terms," he said, slowly. "I haven't got a free hand. Brumber's a queer chap. My instructions are to refer all offers. And there's competition about this book; more than half-a-dozen firms have been putting pressure on me to let them see it." Mr. Guddle's face fell, "Is Brumber in England now?" he asked. "No; he is away yacthing; coast of France somewhere. He'll be back in a fortnight." "You know, he's likely to follow your recommendation, Sennett," said the publisher. He looked inquiringly at Mr. Sennett, "Well," said the agent vaguely-"Oh, by the way, Guddle, I've something with a touch of most unusual talent in it. Palinode read it, and I've had a look at it, and we both enthuse." "Fiction?" "Yes." "Who's the author?" "Oh, a new writer. Calls herself Jacob Linden. There's the copy." He pointed to the manuscript, which Mr. Palinode had left upon the writing table. The publisher took up the manuscript and fingered it carelessly. "It's very short," he observed, in a tone of disapproval. Then he read the last three pages with an air of frowning abstraction. The ending's fearfully gloomy," he said, when he had finished the perusal. "No, I don't think we want it. When can you let us hear about Brumber's book?” " Mr. "Oh, I'll let you know as soon as I can," Sennett replied coldly. The publisher looked uncomfortable. "You'll do the best you can for us, Sennett, won't you?" he asked. "We shouldn't like Brumber to go to someone else." "I haven't a free hand," Mr. Sennett repeated. "I'm sorry you don't like that story you've just looked at. I'm keen about getting it published; I think it's well up to the right standard. But the difficulty there is about getting any of you men to oblige us! You want us to oblige you, you know." Mr. Guddle glanced up sharply at Mr. Sennett; but the agent's face was impassive. Mr. Guddle's demeanor betrayed annoyance and hesitation. "Oh, the story's very short," he said after a pause, “and it seems dismal. Still it may be all right. Of course we'll have it read if you send it in to us." "Thanks very much," said Mr. Sennett, and he smiled amiably. "Somehow one does likes to be humored." Some more small matters of business were mentioned, and then Mr. Guddle took his leave. A fortnight later he called upon Mr. Sennett again. "Well; is Brumber back now?" he asked, as he seated himself in the chair which Mr. Sennett offered him. "Yes, he's back," Mr. Sennett replied, indifferently. "He's coming up to town to-night, and he'll call here to-morrow." "Ah," cried Mr. Guddle-in gleeful expectation. "There's a lot of competition for that book," said Mr. Sennett, severely. "Five more people have been up here about it." Mr. Guddle looked serious. "Ah, and about that yarn of Jacob Linden's," Mr. Sennett resumed, carelessly. "Have you had a report about that yet? I hope you're going to fall in love with it." Mr. Guddle fidgeted in his chair. "Oh, but we're not," he observed, "We've had a report. There's some good stuff in it from the purely literary point of view, no doubt. But I don't believe it would have a sale. It's morbid; it's horribly gloomy." "Gloomy as King Lear?" Mr. Sennett asked, smiling. "Oh, that's different," Mr. Guddle answered. "You've got to consider the fiction public of the present day. It's altogether different. I don't say that a whole lot of gloomly novels haven't done well; but still one has a feeling against them. And then there's the length. It's too short. Readers want bulk for their money." "You disappoint me," said Mr. Sennett. "You really do. I thought you were going to oblige me about the book. However, I've no right to ask it. Yes, Brumber will be here to-morrow, and of course I shall report your offer with the others." There was a pause in the conversation. "Oh, hang it all," Mr. Guddle cried at length, "if your mind is really set on getting this woman who writes as Jacob Linden a hearing, I suppose we may as well do it. It isn't such bad stuff altogether. It may do though it's a risk. But we want to be obliging. I'll write a letter to you and make an offer for the story. And now-you won't forget us, eh? What time will Brumber be here?" "Half-past eleven." "I'll call around-oh, wait. Can you have lunch with me to-morrow? No? You're lunching Brumber? I see. Well, I'll call round at three. Ta-ta!" Mr. Sennett shook the publisher's hand cordially. So Messrs. Guddle & Honey secured Mr. Brumber's book on terms satisfactory to Mr. Brumber, and Jacob Linden secured the publication of her novel on terms satisfactory to herself. The event falsified Mr. Guddle's prediction; for the story attracted much attention, and the sales were very encouraging. "Jacob Linden" thanked Mr. Sennett enthusiastically. Then she wrote another novel. And she thought that it would be an act of courtesy to call on Messrs. Guddle & Honey when she had completed it. She was a nervous woman, whose health was delicate; she knew nothing of commerce, and the prospect of a visit to a man of business frightened her. But she went. Mr. Guddle was affability incarnate. He was even solicitous. ་་ "Of course we shall be pleased to see your next book," he said, with a beaming smile. should be very disappointed if you took it to any body else. We hope both to gain and keep your confidence, Mrs. Linden. There's a great deal of talk about hostility between author and publisher, but we believe that the old pleasant relations are still possible, and I assure you we don't always spare ourselves in the effort to maintain them." "I suppose I had better send the manuscript through Mr. Sennett?" the author inquired, confidingly. Mr. Guddle spread out his hands, and made as if he were about to whistle softly. "Oh! if you're in any way tied to Mr. Sennett," he began. "No, not at all," said the author. "But I thought I wouldn't do anything at all which would appear like slighting Mr. Sennett. Of course, I am very grateful to him.” ་་ The publisher laughed as if in frank merriment. "Sennett won't mind," he cried. 'He's overworked as it is. He'll be only too glad to be saved the trouble." "Oh, I wouldn't give him needless trouble for the world," said the author, and her face flushed. "Well now, really, do you know," Mr. Guddle resumed, "I think you had better deal with us. direct. Mr. Sennett wouldn't have sent your story to us if he thought that you couldn't trust us." "Of course not." "And the 10 per cent. commission that he gets is nothing to him. Unless it's a very big deal, he won't thank anyone for troubling him. Well, of course it has to be deducted from your profits, if it's to be paid at all." The author nodded her head, but hastened to remark, "I shouldn't mind that in the least." "I know, I know," said Mr. Guddle. "But it's merely a question of not bothering Sennett, and doing the business in a simpler and more direct way. I must say I think it's pleasanter all round." When Mr. Sennett and Mr. Palinode heard that "Jacob Linden" was dealing direct with Messrs. Guddle & Honey they sighed and shrugged their shoulders. "The way of the world," observed Mr. Palinode. "She wants to save her 10 per cent. like everybody else." Mr. Sennett said nothing. Jacob Linden's second novel was very favorably reviewed. Some people told her that it was having a brisk sale. But it proved rather less lucrative than her first book, when she received her accounts from Messrs. Guddle & Honey. Four years later a friend who was in Mr. Guddle's confidence asked the publisher what he thought of Jacob Linden's work. "My boy, she lays the most charming little golden eggs at regular intervals," said Mr. Guddle. "We get all her stuff, and we have all the American rights, and if we serialise one of the yarns we get all the money. She costs us about two hundred a year, and she's quite happy. Doesn't know the A BC of business. We explain it all to her at intervals." Mr. Guddle winked. "We tell her what terrible expenses we have about her stuff, and that she's found 'fit audience though few.' We took her away from Sennett, you know. We had to. Just ask yourself, my boy, if she'd stayed with Sennett, what prices she'd be getting now? Why, she'd be taking three-quarters of the profits, if not more. That's not publishing as I see it. I like the old pleasant, direct, personal relations between author and publisher." Mr. Guddle winked again. MOLECULE in The Author. * THE PUBLIC. A fool there was and he wrote a verse (Even as you and I !) He thought it was clever and witty and terse, (It was just so bad that it couldn't be worse), But the fool was glad when it filled his purse, (Even as you and I !) Oh the brains we waste and the pains we waste A fool there was and he wrote a book And somehow or other the old thing took <; Oh the name we lost and the fame we lost, The fool was scathingly criticized (Even as you and I!) The book was finally dramatized And it isn't the mind, and it isn't the grind It's an ignorant Public that doesn't know why, -CAROLYN WELLS. NAPOLEON'S LIBRARY-TO HAVE BEEN. Of all travelling or military libraries, the most comprehensive was that of the first Napoleon. He began with a collection of books carefully selected by M. Barbier, the Imperial librarian, who had them all uniformly bound in morocco and packed in oak boxes lined with green leather; a catalogue was attached to each of the boxes, which held about sixty volumes apiece, and were stowed away in the Emperor's capacious travelling carriage. This plan, however, did not satisfy Napoleon, who regretted the waste of space caused by the books' lack of uniformity in size. During his stay at Schonbrunn after Austerlitz, he amused himself by planning a special library for field use. He hoped at first to get all the important books of the world within the compass of a thousand volumes, to be well printed in duodecimo—“the dear and dumpy twelves" being the easiest to pack. Margins were to be discarded as merely a waste of paper. Forty volumes were to be given to the drama, as many to epic, and sixty to other kinds of poetry, forty to religion, a hundred to fiction, sixty to history, and the rest to historical memoirs. Religion was to include a history of the Church, "if it could be brought within the limits of forty volumes." Among epic poets were Homer, Lucan, Tasso, and Voltaire; among dramatists, Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire. Virgil, Shakespeare, and-still strangely-Moliere were omitted. But Fielding and Richardson rubbed shoulders with Rousseau, Voltaire, and Le Sage. more The selection of the best books has an insidious way of growing upon its votaries, and it accordingly grew upon Napoleon. He soon came to the conclusion that at least three thousand volumes would be necessary for an adequate travelling library. So he proposed to have thirty cases, each containing a hundred volumes in 18mo. The chief addition to the previous list was that of the Bible. In order to diminish the expense of such a scheme, it was proposed to sell copies to the public. M. Barbier estimated the total cost at about £177,400 for an edition of fifty copies of each volume, £219,ooo if double that number were to be printed. Probably a modern printer could do the work at a lower rate, as even the second estimate works out at 14s. a volume. The main outlay, however, would have been for editorial labor, as Napoleon made it a condition that the volumes should be condensed by the omission of all useless parts, in which he included "all passages in Greek or Latin." This, according to M. Barbier's calculation, would involve the labor of 125 compositors, twenty-five literary men, and a director for six years. It was proposed to print two hundred sets for sale to the public, at five francs a volume; and there was little doubt that the Emperor's own anthology would go off rapidly enough. This colossal enterprise unfortunately never came to anything. AMERICANA AT AUCTION. An extensive collection of Americana was sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson December 11, last. Books of this class have, of late years, become very scarce, owing to the great demand there is for them, not only in this country, but also in the United States and even in some of our colonies. The collection is worthy of special notice from the fact that such a number of works of this kind are seldom obtained from a single source. They were collected towards the close of the last century by a military. officer in this country, and been carefully preserved en bloc ever since. Most of them were in their condition "as issued"-a most unusal circumstance where such books are concerned. Ferguson's "Complete History of the Present Civil War," printed at London in 1779, realized £27. This scarce volume had a double folding sheet at the end containing a complete list of the names of the killed, wounded, and prisoners, or missing, at the battles of Lexington, Concord, Bunker's Hill, and elsewhere, from the taking of Long Island, August 27th, to the close of the campaign, 8th December, 1776. An interesting collection of original documents relating to the British forces, occupying some 500 large folio pages, brought £15, and a fine copy of the "Memorial of the Hon. Thomas Walpole on behalf of Himself," &c., London, 1774, £20. For Stork's "Account of East Florida," London n.d. (but 1766), £4 17s. 6d. was realized, and a collection of charters relating to many provinces of North America, London, 1766, 4to., brought £6. A good copy of Hartlib's "His Legacy of Husbandry," 1655, sold for £3, and among other prices realized were the following:-"Jamaica Viewed," 1661, LI 3s. ; Ogilby's "America, " 1671, £2 16s. ; Godwyn's "The Negro's and Indian's Advocate," 1680, £3 15s.; "The Report of the Committee of the Province of South Carolina," 1737, £7 10s.; "A Discource concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America," n.d. (1739), £8; Little's "State of Trade in the Northern Colonies," 1748, in the original wrapper, £5; and a volume of Orderson's Newpaper, published in Barbados (November, 1792, to September, 1793), £5 7s. 6d. The manuscripts of which there were many in the collection, were not so important as might have been expected. They realized, on the average, less than 1 each, several being included in each lot. The maps were, however, exceptionally interesting.-Literature. MRS. HUMPHRY WARD ON CHARLOTTE BRONTE. Mrs. Humphry Ward has written an interesting, if rather severe, introduction to "Jane Eyre" in Messrs. Harper & Brothers' new edition of Charlotte Bronte's works. It is interesting to see what one novelist has to say about another novelist, especially when both are women. Mrs. Ward puts the faults of "Jane Eyre" forward first. Thus: There never was a plot, which pretended to be a plot, of looser texture than that of "Jane Eyre." It abounds with absurdities and inconsistencies. The critics of Charlotte Bronte's time had no difficulty in pointing them out; they lie, indeed, on the surface for all to see. That such incidents should have happened to Jane Eyre in Mr. Rochester's house as did happen, without awakening her suspicions; that the existence of a lunatic should have been commonly known to all the servants of the house, yet wholly concealed from the governess; that Mr. Rochester should have been a man of honor and generosity-a man with whom not only "Jane Eyre," but clearly the writer herself, is in love, and yet capable of deliberately betraying and deceiving a girl of twelve, placed in a singularly helpless position-these are not the fundamental puzzles of the story. Mrs. Fairfax is a mystery throughout. How, knowing what she did, did she not inevitably know more?-what was her real relation to Rochester?-to "Jane Eyre?" These are questions that no one can answer-out of the four corners of the book. The country house party is a tissue of extravagance throughout; the sarcasms and brutalities of the beautiful Miss Ingram are no more credible than the manners assumed by the aristocratic Rochester from the beginning towards his ward's governess, or the amazing freedom with which he pours into the ears of the same governess-a virtuous girl of twenty, who has been no more than a few weeks under his roof-the story of his relations with Adele's mother .. The country house party is equally far from anything known, either to realistic or romantic truth, even to the truth as it existed in the days of "Jane Eyre's Quarterly Reviewer" and the Cowan Bridge School. . . . The whole scene from beginning to end is a piece of heavy grotesque, without either the truth or the fun of good satire. It was these pages, of course, and certain others like them in the book, that set George Henry Lewes preaching the "mild eye," the "truth," and "finish" of Miss Austen to the new and stormy genius which had produced "Jane Eyre." And one may see, perhaps, in Charlotte's soreness, in the very vehemence that she shows under this particular criticism, that, secretly, the shaft has gone home. As to the other weaknesses of plots and conception, they are very obvious and very simple. The "arrangements" by which "Jane Eyre" is to find a home in the Rivers household, and becomes at once her uncle's heiress and the good angel of her newly discovered cousins; the device of the phantom voice that recalls her to Rochester's side; the fire that destroys the mad wife, and delivers into Jane's hands a subdued and helpless Rochester-all these belong to that more mechanical and external sort of plotmaking which the modern novelist of feeling and passion, as distinguished from the novelist of adventure, prides himself on renouncing. In fact, to return to our advocatus diaboli, "Jane Eyre' is, on the one side, a rather poor novel of incident, planned on the conventional pattern, and full of clumsy execution; on another side, it is a picture of passion and of ideas, for which, in truth, the writer had no sufficient equipment; she moves imprisoned, to quote Mr. Leslie Stephen, in ‘a narrow circle of thoughts'; if you press it, the psychology of the book is really childish; Rochester is absurd; Jane Eyre, in spite of the stir that she makes, only half realized and half conscious." Having almost endangered the new reader's appetite for "Jane Eyre," Mrs. Ward proceeds to tell him how he may enjoy the novel: The main secret of the charm that clings to Charlotte Bronte's books is, and will always be, the contact which they give us with her own fresh, indomitable, surprising personality-surprising, above all. all. In spite of its conventionalities of schemes, "Jane Eyre" has, in detail, in conversation, in the painting of character, that perpetual magic of the unexpected which overrides a thousand faults, and keeps the mood of the reader happy and alert. The expedients of the plot may irritate or chill the artistic sense; the voice of the story-teller, in its inflections of passion, or feeling, or reverie, charms and holds the ear almost from first to last. The general plan may be commonplace, the ideas even of no great profundity; but the book is original. How often in the early scenes of childhood or school life does one instinctively expect the conventional solution, the conventional softening, the conventional prettiness or quaintness, that so many other story-tellers of undoubted talent could not have resisted! And it never comes. Hammer-like, the blows of a passionate realism descend. "Jane Eyre," the little helpless child, is never comforted; Mrs. Reid, the cruel aunt, is never sorry for her cruelties; Bessie, the kind nurse, is not very kind, she does not break the impression, she satisfies no instinct of poetic compensation; she only just makes the story credible, the reader's assent possible. So, at Lowood, Helen Burns is not a suffering angel; there is nothing consciously pretty or touching in the wonderful picture of her; reality, with its discords, its infinite novelties, lends word and magic to the passion of Charlotte's memory of her dead sister; all is varied, living, poignant, full of the inexhaustible savor of truth, and warm with the fire of the heart. So that at last, when pure pathos comes, when Helen sleeps herself to death in Jane's arms, when the struggle is over, and room is made for softness, for pity, the mind of the reader yields itself wholly, without reserve, to the working of an artist so masterful, so self-contained, so rightly frugal as to the great words and great emotions of her art. We are in the presence of the same kind of power as that which drew the death of Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons"-a power which, in the regions covered by the experience of the mind behind it, "nothing common does nor mean," which shrinks from the borrowed and the imitated and the insincere as the patriot shrinks from treason. Mrs. Ward draws some interesting comparisons and contrasts between Charlotte Bronte and George Sand, and mantains, with reason, that George Sand's novels quickened and fertilized the genius of of her English sister. It was of a French critic, not of any English critic, that Charlotte Bronte said, referring to "Shirley:" "He follows Currer Bell through every winding, discerns every point, discriminates every shade, proves himself master of the subject, and lord of the aim."-The Academy. * IN A BUDDHIST LIBRARY. That prince among scholars and master organizer, President Warren of Boston University, is of the opinion, I believe, that the Garden of Eden was situated at the North Pole (which hypothesis probably furnishes the reason why none of the race has ever been able to get back there); but I am of the opinion that if he were to come to Kandy, in Ceylon, he would change his mind and locate Paradise there. Certainly it is near to being Paradise now if it was not at the beginning. Adam and Eve walk about the streets in what is next to a state of nature, and it is a long time since the Waste Basket (this item is from "The Waste Basket," Boston Literary World,) has found itself in a more heavenly place. The lovely little lake, the surrounding hills, the towering mountain summits in the far background, the mantle of vivid green that enfolds everything, the embroidery of ferns and palms, the brilliant flowers and birds that flash their colors through the foliage, the radiant sunshine, the wine-like air, the English finish which has been put upon the edges of all this bountiful and beautiful nature, the cleanliness of the little town, the air of refinement that much of it wears; all this gives Kandy a character of its own, almost primeval in its purity and peace. And is not Adam's footprint here, too? Not the original, which is some miles away at the peak to which our forefather gives his name; but a facsimile in a stone slab housed in a shrine connected with the Buddhist Temple, which is the architectural decoration of the frame to the lake. This famous temple dates from the 14th century, when it was built to contain Buddha's tooth. The possession of that precious relic was the making of Kandy, which became the capital of Ceylon in the 16th century, and so remained until it passed into the hands of the English in 1815. The tooth has been in Ceylon for more than fifteen hundred years, and the shrine which protects it has just attracted a thousand pilgrims from Burma. The temple and its adjacent monastery of five hundred priests may therefore be regarded as one of the centers of the Buddhist world. I climbed to-day the winding stairs of stone that lead into the octagonal library of the temple, an "Oriental Library" indeed, where in three handsome cases are collected a thousand or more sacred "books," the literature of Buddhism. Some of them are venerable with the age of nearly a thousand years. Others are bound within "boards" of solid silver or gold, richly embossed, and in some instances studded with precious gems. The "leaves" of these "books" are so many separate strips of the leaf of the talipot palm, that variety of the palm which flowers once in fifty years and in flowering dies. These strips vary in size, but will average perhaps two inches in width and from one to two feet in length. The yellow-robed priest, a young man of about twenty with scrupulously shaven head and intelligent countenance, showed me the handicraft of the scribe. Holding a fresh palm-strip in his left hand with the end of the thumb on the line which the writing was to follow, he then, with the sharp point of an artistic looking iron pen held in his right hand, traced on the surface of the leaf the delicate and graceful Singhalese characters for the name of Buddha. This incised lettering was then "filled" by smearing the surface of the leaf with a coloring paste or liquid made of charcoal, which when rubbed with a rag left the lettering black. It was precisely the process by which the steel or copper-plate engraver prepares his plate and "fills" his incised lines with ink to transfer an impression to the paper. For a rupee (33 cents) I bought of the thrifty servant of the priest the new leaf, an old one filled with writing, and the pretty, quaint "pen" which had done its work before my eyes. In a commodious building hard by the temple I visited next a Buddhist school, maintained by the Theosophical Society, where two hundred boys and young men were receiving a first-class English academic education according to Buddhist principles, under the direction of a young Englishman, who told me that he became a convert to Buddhism six years ago, and that he was superintendent of a district in which there were thirty such schools. Thus is Buddhism working side by side with Christianity in Kandy. |