The Autobiography of a Journilist; By W. J. Stilluan, L. H, D. (Concordia), (Lite Correspondent to the Limes" in Rome.) London; Gant Richards, 1901.
An autobiography is interesting and entertaining just in so far as the narrator hits off the happy medium, not giving himself or his acts an undue prominence, and yet importing just enough of his own personality as to'fix and maintain his hold upon the average reader. This golden mean is one of the charms of this book, which is the life story of an impressionable and talented man who in his time played many, if not very highly important, part Inturn he was schoolteacher, artist, edi-for of an art journal of considerable repute in its day, litterateur, revolutionist, consul, diplomat, and journalist; but his happiest reflection was his long association with the "Times," whose correspondent he was, chiefly in Rome, for more than twenty years. "In my' multifarious occupations and random life I have, as I see when I look back, found my highest utility, and rendered my most serious services to hu-inanity, in my occupation as journalist all the rest was fringe and failure."
He enters upon his story in all modesty, admitting that the assumption by a man that his life is worth the venture of a record in the form of an autobiography suggests a degree of self-conceit which his own life did not justify, and that the task was only reluctantly undertaken on the persuasive and authoritative insistence of a friend of a large experience in books, and of a sound judgment of men—Houghton, the Boston publisher.
This book may be conveniently divided into two sections—that which deals with the political movements which so perturbed the public mind of Europe a quarter of a century ago, in fact the never-ceasing complications of the Easter Question, the insurrection in Crete, the revolt of the Herzegovinians, the Montenegrin troubles, the Greek broils and the blockade of Greece, the Bulgarian atrocities, the war of 1876, the Russian Campaign in 1877, of all of which events he had as "Times" corres pondent unrivalled opportunities of acquiring an intimate knowledge, as evidenced by the popularity attaching to his numberless
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.