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Page 167
NEW SOUTH AND ITS LITERATURE.
Distinctive Class of Novel Writers That Has Appeared.
From the Examiner.
That the south has, on the whole, been less productive of men of letters than the north need occasion no surprise to the student of things American. How should it have been otherwise in the peculiar social and political conditions that prevailed down to the civil war? Public life absorbed the thoughts and energies of the class of southern men from whom the poets and novelists, the essayists and historians would naturally have been recruited. Add to this the dearth of publishing facilities, the limited public, the comparatively slight honor paid to a successful author, the smallness of his pecuniary reward, and one need not wonder that few southern men elected the profession of literature. The one considerable novelist that the south produced, William Gilmore Simms, was compelled to have his romances published at the north, and one suspects that they were chiefly read in the same section.
Nothing is more distinctive of the new south than her recent literary development. Public life no longer has for the southern youth the supreme fascination of ante-bellum days. The reading public is larger, broader minded, quicker to appreciate. True, the southern writer is still dependent on northern presses and northern capital for the means of reaching his public; but this is of little importance, for railways have nearly annihilated space, and, what is of far more consequence, the middle wall of partition between north and south has been broken down, and the mere fact that a book or magazine is published in New York or Boston no longer excludes it from every southern home.
Within little more than a decade there has risen what may be fairly called a southern school of fiction, racy of the soil, unmistakable in its characteristics, such as no other section could possibly have produced. It is symptomatic that all the members of this first distinctive southern school of writers should have devoted themselves to fiction. Poets, the south, indeed, has had in recent years; Paul Hamilton, Hayne and Sidney Lanier are worthy of more than respectful mention in any catalogue of American authors; but they are southern only by accident of birth or choice of residence, not by the essential character of their work. Sidney Lanier's poetry, for the most part, might have been written as well in New Hampshire or Minnesota as anywhere else, and much the same is true of the greater part of Hayne's. But of Richard Malcolm Johnston, of Thomas Nelson Page, of Joel Chandler Harris, of Matt Crim, who will maintain that they could have done their work had they not been born and bred in the sunny south?
The semi-annual examinations at the Military Academy were concluded last week. Fifteen cadets were found deficient in studies and dismissed.
Page 168
Please give the chronological order and date of entry into the union of the thirteen original states?
S. J. P., Towson.
This date is established by the date on which each state in convention ratified the Constitution. The dates are as follows:
Delaware --- December 7, 1787.
Pennsylvania --- December 12, 1787.
New Jersey --- December 18, 1787
Georgia --- January 2, 1788.
Connecticut --- January 9, 1788.
Massachusetts --- February 7, 1788.
Maryland --- April 28, 1788.
South Carolina --- May 23, 1788.
New Hampshire --- June 21, 1788.
Virginia --- June 26, 1788.
New York --- July 26, 1788.
North Carolina --- November 21, 1789.
Rhode Island --- May 29, 1790.
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Can you give a remedy for the prevention of gas in the stomach after eating?
L. C. W., Solomon's Island.
The safest and best remedy, in the writer's opinion, is first to eat slowly and throughly masticate the food.
Page 169
business area is now 90 per cent. completed and he expects that the work of placing the pipes and mains will be finished by the first of Febuary. The pumping station will not be in readiness at the time, however and so the new system will not then be available.
It is a noteworthy detail that much of the construction work has been carried forward upon the high-pressure system in a way not to interfere with traffic, and so as scarcely to attract observation. Under Baltimore and South street the pipes were placed by tunneling instead of by cutting an open ditch down from the surface. This method of placing the mains not only avoided interference with traffic, but, as the managing engineer contends, was a more economic method than the open-cut, as many underground obstructions were avoided by the tunnel method.
It has been determined that the pumping station when completed will be operated by steam and not by electricity.
Page 170
QUEEN'S LOVE STORY
How Victoria Proposed to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.
MEMORY REVERED IN GOTHA
Reigning Family Greatly Beloved by People of Duchy.
TRACES ANCESTRY FAR BACK
Descended from Wettin, Who Ruled That Part of Germany Fifteen Hundred Years Ago.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.
Written for The Star and the Chicago Record Herald.
The capital of the Ducy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, situated upon the edge of the Thuringian forest, and commanded by the ancient castle of Friedenstein, is one of the loveliest towns and most desirable places of residence for quiet people in all Europe. While it does not appeal to those who seek excitement and thrills, it is an ideal home for students, artists and people of small means, who are content with such society.
There are many handsome villas with spacious grounds and tasteful gardens, extensive parks and promenades, wide streets and public squared, a good theater, a fine opera, a picture gallery and schools of all kinds, which are patronized by many English families who have sons and daughters to educate.
There is a small museum filled with a rare collection of curios and historical relics which accumulated during many generations in the ducal palace, and were transferred to this modern, fireproof structure in 1878 in order to make them secure. I do not know where I have ever seen so small a museum in which are so many interesting objects. They are arranged with great taste and are kept with great care. Their value is enhanced in the eyes of the people because they have belonged to so many different owners - all of them respected and esteemed rulers of the duchy. The library of 250,000 volumes is one of the finest in Europe.
Built by Ernest the Pious.
The palace, or castle, as it is called, was built by Ernest the Pious, in 1635-43, and is a huge building of four stories and 366 rooms, surrounding an enormous quadrangle large enough for the maneuvers of a brigade of horsemen, with towers 140 feet high at each end. The front windows overlook the city, the windows on one side overlook a lovely park, and the living rooms of the ducal family command vistas that make them very attractive. The apartments are homelike, and although they are occupied only a small portion of the year, they are comfortable and attractive. In one of the corridors and 279 sets of antlers from stags shot in the neighboring preserve. They are the trophies of the late duke, fathered in seven seasons.
In the drawing rooms are many quaint portraits, including several of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria as children. Prince Albert's playthings are preserved in a cabinet. There is a rare collection of old silver and china that has been handed down through many generations of the ducal family, and a manuscript Bible beautifully illuminated, which once belonged to the Grand Duke Otto III, who lived in the ninth century. The Chinese porcelain in several cabinets is particularly good, and is said to have been collected by dukes who lived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Most of the ornaments that were formely in the castle, the custodian told us, had been sent over to the museum, and he advised us to pay special attention to a remarkable collection of rings that we would find there. He said it was unsurpassed except in the South Kensington Museum of London, and I am sure that he is right.
The first commercial school in Germany, the first fire and the first life insurance companies were started at Gotha.
A Grandson of Victoria.
Charles Edward, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, is a grandson of Queen Victoria and a son of the late Prince Leopold. He has the English title of his father, the Duke of Albany. He is a young man of twenty-six years and was married a few yeags ago to a daughter of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. The people have great affection for him and recognize in his character as well as his appearance a close resemblance to his grandfather, the late Prince Albert, the beloved husband of Queen Victoria, who was born in the neighborhood at a summer castle and was brought up in Gotha. His elder brother Ernest, inherited the ducal title.
There are many delightful associations with Prince Albert in Gotha, although he seldom came here after his marriage. Several portraits hang in the living rooms of the castle, and his memory was kept alive by repeated visits to Gotha by Queen Victoria, who, as you remember, was a very sentimental woman, and loved every place that reminded her of the man she idolized. The association has been also strengthened by his son, the late Duke of Albany, who reigned here for nearly thirty years and had a deeop and sincere veneration for the sterling character of his father.
The ancestors of the late Prince Albert were the same as those of the royal family at Saxony. They were descended from a brave knight named Wettin, who ruled over this part of Germany 1,500 years ago, but, at the time of the reformation, there was a split. The elder branch, known as the Ernestines, were complled to relinquish their claims to the crown when they became Protestants, and the Albertines, or younger branch, which remained loyal to the church of Rome, have since retained the throne.
Division of a Kingdom.
The old kingdom of Thuringia was divided among the members of the family, but the three duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha were afterward reunited in the middle of the eighteenth century under Ernest I, and have since been governed jointly, having the same fundamental law but separate legislatures. The Coburg branch consists of eleven and the Gotha branch of nineteen members. They meet separately every other year and hold a joint session every third year, alternately at the towns of Coburg and Gotha. They have a common cabinet and common laws.
The population of the duchy consists of 237,187 Protestants, 3,897 Catholics, 714 Jews, and 659 persons with no stated religion. Gotha has 36,947 and Coburg 22,488 population.
While Luther visited Gotha frequently and on several occasions preached in the old Stadt-kirche, there are no placed closely identified with him. The only relic of interest that I could find is an autograph letter in the museum written by King Henry VIII of England denouncing Luther as a dangerous person advising that he should be immediately imprisoned or surpressed.
The greatest interest, as I have laready suggested, is to be found in the simple, unostentatioius life of Prince Albert, which was saddened because of a quarrel between his parents. His mother left his father in 1824, when he was only five years old, and he did not see her again until he was a man. He was educated at Gotha and at the University of Bonn, and is represented to have been a thoughtful studious boy, fond of music, sports, reading and natural history. His cabinet of natural history specimens may be seen at the museum, also a medal that was presented to him as a prize for fencing in the Gotha gymnasium, when he was sixteen years old.
Bride and Groom Cousins.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, were first cousins. His father was the eldest son of Ernest Frederich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; the third son, Leopold, became King of Belgium; the second son became King Consort of Portugal. The eldest daughter, Sophia, married an Austrian general, Count Mensdorff; the second daughter, Antoinette, married Duke Alexander of Wurttemberg, brother of the Empress of Russia; the third daughter married the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, and the fourth married the Duke of Kent of England, and became the mother of Queen Victoria.
It is an interesting coincidence that the cousins in their infancy had the same nurse, Madame Siebold, the acccucheuse of the royal family of England. Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, May 24, 1819, the only child of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III of England. On the death of William IV, the third son of George III, she succeeded to the throne June 20, 1837, and married Prince Albert February 10, 1840.
Prince Albert Francis Augustus Charles Emanual was born August 26, 1819, and died at Windsor Castle, England, December 14, 1861.
After the death of her beloved husband Queen Victoria commanded Lieut. Gen the Hon. Charles Gray, who had been aid-de-camp and secretary to Prince Albert for many years, to write his biography. She furnished most of the material and revised the manuscripts. The book was published in June, 1867, and contains extracts from many letters which passed between husband and wife, and between their mothers and other relatives during their childhood. These documents are supplemented by quotations from the diaries of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and other family documents. In revising the manuscript her majesty added many foot notes, giving her own version or recollection of events described, and her testimony as to the "noble spirit of self sacrifice and devotion of the man she adored," and what she termed "evidence of the presence of a large and loving nature, where the lovingness takes heed of all humanity."
Married Decreed in Infancy.
While the two infants were still in their cradles their marriage was agreed upon by their mothers. After the mother of Albert retired from Gotha his grandmother took up the correspondence, and when "the Mayflower," as Queen Victoria was called because of the month of her birth, was only four years old they were discussing the probabilities with great tenderness and affection.
Prince Albert and his brother, Prince Ernest, who was a year old, were placed under the care of Herr Florschutz of Coburg, who remained their tutor until they went to the University of Bonn, when they were sixteen and seventeen years old. Their boyhood does not seem to have been eventful; they wre just like other children, but were brought up with unusual care. The diary which Albert kept during his childhood and the letters he wrote show that he was a thoughtful, generous, gentlemanly boy, appreciating every little kindness that was extended to him and taking great interest in animals, birds and natural history generally. He was a model youngster, and letters he wrote when he was twelve years old show a maturity of mind and thought that is remarkable.
The cousins first met at Kensington Palace in 1836, when they were seventeen years old, the Princes Ernest and Albert having visited England for several weeks at that time. The grandmother of Albert had died a short time before. King Leopold of Belgium testifies that "she had already, at a very early period, formed the ardent wish that a marriage should one day take place between her beloved grandson, Albert, and the Flower of May, as she loved to call the little Princess Victoria." Both evidently understood the situation. During Albert's visit to England they were constantly together and seemed to be satisfied with the situation.
Fatigued by Society.
The young prince complains, however, of the fatigue he suffered from the social events he was compelled to attend. "The climate of this country, the different way of living and the late hours do not agree with me," he said. "Dear aunt (the duchess of Kent) is very kind to us, and does everything she can to please us, and our cousin (Queen Victoria) also is very amiable." Queen Victoria, in a foot note on the page where this letter is printed, says: "Yet nothing, at the same time, could exceed the kind attentions he paid to every one - frequently standing the whole evening that no one might be neglected."
On leaving England the prince went back to his studies at Bonn, where he seems to have been a quiet, orderly and conscientious student, and, as his biographer says, "maintained the early promise of his youth by the eagerness with which he applied himself to his work, and by the rapid progress which he made, especially in the natural sciences, in political economy and in philosophy. Music, also, of which he was passionately fond, was not neglected, and he had already shown considerable talent as a composer. The prince also ecelled in manly exercises, and at a great fencing match, at which there were between twenty-five and thirty competitors, he carried off the first prize."
The idea had become generall accepted in England and Europe that a marriage was in contemplation between Prince Albert and the Princess Victoria, and was frequently commented upon. While he was at Bonn she ascended the throne. The cousins corresponded in a friendly, matter-of-fact way, and while their published letters are affectionate and full of interest, they contain no word of love or sentiment.
Made Tour of Europe.
At the close of his university career Prince Albert made a tour of Europe accompanied by Baron Stockmar, and continued to correspond with the young queen in a friendly way. It was not until March, 1839, that the question of marriage was introduced. During that year Albert was invited to Windsor Castle, and arrived there Tuesday, the 8th of OCtober, where he "met with the most cordial and affectionate reception from the queen, who received them herself at the top of the staircase."
A few days after his arrival the young queen informed Lord Melbourne, prime minister of England, that she had made up her mind to marry her cousin, and he received the announcement with great satisfaction. Having thus obtained the approval of her minister, she sent an intimation to the prince, through Baron Alvensleben, that she wished to speak to him privately the next day.
Queen Victoria's recollection of the incident is given in his biography. The prince found her alone and after a few minutes conversation she told him why she had sent for him. It was a delicate matter for a maiden of twenty, but the proposal of marriage must be made by her. She says that the prince accepted her offer "without hesitation and with the warmest demonstrations of kindness and affection. I told him it was a great sacrifice on his part, but he would not allow it. I then told him to fetch Ernest (his older brother), which he did, who congratulated us both, and seemed very happy."
In a letter to her uncle, King of Belgium, written the same afternoon, Victoria announced the engagement, and says: "He seems perfection, and I think that I have the prospect of very great happiness before me. These last few days have passed like a dream to me and I am so bewildered that I hardly know how to write, but I do feel very happy."
The party of the second part wrote in a similar tone to Baron Stockmar, his tutor, saying: "Your prophecy is fulfilled."
Approved by Parliament.
Prince Albert returned to his home at Gotha shortly after and then the engagement was made known to the privy council by Queen Victoria herself. She read the announcement from a manuscript, for it was an embarrassing situation for a girl to make such a communication to a group of fifty of sixty grim old noblemen.
Parliament approved the arrangement, and the ministry sent a delegation of three eminent gentlemen, with three of the queen's best carriages, to Gotha to escort Prince Albert to England for his marriage. This was before the days of railroads. The journey began Tuesday, January 28, 1840, and was made without accident except at Dunkirk the prince's carriage had a narrow escape, having been overturned in a ditch. The prince was deathly seasick crossing the channel, but recovered in time to greet his bride-to-be upon his arrival at Windsor, February 8. The marriage took place in the Chapel Royal with great ceremony two days later.
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SALE WILL CONTINUE
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Red Cross Christmas Seals Obtainable Until January 5.
Red Cross Christmas seals are being sold at the various stations established before Christmas. Their sale will continue up to January 5, when the returns are to be made to Mrs. Theodora North McLaughlin, at the rooms of the Washington Chamber of Commerce.
Mrs. McLaughlin said today $2,000 had certainly been realized. It was the belief of the committee that this sum would be increased to $2,500 when the returns are all in.
While the young society women are not located at the sales stations, there is still great interest taken by them in the outcome of the campaign during the holiday season. It was earnestly hoped that at least $3,000 would be realized and quiet work to that end is still going on.
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NO INDIGESTION OR STOMACH DISORDER
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Stops Food Fermentation and Relieves Gas, Heartburn and Dyspepsia in Five Minutes.
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Pape's Diapepsin costs only 50 cents for a large case at any drug store here, and will relieve the most obstinate case of Indigestion and Upset Stomach in five minutes.
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