Life — January 17, 1889 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. ITH rare discretion for one so young, William Dean Howells elected to be born in Martinsville, O., in 1840, with a view to obtaining a Con- sulate from Rutherford B, Hayes, when that gentleman should become President of the United States. He early exhibited unmistakable in- dications of the genius that has made his name a household word in every boarding-house and sewing-circle in this broad land. His nurse remembers, as if it were but the day before yesterday, when this gifted infant declared that he had made his plans for the brilliant career that has been his. Seated in her lap, in the sixth month of his existence, he was thoughtfully drawing upon a small hose-pipe which extended into the translucent depths of a milk-bottle, his liquid eyes bent upon vacancy, when, suddenly removing the bulbous mouth- piece from his lips, he said: “Nurse, the reading public will not long tolerate the confidential attitude of Dickens and Thackeray. What the novel-readers of forty years hence will want will not be to know what the characters in fiction do or think, but what the novelist thinks of what his characters do and think.” He then applied himself to the bot- tle and profound meditation until the former was empty, when he announced that he had decided to begin his literary career as a journalist with the Cincin- nati Gazette when he should reach his majority, afterward going to the Okio State Journal, and then writing a biog- raphy of the leading poultry-dealer of Ohio, which should give the author the Consulate in Venice for four years. Mr. Howells's later works are too well known to need mention. Chief among them are “A Chance Acquaint- ance; or, Miss Middleton’s Lover ;” “Their Wedding Journey; or, Parted on their Bridal Tour;” “Dr, Breen’s Practice; or, the Morphine Habit’s Victim;” ‘‘A Foregone Conclusion; or, the Straight Tip on the Suburban,” and “Indian Summer; or, the Quick or the Dead.” Mr. Howells’s literary method differs from that of Dickens and Hugo in that it does not produce injurious wear and tear of the emotions, He has carefully shunned murder and suicide as tragic climaxes, but many of his readers have been deeply stirred by the horrid doom of Mr. Augustus Witherspoon, who was drugged in his carriage on his way to a ball in Boston, and a white satin tie substi- tuted for the proper article of raiment under his cultured chin, in which awful predicament he walked more than half-way across the ball-room, It is rumored that there is one violent situation in Mr. Howells’s forthcoming novel, in which the villain throws the hero's hat out of a window; but the author's friends are confident that he has not resorted to the extravagant methods of the sensational romancers. LIFE’S GALLERY OF BEAUTIES. No. 1, MR, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, HE DESERVED PROMOTION. RIEND (¢0 Lieutenant Goldbratd): Why, Lieutenant, how are you? I'm glad to see you back. GoLppRAID: Ya’as, we reached port this morning; but you mustn't call me Lieutenant any more, Chappie, I’m a Captain now. FRIEND: Is that so? Promoted, eh? GOLDBRAID: Ya'as; for gallant conduct in the late war between Hayti and the United States. ON’T be dishonest in small matters. If you get found out, you won't have much of a chance for larger operations, A SIGN OF THE TIMES—“ Please shut the door.” comicbooks.com