MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 14, 17 January 1905, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

PAVOUBITE EXPRESSIONS OP AUTHORS. A novel reader has been making a collection of the phrases for which wellknown writers have a dieeded predelietion. Mr Rider Hag*ard's pet phrase is "And then a strange thing happened;" while if you delete the first and fourth words of that sentence you will get Mr Stanley Weyman's favourite expression also. On somewhat similar lines is Mr William Le Queox's oft-recurring "And then the mystery was increased a thousandfold," which -will rerall many an exciting moment in this master of mystery's thrilling tales. Mr Frankfort Mocre, who achieves the difficult task of being a brilliant a writer of historical as of society novels, confesses to two pet phrases—"curiously enough" ap<i "but that was just where he made a mistake." Mr Jerome K. Jerome has always done his best to avoid anything of the kind.-but finds that "at least, so it appears to mc," will slip into his work. Among novelists who have mannerisms rather than pet phrases Mr E. F. Benson pleads guilty to using the adverbs "incredibly" and "extraordinarily" with, so he says, "great frequency and little mearrittg:" Warm-hearted Mr Coulson Kernahan, whose new religious booklet, "The Face Beyond the Door/ beautiful in thought and diction, should be read by all, betrays his Irish blood in the employment of "the soul of him," "the heart of him," for "his soul," "his heart," and has also a fondness for such combinations as "heartwise" and "hoopwise." In'an interesting letter Mr H. B. Marrfott Watson recalls how Stevenson once sighed to his wife, as he laid down his pen. "A wonderful clea> night of work. How often have I written 'the.'" Mr Watson does not think he has any pet phrasp, but admits dwelling with great emphasis and in minute detail on tbe direction of the eyes and the quality of the voices of his characters. * That acute and always amusing observer of Suburbia and the "lower classes," Mr Pett Ridge, replies in a humorous note, which I take the liberty of quoting in full, as some retaliation for Mr Pett Ridge's courteous, Lat determined, evasion of all iay efforts to interview him for the "Library." "I will plead guilty/ he says, " if yon can find any phrase I have used cruefly, and 1 promise you it will be shot." Well, Mr Pett Ridge might perhaps exercise his severity on "The girl walked (adverb to suit the temperamental condition of the moaient) down (or up) the street." But, of course. Mr Ridgo would never kill one of his slum_ children. Mrs Flora Aiinie Steel, whose Indian stories may possibly outlive Mr Kipling's, believes that "briefly" is her "besetting sin." "But," she adds with a delicious touch of humour at her' own expense, "I fear I rarely succeed in committing it." It is natural that the favourite phrase of such a lover of pastoral scenes as "Helen" Mathers" (Mrs Henry Reeves) should be, "To return to our muttons."