A MINING NOVEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MINING NOVEL.

LIFE IN EAST LONDON. TRIAL FOII MURDER. Authors rev.eal to their publishers, reports Ivor Nicholson, a side of their nature which is only comparable to what, in a very dissimilar way, they show to their medical advisers. He once received a call from a popular writer from whom lie naturally expected a business conversation 011 contracts for books, but he was actually invited to advise on the wisdom or folly of a contemplated elopement.

"1 mean seriously," says G. K. Chesterton, writing in "John o' London's Weekly," "that the first things that counted with Bernard .Shaw were negative and anarchic things; where for most men the first things at least are positive. We may lose those positive beliefs or affections, especially for a time, but we have had them: and I do not believe that George Bernard Shaw ever had them. And the proof of it is that, being one of the most genial and generous men in the world, he still cannot understand them."

The 8.8.C. talker who described himself the other day, as a Teacher of Philosophy, "quite often to my elders and betters," used an invidious, undemocratic and out-of-date phrase. He might have learned from the case of Fitzgerald, who, coming to the bank of a stream one day, asked a boy if he had seen the local boatman. "Haven't seen him for the last, lialf-'hour," said the boy. "You should say 'Sir' when you speak to your betters," said Fitzgerald. "But are you my better?" asked the bov "Ah," eaid the other, "I had forgotten that. Here's half a sovereign for reminding me."