Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1910 — BITS FOR BOOKWORMS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

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Gen, Booth, of the Salvation Army Is writing his autobiography.- During the hours of darkness while he was undergoing surgical treatment for a defeet in_ljis -eyesight he spent his time dictatlng-his life story. Who is to get the Nobel Prize for literature this year? There is a rumor that It is to be bestowed upon M. Anatole France. If so, he will be the third frenchman “to receive It, the two others being Sully Prudhomme and Frederic Mistral. There are some American books which never lose thSir popularity, and “The Wide, Wide World” is one of them: Published more than fifty years ago, it still holds an army of young rekders. A biography of its author has Just been brought out by the novelist’s sister Anna, who is herself a clever writer. “A Queen-at Bay" is the title of the newest memoir. If is the story of Marla Christina, wife of Ferdinand VII. “of Spain. It describes the' fashion in which she defended the right to the throne of her baby daughter, Isabel, against Don Carlos. This lady, who has not always been enthusiastically admired, was the great-grand-mother of the present King of Spain. King Edward VII. has knighted Frederick Macmillan, the present head of the British publishing firm of Macmillan and Company and a director of the Macmillan Company in New York. Mr. Macmillan Is the son of the original founder, Daniel Macmillan. In 1843 there appeared a little volume “The Philosophy of Training,” by A R. Craig, bearing the imprint “Published by Daniel Macmillan, 57 Aldersgate street." That was the first that the reading public heard of a name which has since become so familiar in England and America. The Rev. Francis Higgins,, the hero of Norman .Duncan’s book "Higgins— A Man’s Christian," is called affectionately by the lumbermen of the Minnesota forests “the lumberjack’s Bky pilot." He travels through the forest, winter and summer, from camp to camp ministering to their bodies no less than to their souls and fighting the vice of the lumber towns where the lumberjack drifts Into spending his earnings in drink and dissipation. Mr. Higgins has been preaching in New York within the last fortnight and will make another visit, at the end as the month. The Tennyson centenary celebration has started a flood of reminiscences in the poet’s own country. His praise of Thackeray is recalled by one of the commentators: “I always had a happy evening in Thackeray’s company," Tennyson said. "Once he told me that the classics were not worth studying in comparison with the modern authors. I argued and he argued, we both got angry, and we parted still arguing. The next morning I was still angry with him, our argument had been so hot; and then very early in the day I got a note from Thackeray: ‘Dear Tennyson. I talked great nonsense.’ ”