TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11190, 3 February 1902, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Whatever may be gajd of Kovoiists the value of an author's

and opinion of his own writTheir Works, ings, there is a certain

amount of interest in hearing what portion of his work he himself is best pleased with. There are some writers, no doubt, who are never satisfied with their achievements, whatever the popular verdict may be, and this, it will be admitted, is a very proper spirit. It is only by setting up a high ideal, and by trying again and again to approach it, that genuine improvement in literature is Jikely to result. But the worker may well be excused for regarding with satisfaction what he believes to be good work. The "Daily Mail" recently, asked various well-known novelists for their own opinion as to their bejt books, and received some interesting replies. "I think that each one of my books is my best in ite own way," was the reply of Mrs Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). "This means," she went on to explain, "that another writer might have done them better, but I. could not- I have never written anything which I did not think absolutely true according to n>y own experience or my own observation, or my own knowledge. Where truth is aimed at there can be no degrees of comparison—it is either hit or miss." Max Pembeiton considers "The Garden of Swords" hie best romance, and "TheOiant's his bgst .novel.,. "Bam ... WjbdSjxe," is Mies Helen Mathere'e favourite among her own works, and Mr George R. Sims regards "The Memoirs of Mary Jaoe , ' as his best effort. "A Nest of Linnets' , ia in Mr Frankfort Moore's opinion t-he most satisfactory novel he has written, Mr Stanley Weyman inclines to believe that the opinion of a writer' as to the merits of his books is; valueless. "I have never - myself," he writes, "read ten pages of any book I have written after .publication, and if I prefer the French ones and put the 'Gentleman of France,' Tinder the Red Robe,' and 'Count Hannibal , in the front rank—end nest to them The Castle Bra'—l do not think the pneference is of the least value." Mi , Moore's remarks are reminiscent of R. L. Stevenson, who ft* .one of Ma letters envies the people who delight in "Treasure Island," and wishes he could read it! Mr H. G. Wells, considers has choice of subjects so diverse ac to render oomparieon futile. "It is like asking which I think my best garment—my hat, my collar, or my left boot. My biggest thing, my most intimate thing, my finsfc line-of-bafctftebip, is 'Anticipations'; my best piece of signifioant 6tory*writing The 'invisible' Man/ ; I think The Wonderful Vieitf manages to be pretty, amd that 'Lore and Mr Levteham' is as near beauty as I ami ever likely to get; and I am fond of The War of the Worlds/ because of its destruction of property J , One might have expected Mr WeHa to have a fondness for his "Wheeto of Chance," ■which, although far.teee ambitious than, some of his work, is assuredly as artistic in dte way as anything he haa yet done. The authorities of LonRebuOding don have lately decided London Bridge, that the famous London - Bridge is to-be widenj.ed, the additional space being -utilised partly for foot traffic and partly for gas or electric light standards. This will mean a complete change in its general appearance, and it is feared that the renowned historic sight will be greatly disfigured- The proportion and unity of the design will be destroyed, and the diminutive effect of the open balustrades "will not harmonise with the massive piers and wide-spreading arches. The recesses, with their stone seats, where so many waifs and efcraye have found temporary rest, will soon be abolished. London Bridge has been built, rebuilt, and altered many times before now. No doubt the Romans made some sort of bridge for themselves to the ancient town, and we know that the Saxons had a wooden structure, which was two or three limes, wholly or partially, destroyed and rebuilt. The first stone bridge was raised by the priest Peter of Colechurch, in 1176. It lasted six and a half centuries, and witnessed in- ; numerable scenes of national history and countless tragedies and comedies of individuals' lives—pageants, funerals, tournaments, and battles. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the cage and the stocks were erected on it, and on the gateways I were fixed the heads of criminals, "here- ' tics" and traitors. Houses and chops were built on each side, as they were on the bridge across the Arno at Florence, and in I other mediaeval towns, and in the central pier was a chapel. This bridge was constantly giving way in places, and a popular ballad superstrtiously rejoices over one such accident, when a human victim had fallen in, and the new part was built over her remains— "Built it up with stone so strong, Dance o'er my lady Lee, Huzza, 'twill last for ages long, With a gay lady." This bridge had nineteen arches, with wooden platforms at the base, which so contracted the channel that the waters

formed a rapid', down which it was dangerous for boats to pass. It is said that every year about fifty persons lost their lives "shooting the bridge." Londoners, however, were very proud of it, and Leland speaks of

"That vast bridge- which proudly soars Where Thames through, nineteen arches roars."

Borrow, in Lavengro, describes the noise of human traffic above, and the roar of descending waters below, where the tremendous gulfs were bellowing. Dickens makes this old London bridge the scene of Nancy's fatal meeting with Rose and Mr Brownlow, and his description of its appearance on that night is one of his most powerful word-pictures. In his "Sketches by Boz," he describee the consternation among the coalheavers of the neighbourhood when it was first proposed to" destroy this structure, one of them proving that the moment the piers were removed, all the water in the Thames would run clean off. However, it was destroyed in 1851, and the present one was erected.

"Crystal gazing, in my The Mysteries experience, has yielded

of apparent traces of the Crystal Gazing, existence of unexplored

regions of human faculty. 1. Such is the opinion of Mr Andrew Lang, who deals with the subject in a very interesting article in the December number of the "Monthly Review." Upon the historical and romantic sidie of "magio mirrors" all seriousness, frankly confessing himself with showing "a chain of examples, from the Greece of the fourth century B.C. to ihe cases observed by Dr. Mayo and Dr. Gregory in the middle of the nineteenth century." Crystal gazing he treats with all seriousness, frankly confessing himself a convert to the .belief in visions seen iff "a glass bail, a ring stone, a teaspoonful of ink, a glass jug of water, or what not." His own experience, he admits, has not been illuminating. Staring into a glass ball, Mr Lang and some friends "saw reflections of their noses, and of other adjacent objects,'' but that was a-lL But one lady in the party, lie states, was startled by seeing pictures in the ball—"faces and places and scenes, as it were, out of r»mantic novels, which she was not aware of having read." Since then Mr Lang has experimented among a large number of friends and relations of "undoubted veracity," and has collected a considerable amount of evidence which goes to show that the mysterious faculty, or whatever it may be, is not at all uncommon. The crystal pictures are not consciously selected, and created mental pictures of a known object (except in certain cases). They come, and go,* and change, like figures in a dream, to the surprise of the gaser, and without conscious choice or effort on his part. Amongst other cases Mr Lang mentions two maidservante who had never heard of crystal gazing. "One of them picked up a glass ball, looked at it, and said: That is a pretty picture of a chip. . She then turned the ball round, expecting to find that a picture was pasted on the back. The other girl was asked by a friend , of mine to look at a glass ball. She did so, said that shesaw a piece of paper covered with writing, and then laid the ball down. . . . But she could not ccc the writing again, though she was able to describe the characteris-. tics of the hand." Iα other cases the crystal gazer appeared to see pictures of what was in the mind of another person present, or pictures of real people and bouses known to other persons, but not to him. The subjects of the experiments all signed statements describing what they saw, and every care waa taken to avoid the possibility of colhawp. or -deoeptioo. The vast majority of the euocessfij. gaaecs, s»ye Mr Lung, have had no other hallucinations of any kind. Anyone can make the> experiment by sitting down with, the back to the light, placing the glass ball, at a just focus, in the lap on a dark drew, or a dark piece of cloth, and staring at it for about five minutes. If after two or three trial* you ccc nothing in the way of pictures in, tihe ball, you will probably never succeed.