Life — October 7, 1886 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“LIFE A MISFIT. HER P, S. NCLOSED in this you'll find a kiss ; (I've placed it just inside the letter) It may not seem quite real, but this You'll have to take for want of better. HIS REPLY. The only fault that I have found With your most sweet of sweetest kisses, Is that ’twas small—’twould not go 'round ; In fact, 'twas just about as this is : I pray you, when you send me more, (That I may fully know what bliss is) To send at least a half a score— My size is just about as this is : BEEF AS AN ELEMENT OF FICTION. friend, the Doctor, is a very young man at fifty, and Y M can carry his 190 pounds through the parallel bars with the grace and dexterity of a college athlete. As he sat in the dressing-room of the gymnasium enjoying that half- hour of perfect physical comfort which comes after vigorous | Musston, and four million dollars. | her from the Boston type by making her unconventional ; and manners! Can you read him, Narcissus? Can you read him, Hercules Robustus, or any of you boys? If you can, it is time for you to join the bar class to invigorate your degenerate physique.” And Narcissus and Hercules looked at the Doctor’s biceps and decided to agree with his literary opinions for the sake of keeping peace in the gymnasium. * * * COMMEND the health lecture of my friend, the Doctor, to Mr. Robert Grant. There is not enough blood in | “A Romantic Young Lady” (Ticknor's) to fill the left ven- tricle of her heart. She is our old friend and stock character in genuine Boston novels —the /mpertous Beauty with a Mr. Grant tries to redeem but, frankly, she is either very silly or perilously near being vulgar. Even four million dollars can’t atone for the Bohemi- | anism of the second part of the story. Mr. Grant says a great many bright things in the course of these pages, and gently taps a good many fashionable foibles. He is a good-natured satirist, and really believes that he is something of a social reformer. There are proba- bly agoodly number of boarding-school misses and “ Buds” _ in their first season who agree with him. * * * R. HENRY R. ELLIOTT will soon publish a novel of New York life, the scene of which is laid in that delightful old Scotch quarter which was once Greenwich village. Mr. Elliott’s first novel, ‘The Basset Claim,” has the distinction of being almost the oniy study of Washington life which does not depend for its main interest on the love of a man for his neighbor's wife. One might easily imagine | that unhappy marriages were the predominant feature in exercise and a shower-bath, he began to lay down the law of | health in fiction, between puffs at his cigarette. “What we need in fiction is ore beef,” he said. “Genuine | physical vigor is the vital element in literature. Take Victor Hugo, Balzac and Thackeray. There is warm blood in them. They wrote truly about life because they lived it. There is | passion in ‘Notre Dame de Paris;’ but it springs from health, not disease. ‘Henry Esmond’ is the greatest novel ever written, as an intellectual feat or as a study of character. And there is ‘Gil Blas,"—as fine a satire on political corrup- | Why, I read it once a | I tell you, | tion to-day as when it was written. year, and enjoy it more now than the first time. boys, you can’t write about life if you have not blood enough | in your veins to make your heart beat strong and full, and nerves vigorous enough to carry a vivid impression to your brain, Ugh! These flabby, puny men who write about their sensations and want us to believe them profound thoughts or intense feelings ! please them. There is Mr. Howells, wasting his polished literary art on old-maidish, tabby-cat criticisms of snobbery Women are ruining our literature. They | are nine-tenths of the reading public, and the men write to Washington society. * * * LIVER OPTIC having moved to Minneapolis, it 1s believed that that city will rival Chicago as a “literary centre.” St. Louis lost all claim to that distinction when Mr. Joseph Pulitzer left it. Droch. + NEW BOOKS «+ Ballou. By Henry Grevilie. Philadelphia: T. B. Boston: Ticknor & Co. GENIUS IN SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. By Maturin M. Boston: Ticknor & Co. Zitha ; ot, The ‘Irials of Raissa, Peterson & Brothers. Shakespeare's England. By William Winter. THE PEOPLE’S MIND. HIEF EDITOR: Have you filled that last column ? MANAGING EDITOR: No, news is scarce. CHIEF EDITOR: Well, write out a letter from “ Citizen.” OW can I leave thee?” he gently murmured, as the clock tolled one. “Ask me something easy, she yawned. “ Pa’s at the front door with a shot-gun, and the dog's loose in the back yard.” [Confidentially :—He went up through the coal-hole.] “cc comicbooks.com