The Dial/Volume 15/Number 171/Literary Notes and News
Literary Notes and News.
The death of Mr. Wilson Graham, who undertook five years ago the preparation of the Chaucer Concordance, leaves the completion of the work to his colleague, Dr. Flügel, of Stanford University, to whom all outstanding slips should now be sent.
At the Zola dinner mentioned in our last issue, the following bit of dialogue is reported to have taken place: General Jung said to M. Zola, "You have written 'La Débàcle'; I hope you will write 'La Victoire.'" M. Zola replied, "That, General, is more your business than mine."
The following inscription is borne by the tablet recently placed upon the Palazzo Verospi, at Rome: "A Percy Bysshe Shelley, che nella primavera del 1819 scrisse in questa casa 'Il Prometeo' e 'La Cenci.' II Comune di Roma, cento anni dopo la nascita del poeta, sostenitore invitto delle liberta popolati, avversate ai sui tempi da tutta Europa, pose questo ricordo, 1892."
One Babu Sarat Chandra Das, a Bengali pundit, who lived for some time in a Buddhist monastery at Lhassa, and who brought back with him a thorough knowledge of Tibetan language and literature, is now engaged upon an exhaustive dictionary of Tibetan, to be published by the government of India. He has also found time to write a popular narrative of his travels and experiences in Tibet, and thus throw open to English readers a country that has been closed for more than a century.
The death-roll for July includes two names of high rank,—that of Guy de Maupassant, who died on the 6th, and that of Henry Nettleship, whose death was reported on the 10th. Maupassant was born in 1850, trained himself for literary work under the direction of Flaubert, and during the last dozen years of his life was a prolific writer of novels and short stories always admirable in manner, often far from admirable in matter. The story of his illness is too fresh in the public mind to need recounting. Professor Nettleship had not more than three or four equals among recent classical scholars in England. He was born in 1839, and was identified with Oxford throughout the greater part of his career. In 1878, he became Corpus Professor of Latin, thus filling the chair formerly occupied by his old master and friend, Professor Conington. He completed Conington's "Virgil" and "Persius," published many papers on classical philology, and devoted many years to a proposed Latin-English lexicon, planned, then afterwards abandoned, by the Clarendon Press.
Mr. Walter Besant, the English novelist, who attended the recent Authors' Congress at Chicago as a delegate from the British Society of Authors, has written the following appreciative letter to the President of the Auxiliary Congresses, by whom it is given to the public.
CHARLES C. DONKEY, Esq.,
President World's Congress Auxiliary.
DEAR SIR: At the moment of leaving Chicago and the Literary Conference, I beg permission, in the name of Dr. Sprigge and myself, and of the organization which we represented at your Congress, to convey to you as president, and to the committee of organization of the Literary department, first, our most sincere congratulations on the success of the Congress which is to-day concluded; second, our most sincere thanks for the arrangements made for the reception of the English contributors, and for the great personal kindness shown to us and the trouble taken for us.
Many papers were read most helpful and suggestive; a great stimulus has been given to the consideration of all subjects connected with the advance of our common literature a literature growing daily more international, while on both sides of the Atlantic it will preserve its natural distinctions. I venture to express the earnest hope that in the interests of both countries the papers read and the speeches made during this week may be edited i.e., reduced and condensed and published, and sent to all the principal libraries in the world of the Republic and the English Empire.
Permit me, sir, if I may do so as a simple visitor, without the appearance of impertinence, to congratulate your splendid city on the place which this Exposition has enabled it to take among the great mother cities of the world. Among all your business activities, and in the eager pressing forward of your people, rejoicing in a vigorous youth, confident in a splendid future, reckless of what they spend because of the strength and resources within them, I rejoice to find springing up a new literature. Whatever be the future of this literature, which rises on the frontier line of East and West, it will be at least free from the old traditions. I wish for your authors that independence which we in the old country are straggling to conquer; at least it will be their fault if they do not achieve it at the outset not the fault of the national character, nor the fault of this Literary Congress.
I leave your city with memories of the greatest kindness and hospitality. I can never sufficiently thank my friends here for their friendliness. I carry away a delightful memory, not so much of a Chicago rich, daring, young, and confident, as of a Chicago which has conceived and carried into execution the most beautiful and poetic dream a place surpassing the imagination of man, as man is commonly found and a Chicago loving the old literature, discerning and proving that which is new, and laying the foundations for that which is to come, a Chicago which is destined to become the centre of American literature in the future.
I remain, dear sir, your obedient servant,