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Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 82, 8 April 1902, Page 2

The agricultural labourer is said to; be steadily deserting the country for the town" On the, other hand the literary man is as consistently turning to the country. Charles Lamb, that most confirmed Londoner, once wrote: "I have no hesitation in declaring that a crowd of happy faces crowding up at the pit door at Drury Lane Theatre gives me ten thousfind sineerer pleasures than 1 could ever receive from all the flocks of silly sheep that ever whitened the plains of Arcadia or Epsom Downs." Thackeray, too, wrote most of his books in tho West End, and Dickens a good many of his in the Mary le bone Road and elsewhere in London. Other London writers are Mr Anthony Hope (who has an office off the Strand, where he works each day as regularly as Anthony Troll ope). Mr Israel /Jangwill, Mr Max Pemberton, Mr Percy White, and Mr Arthur SymoiTS. The modern poet, by the way, though he might be expected to have "that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude," seems to have a prefereuce'for city or at least suburban life. Mr Swinburne lives at Putney, Mr Davidson at .Streatbam, Mr Stephen Phillips at Twickenham, and Mrs Meynell, Miss Dora Sigerson, Mr Henry Newbolt, and Mr Francis Thompson are all Londoners. Mr Kipling lias a house near Brighton, having Mr Pine.ro sometimes for a neighbour. Both Mr Pinern and Mr Henry Arthur Jones write the g-reater part of their plays away from town. "I suppose to educate your daughter in music costs a great deal of money?" "Yes; but I have had a good return for it." "Indeed?" "Yes; I'd been trying to buy out my next door neighbour at half-price for years, and could never bring him to terms until my girl began to learn to P lay-'! '^vXA^^XMi^Un ~'.■■ U\ ._:-..