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and Latin masters down to Yeats, Fiona McLeod and the most promising moderns. Music she knew, and art she knew, and the ablest critics in the country acknowledged her superiority as a critic in both fields. As a philologist she had few equals in America-her range comprising a knowledge of Sanscrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, German and somewhat of Dutch. Philosophy she knew, and her grasp of politics was equalled by very few men in the country. For years she wrote the leading editorials for the Chicago Record-Herald, and afterwards went over to the Daily Chronicle, yet on both journals she was recognized a masterful writer. Whatever she stated was relied upon as a fact. "There is no one in America equal to Mrs. Sullivan in scholarship and intellect," declared the. publisher of one of the great dailies to the present writer on one occasion. It is regrettable that she left behind no work in which her phenomenal ability is exhibited in full.

America now has three famous Jesuit novelists, and one of them lives in Chicago. Everybody knows Father Finn, and many know Father Henry S. Spalding, but Father J. E. Copus, S. J., is the coming great Catholic novelist of the country. No first book ever made such a hit as did his "Harry Russell." It was something new-full of incident, full of purpose, full of deft characterization. His boys were not mere automatons. They had blood in their veins-warm, rich, buoyant blood. The book came as a surprise, followed the next year by "Saint Cuthbert's." This, too, was judged phenomenally graphic. You seemed to hear his people talking-you heard them laughing, just as, in the pages of Theocritus, you always hear Thestylis singing in the dewey morning

meads of Sicily. And there is something besides a photographic reproduction of human beings in Father Copus' novels. Deftly, unpretentiously, he takes us out loitering amid green fields and woods and along picturesque watercourses, and shows us that he knows nature and her secret haunts. In his sequel to "Saint Cuthbert's," "Shadows Lifted," just published, he is singularly happy in this respect. The book is a distinct advance, compared with its predecessors. Young people will read it because of the story and character-drawing; but older folk will find in its pages much of their lost youth and many hearttouches that are irresistible.

And you would expect this of this new wizard who possesses the secret of reproducing youth and its gladness, if you' knew him personally. Born and reared, at least in part, in, England, Father Copus has seen a great deal of the world, both in its heights and its depths. He has been a journalist, an editor, a traveler, and is now a professor of English Literature at St. Ignatius' College, Chicago. A man of fine scholarship, a student of men, with a vast field of observation, gifted and distinguished, personally he is one of the most amiable and unpretentious literary men in the country. Even Maurice Francis Egan is not more fascinating as a conversationalist, although Dr. Thomas O'Hagan possibly equals him in this respect. He is not as young as Father Spalding, but he is more boyish in heart. His voice. is low and musical, and both tears and laughter are always close to it. He is a hard worker. He writes, he teaches, he does missionary work down in the slums, striving to uplift the fallen. That Catholic Chicago is glad because of the presence of such a sincere, strong man in her field of activity need not be said.

The readers of THE ROSARY do not need any introduction to Mrs. Mary F. Nixon-Roulet. They have been reading. her art-papers in the pages of this maga

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zine for months; they have been reading her short stories for years. She first won fame in the field of secular letters as author of "With a Pessimist in Spain," an inimitable record of travel in the land of the Cid. Aside from this she has nearly a dozen books to her credit; "A Harp of Many Chords," "The Blue Lady's Knight," "Lasca and Other Stories," and many more. She is author, also, of a slender volume of poems, and

has contributed travel-papers enough to Catholic and secular periodicals to fill two or three large volumes. For Mrs. Nixon-Roulet has traveled much, not only on beaten paths, but in out-of-theway corners of the world. Splendid opportunities were hers early in life and she made the most of them. With a fine knowledge of languages, she possesses also a keen faculty of observation, and has a literary style that is graphic and forceful, yet withal unique. You could pick her work out of a score of No-Name novels after reading the first chapterso picturesque and original it is. And yet there is no straining after effect-no wringing of passionate hands, no agonies, no convulsions. She is not a writer of problem-novels. Her lovers make love in the good, old-fashioned way and marry, or fail to do so, or do heroic deeds, or fail to do so, just as sane people do every day in real life. There are few. dark-browed villains in Mrs. NixonRoulet's pages. Her books are healthy and pure, just as her own life is pure and healthy. Although a convert, of Puritan descent, she lives in a beautiful home in one of Chicago's picturesque French parishes and hears French spoken to her every day in the week and listens to French sermons on Sunday. If her neighbors spoke Spanish or German or Italian, she could answer 'them in kind. One of the most distinguished Catholic women in the country, within her home she is one of the most unassuming, cheerful, amiable people you ever saw. Known personally to fully one-half the famous literary men and women of the land, she is playful as a girl among her children. There are times when great literary people enter her home and find her an entertaining hostess, but these once shut out she becomes playmate and sympathizer-in-general with all the wait

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ing Brighteyes who call her Mamma. Her married life is one of genuine happiness, and she is yet young. The work she has done, excellent as it is, is but an earnest of that which is to come. Quite naturally, her presence is stimulating to all her Catholic fellow-toilers. People of literary and artistic ability have a world of their own and live in it, and every newcomer only increases the pleasure of the circle.

P. G. Smyth-probably every Catholic in America has seen this name some time or other, and millions of non-Catholics have seen it, besides. It is not too much to say that Mr. Smyth has contributed at some period to nearly every one of the leading periodicals of the country, Catholic and secular. His work may be found in everything-from The American Catholic Quarterly to Munsey's and The Argosy. He is a journalist doing special work for the great Chicago dailies, but he is much more than this. First and last, he has written nearly a dozen novels which have been published serially in as many journals. Last summer the Southern Cross, of Buenos Ayres, Argentina, republished a story of his written twenty years ago for a Dublin newspaper. The Irish Catholic, of Dublin, is now republishing another of his serials written long ago. He was a distinguished writer in Ireland, and, later, a well-known journalist in London. Here, in Chicago, it is generally admitted by all who know him that he is a man of genius. His humor is so exquisite that often the little skits of verse contributed by him to the Daily News set the entire city laughing. And he is a man of splendid scholarship, a genuine student, an indefatigable toiler. He is one of those rare men who can write on any subject and write well. Readers of THE ROSARY have read many

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suming. He does not seem to realize that he may wake up and find himself famous some morning. In reality he belongs to the school of Lever, Kickham, and Lover-genial, witty, unpretentious, and apparently careless of fame. If some publisher would put Mr. Smyth's really wonderful work between covers, all America would say this is a man of genius. Since he is yet on the sunny side of forty-five, even this may happen to him before he is fifty.

The outside world affects to sneer at Chicago as a city without poets. People of culture, elsewhere, think of the tremendous commercial and industrial activity of the city-of its great stockyards, its terrible array of mills, foundries, factories, railways, lake vessels, roaring streets, crashing hammers, and apparently everlasting restlessness, and assert that Shakespeares and Shelleys are not born and nurtured amid such incessant din. Perhaps not; and yet during the last two or three years fully a dozen young poets of much promise have appeared. Nearly every issue of The New World, the Catholic weekly of the Archdiocese, presents really excellent work by one or more of these. That it is of merit is proved by the fact that it is almost instantly republished far and wide. One of these young poets is Miss Kathleen A. Sullivan, of Englewood, whose work is soon to appear in book-form from the press of a Boston publisher.

Another young writer of excellent promise is Miss Mary J. Lupton, the accomplished city editor of The New World. Miss Lupton has had exceptional advantages in several respects. Of gentle Anglo-Irish descent, she was born, not many summers ago, in the

same house in which Baron Russell, of Killowen, and Father Matthew Russell, the Irish poet-priest, were born. It, together with much other property, was the inheritance of her father, at that time one of the wealthiest men in historic Newry, County Down, Ireland. Miss Lupton's education was begun in Ireland, continued through several years spent in an academy at Richmond, England, and completed during five years' training received at Bayeux in Normandy, France. French she speaks like a native, is an accomplished musician, and has considerable knowledge of art. About three years ago she came to the United States with her mother, by accident contributed a little travel paper on the Land of St. Laurence to The New World, and was later induced to accept the duty of city editor when a vacancy occurred. Here she soon developed talent as a story-writer, and recognition straightway came to her, almost unsought. Several of her stories were widely republished, and at once she won a place on several high-class periodicals. THE ROSARY has published three of her graphic sketches, and all three have proved remarkably popular, being republished in nearly every Catholic journal in the country and in a number overFew young writers have leaped into place so suddenly, yet it must be remembered that she began after years of preparation and travel. She has not yet done her highest work, still there is little fear but she will win an enviable place in the literature of her adopted country. A young lady who can write. stories that almost instantly find republication wherever the English language is spoken, is pretty certain to win fame.

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By AGNES C. GORMLEY

HERE is no more prolific source of literature than the romances of chivalry. Their life-giving principles of beauty, honor, and truth have furnished motive for authors and artists of all ages. Tennyson, Lowell, Arnold and Taylor of our own daybeauty-lovers all-have done nothing nobler for their art than the transmitting of these tales.

In the "Sir Galahad" of Tennyson, we find embodied the highest spirit of chivalry. There is a sweet, penetrating quality about the poem that touches us deeply, and makes us long to live its exquisite sentiment, that, like Galahad, we, too, may keep fair through faith and prayer. All the world loves that youthful hero, yet the less-known Percivale, also God's knight, was likewise a character of striking interest. Let us consider him a space:

The brave knight, Pellenore, had fallen in battle, and either war or the tournament field had carried off his six strong sons. None but Baby Percivale was left to the broken-hearted mother, and she determined that he should not share the cruel fate of his brothers. So, while yet a little boy, he was taken off to the deep woods to live, far away from any road, where none should pass. The servants were forbidden to mention arms, or soldiery, or deeds of bravery, and no weapon was ever seen about the dwelling except a rude little arrow of his own making, which he used with exceeding skill. Only the simple joys of the forest were kept before his mind, and his boyhood's days went by with never a thought of any other world beyond the one in which he lived.

But one morning, while wandering in the wood, he met three horsemen, all covered with a shining something that

gave back the sun in rays of blinding light. He gazed in wonder, having never before seen such rich trappings. Surely these were the angels his mother had so often told of at the hour of prayer! One of the men called to him to know if he had seen a knight ride by.

"I do not know what a knight is," said the boy.

"Such a one as I," answered the man. "Where did you get all those beautiful things you 'wear?" questioned Percivale.

"The good King Arthur gave them to me," was the reply; "I am one of his knights."

Full of wonder, the boy ran home to his mother, and begged for a horse that he, too, might go to the king and become a knight. The poor lady knew then how vain had been her scheming. Was it not natural for a soldier's son to have such instincts? So she took him to her side and told him all the deeper meaning of that word, Knighthood; that he who shaped his life to its maxims should know the highest earthly bliss. And long she dwelt on all that a good knight must be-pure and highminded first of all, bearing himself with courtesy to every one, and in an especial manner to the poor and the oppressed, to women and to children-and even willing to lay down his life rather than to know shame or dishonor. beating heart and wild longing, he learned of the "Round Table"-that goodly company of the king's, which comprised the bravest and noblest of earth-and how any might be admitted to its number who promised to be true and pure and brave.

With

Every syllable sank deep in Percivale's memory, and without loss of time he fitted up their old scrawny steed after the manner of the horsemen, decking it

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