Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1879 — PROMINENT PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

PROMINENT PEOPLE.

Ex Gov. Hendricks, of Indiana, is now entirely gray. Dr. Holland has received $12,000 for “ Bitter Sweet.” The elevated railroad of New York has made S. J. Tilden and C. W. Field richer by from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 apiece. Orville Grant, brother of the General, has settled in Geneva, 111., and is restored to reason on all questions but the one of finance. Mr. E. C. Stedman, the poet, has sailed for Europe to spend his vacation in Great Britain, beginning his sightseeing in the lake regions of Ireland. LkoXIII. is becoming noted in Rome for the unostentatious way of his life. A letter from Rome says he “is the most simple in taste of all the Popes known to history. His bedroom is paved with common stones, and is never warmed. His reception-rooms are fitted up with luxuries, but his private apartments are as cheerless as a hermit’s cell.”

Count Beust, who has just gone to Paris as Austrian Minister, is said to be the wittiest Ambassador in Europe. He is said to have that happy faculty, which the late Lord Palmerston possessed, of parrying any direct inquiry in a way which means, “ Don’t ask too much.” Count Beust is also a poet and musical composer of more than average merit, and the piano in his working-room shows in which direction his cultured hobby lies. Gen. Noyes, American Minister at Paris, recently gave a dinner to a number of American celebrities, which was lightened up by the presence and genial chat of “ Mark Twain.” In the course of the dinner he expressed his want of admiration for the general run of Frenchmen, and thought that, so far as looks were concerned, “ most of them would be improved by mutilation.” The elegant “ Twain ” is now at work on another nook of travels. Baron Tauchnitz has arranged to print a German edition of “ The Innocents Abroad,” and sent M. T. a handsome check for the honor. Gov. Drew, of Florida, a New Hampshire man, owns 60,000 acres of land. .He employs 400 men cutting logs and sawing them into lumber. All his men live in neat cottages built by him, for which he charges no rent. He is now constructing a tramway eight miles in length into the forest, and the trees of convenient access to it will be felled, and the logs conveyed by it to his mill. When the trees are exhausted on this line the tramway will be run out in another direction, and the process of exhaustion repeated. The lumber is taken in cars to Jacksonville, Fla., and there placed in schooners for New York. Ralph Waldo Emerson is 77 years ’ old. He lately gave a very interesting lecture on “ Memory,” in Boston, for the benefit of the Old South Church. He begged that no report should be made of it. The Herald, of that city, says: “ Mr. Emerson is now unequal to the effort to speak to a large audience. His form is still erect; his piercing eye is as keen as ever; his smile has lost none of its ineffable sweetness; but still it is evident that old age is coming upon him rapidly. He read his lecture at a small desk, in a sitting posture, his faithful daughter guiding and prompting him whenever he lost his place, with his audience of some 200 persons so thoroughly touched with emotion by his infirmities that they did not mind what they lost, provided only they could look into his serene face and watch its varying expression,”