ealm of
things which are usually understood instead of being talked about; but
he has done this with singular manliness and delicacy, and with entire
absence of mawkish or other improper sentiment. The impression of
Trilby's character left upon the reader is entirely that of a noble,
generous woman, whose life is not a sin, but a tragedy."

The same paper reproduces "a letter Mr. du Maurier wrote to a Paterson,
N. J., man who contended that the relations of Trilby with her
hypnotizer were chaste, so far as her consciousness of them went, and
decided to find out if he were right by writing to the novelist":--

"NEW GROVE HOUSE, HAMPSTEAD HEATH,

"October 31, 1894.

"DEAR SIR: In answer to your letter of September 24th, I beg to say that
you are right about Trilby. When free from mesmeric influence, she lived
with him as his daughter, and was quite innocent of any other relation.
In haste, yours very truly,

"G. DU MAURIER."

* * * * *

EARLY IN March, 1895, one of the Boston clergymen advertised Robert
Grant's "Art of Living," as our Boston correspondent reported at the
time, and on Sunday, March 17, another prominent minister took up
"Trilby." So it is evident that, even if Boston authorship is on the
decline, as so many New Yorkers enviously declare, the Boston clergy are
going to keep alive the interest in literary matters by emphatic words
to their congregations. "Have you read 'Trilby'?" was the theme of the
Rev. George W. Bicknell's sermon, and the topic crowded the church. The
Reverend Doctor declared that he had spent five hours reading the book,
and had decided that it was a story of magnificent possibilities, but
that its morality was "as one viewed it." He considered the tale
far-fetched and over-drawn and lacking in healthful flavor, and placed
it in the same class of art with the nude paintings at the World's
Fair--a position to which, we presume, the author would not object. Then
he launched out into an emphatic declaration that it was time for the
pulpit to speak out against art of this kind.

* * * * *

DU MAURIER'S heroine has been heard of over in Brooklyn. A married
woman, aged twenty-nine, got into a dispute with her husband, recently,
as to the morals of the young model, and proved her point by "smashing
him over the head with an earthenware jar." In the newspaper in which we
read of this intemperate act, the husband's age is no