* * * * * I have wrestled patiently and mightily with a volume called _A Study of Death_, by H. M. Alden, and have been worsted. Any man who will chase Mr. Alden into a corner and get a plain simple answer to anything shall be crowned with honor. * * * * * “You may talk of all subjects save one, namely, your maladies,” said Emerson. Yet in each issue of the _Cosmopolitan_ Andrew Lang takes the public into his confidence concerning his bodily ills. * * * * * The tendency to play flim-flam with their names is a penchant of the Inklings. No sooner does a mortal have a bit of manuscript accepted than he gives himself a middle name if he hasn’t one, and drops it out if he has. Some in fact petition the legislature for brand new handles and have themselves rechrisumed by a priest, as recently was the case in Boston; the man’s age being thirty-six. Others add a hyphen and join two names with a philological integument that makes one think of the Siamese twins. The queerest freak of this kind perhaps is the case of the Gilder-Family-Robinson. The name as it first appears on the Parochial Register is Gildersleeve. But when Judge Gildersleeve shot in the American Rifle Team and made a bad score at Wimbledon, the sleeve was cut off in certain instances. In other words, the name was raveled and worn with short sleeves—or no sleeves at all, like a bodice or stomacher. Now that William Watson has been knighted we see it is spelled _Watson-Guilder_. But the latest development in this peculiar evolution is a letter from Sir William Watson disclaiming all relationship with the Watsons of America. The closing paragraph of this epistle is worthy of note: “It is true that I was caught and knighted by the Queen, as a certain flippant American paper has put it; but any American who hopes to add lustre to his name by claiming kinship with me should be caught and knouted.” * * * * * _The London Graphic_ thinks that Judge Grant is not so great a man as his father, the General. That’s a matter of opinion. * * * * * The Frederick A. Stokes Company has issued a pretty book, written by Mrs. Walford, entitled _A Bubble_. I will prick it in my next number. * * * * * If literature does not pay, we can still beg—if to dig we are ashamed! * * * * * _Union Down_ by Mr. Scott Campbell is not an imitation of _Thistle Down_, as has been sometimes stated. And furthermore is the Boston Library right in classing _Thistle Down_ as light literature? * * * * *