Literature
Canadian. Canadian Literature includes the works not only of authors born on Canadian soil, but also of British and French writers who have settled in Canada. The earliest literature consists of histories and discoveries. Among French writers in this line, Champlain and Charlevoix may be mentioned, and, among those who wrote in English, Hearne and Mackenzie. Many poets and writers of fiction have produced excellent work. The Anglo Canadian literature is naturally of more interest to the American student than the French-Canadian. In poetry, the names of C. G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Gilbert Parker are well known. The last named is also a novelist. Palmer Cox, author of the Brownie Books, F. B. Crofton, who wrote The Major's Big Talk Stories, and Miss M. M. Saunders, author of Beautiful Joe, are Anglo-Canadian authors. See Champlain ; Canada ; Roberts; Carman ; Parker
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Literature
Danish. The first Danish author of prominence is Arreboe (1587-1637), whose World's First Week displays learning and poetic beauty. Tycho Brahe of the same period performed a great service for science and literature. The first poet who belongs to the modern epoch is Evald (1743-1780). He produced poems beautiful in sentiment and artistic in form. He was also the author of Balder's Death, the first Danish tragedy, and of the Fishermen, a lyrical drama of power. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Germany was exerting a decided influence upon Danish literature , causing a new school of poets to appear. The greatest of this school is Oehlenschlager (1779-1856), who, besides poems, produced many romances. His chief work is Gods of the North, in which the legends of the Edda are united into one poem. Of all Denmark,s writers Hans Christian Andersen is the best known to English and American readers. His stories have been translated into many languages.
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Literature
in general, all recorded knowledge or thought. In a narrower sense, literature includes only that class of writings in which form and expression are essential features. A work must give expression to ideas of universal and permanent interest and must have literary "style," that is, beauty, power, and individuality of expression, before it may be literature. To understand and appreciate fully the literature of any nation, the language must be understood. To translate a great work requires gifts on the part of the translator akin to those of the author. Translations are, however, of help in acquiring a general knowledge of the literatures of other countries. Some little idea of what various nations have produced in the way of literature is necessary for a well informed person. The following sketches are necessarily brief, and aim to give only the more important names and the more striking features in the development of the literature of each country.
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Litharge
the yellow or reddish protoxide of lead partially fused (PbO). It is extensively used in the manufacture of glass, of enamels, of artificial gems, of lead, plaster and lead soap, of sugar of lead, white and red lead, and other compounds.
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Lithia
in chemistry, oxide of lithium. Carbonate of lithia acts as a powerful diuretic, which may be given in acute and chronic gout, in uric-acid gravel, and renal calculus. It may be used externally as a lotion. Citrate of lithia is also lithontriptic. These salts, being solvents for uric-acid calculi, alter the quality of the urine, and prevent the crystallization and deposit of the substances forming gravel and calculi. Muriate lithia waters are waters impregnated with chloride of lithium, as at Baden Baden. They are useful in gout.
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Litmus
a blue coloring matter procured from certain lichens. It is prepared chiefly in Holland. The lichens are ground fine and allowed to ferment. Alum, potash, and lime are then added. Paper tinged blue by litmus dye is used in the laboratory as a test for acids and alkalies. If a liquid turns litmus-paper red, it contains an acid. If a strip of paper previously reddened in an acid be turned blue again, the liquid contains an alkali.
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Little Dorrit
a novel by Charles Dickens, published serially 1855-1857, and appearing in book form soon afterward. Little Dorrit is the "child of the Marshalsea," the debtors' prison. The story involves many characters, but the plot is not intricate. The evils of imprisonment for debt are shown clearly.
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Little Falls
a city in Herkimer co., N. Y., on both sides of the Mohawk ork Central and river; and on the New York Central and Shore railroads; Hudson, and the West Shore railroads; The chief indus- 22 miles E. of Utica. The chief induse-making, lumtries are dairying, cheese-making, lumcture of knit bering, and the manufacture of knit ere are Union goods, and calfskins. There are Union pablie library, Free School and Academy, public library, National bank, city hospital, waterworks, National bank, iodicals. Pop. daily and weekly periodicals. Pop. 029. (1910) 12,273; (1920) 13,029. capital of the county-seat of
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Little Lord Fauntleroy
Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's most popular story. It was published serially in St. Nicholas in 1885, and later in book form. The story was dramatized and met with success on the stage quite as great as that won by the story.
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Little Nell
a child character in Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop . Brought up without the care of a mother or other woman, she is protected in her innocence and purity by her grandfather, who is finally led into gambling through his poverty and his fears for the child's future. Having lost his little all, the two wander forth penniless. During their travels on foot from place to place the little girl is utterly unselfish in her devotion to the weak and broken old man. The account of the death of little Nell has been a favorite with public readers, and is one of the best known passages in all of Dickens' works.
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Little Red Riding Hood
a well known fairy tale published in French in a collection of stories by Charles Perrault, which appeared in 1697. The story has long been popular in German and in English, as well as in French. It is told in different forms. In the German tale, the wolf devours the grandmother and little Rothkopfchen herself, but, with a beautiful disregard for the processes of mastication and digestion, a hunter appears on the scene, rips open the wolf and rescues the prisoners. In the English version, the hunter comes in time to save Red Riding Hood from the jaws of the wolf. The grandmother is, presumably, too old to mind being eaten, and all ends happily.
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