appeared on Nietzsche; his ideas have not yet been presented to us as forming, so to speak, a link in the philosophic chain: To his sympathizers he is the great exception, to his enemies a misgrowth of decadence. Beyond the statement which is repeated in almost the same words by every writer on the subject: "Als Denker ist Nietzsche von Schopenhauer ausgegangen," there is little in these books to help us to understand Nietzsche's position. To this criticism it might, of course, be answered that Nietzsche is no rigidly consistent thinker. Had he been able to complete "Umwertung alier Werte" it might have been otherwise; but, as it is, it is hardly possible to regard him in the same light as philosophers like Hegel or Schopenhauer, whose ideas fit, more or less, into definite philosophical systems. The only attempt, it might be pointed out, that has been made to discover a system in Nietzsche's thinking, that by Frau Andreas-Salome ("Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken." Vienna, 1894), failed; indeed, it might not be too rash to say that the philosopher with a definite system is a thing of the past. And even if Nietzsche has no system, it does not necessarily imply that he is a kind of intellectual free-lance. We might compare him, for instance, with Hamann, the "Magus of the North," who lived at the close of the last century. Hamann, too, scattered his ideas abroad in brilliant aphorisms; he was no philosopher with a system; but there is little difficulty in giving him his niche in the temple of eighteenth century thought. To see Nietzsche's work in its historical perspective, we shall probably have to wait a few years yet; his ideas are too vitally interesting to his contemporaries, too close to us, to be judged dispassionately.

In the meantime, the most valuable contribution that has yet been made to our knowledge of Nietzsche is not critical but biographical, namely, the authoritative "Leben Friedrich Nietzsches" by the philosopher's sister, Frau Forster-Nietzsche, of which two volumes have appeared (Leipzig: Naumann, 1894, 1897). Frau Forster has carried out her task in a manner which shows that the ability of the Nietzsche family was not all concentrated in her famous brother. Her book is