LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14916, 14 March 1914, Page 9

LITERARY GOSSIP.

The St. Petersburg correspondent of tho "Petit Journal" learns that Maxim Gorky, who recently returned to Russia, and is living in. an isolated house, has not been seen by anyone except those of his own household since his return. His sister stated to a Press representative that her brother had transformed the house into a fortress in order to render it inaccessible to visitors. He takes a lonely walk early every morning.

Mr Harold Monro's "Poetry Book Shop," to which references have previously been made in these columns, not only manages tho publishing and selling of poetry, but also provides for the reading of it aloud. Mr Monro reports that, in the course of the year during which it has been open, there has been'an average audience of forty listeuers at each reading, and that altogether some two thousand people have attended the readings. "The influence," says Mr W. P. James, in the "Evening Standard," "should be altogether healthy. Poetry was meant for the ear, and for the mind through the ear. When you come to think of it, the rhyme to the eye of the merely printed poem is an absurd anomaly. T ill the printing press was invented, poetry was a living thing to be conveyed by tho living voice. Suppose we could all read musical scores as easily a?! we road the printed poetry, would musical performances become unnecessary? The drawing-room reciter has given the art a bad. name, but let us hope that the Poetry Book Shop may restore to poetry the real rhapsodist."

Everybody knows that the French Academicians wear swords when in full uniform, and very awkward implements the good gentlemen sometimes find them. But what is not generally known is that no two swords are quite alike. In fact, the tradition is that the ornamenintion on each weapon shall express the work of the immortal who wears it. MM. Falize. who are goldsmiths-in-or-dinary for the Academy, lonnd their art and ingenuity severely taxed in tho case of the newest immortal, M. Boutroux (says the "Daily Telegraph's' Paris "correspondent). Certainly it is

no easy job to express transcendental pnilosophv on a sword-hilt. However, they managed it, just ns tney managed to evoke on the sword ot M. Jean Richepin, his most famous works, Caresses," "Les Blaspnenies," and "Lcs Oueux," and on that of M. Marcel Provost his "Nouveiles Lettres dcs Feauncs." M. Boutroux's philosophy was summed up in three dehcato symbols, 'The Tree of Science, the -infinite," and "Immortality," chiselled in gold and sculptured in ivory.

The death occurred recently of Mrs William Morris, the widow of the poet. Mrs Morris (Miss Jane Burden) jvas born in Oxford in 1840, and lived thero until her marriage in 1859. Tno story of how Rossetti saw her as a girl in tlio littlo Oxford theatre when tho painting of the Union was in progress, how ho at once succeeded in gpttmg her to sit for him, and how tho acquaintance thus formed led up, within a few months, to her engagement to Morris, has been told iv Mr Mackail s "Life of Morris" and in Lady Burn*Jones's Memorials of her husband. Sho became famous almost against her will "The Times" says, through her beauty, which was of a very rare and distinguished typo. It lias long been made familiar by the pencil ot Kossetti. But a portrait in words, equally vivid in its truth and delicacy, was drawn of hor by Morns himself in the "Praise of My Lady," which pomes at the end of the famous 1803 volume of poems. Since, her husband s death in 1596 Mrs Morris lived chiefly at Kolmscott Manor House, with occasional visits to London, often to the house of hor friend and old neighbour an Hammersmith, Sir William Richmond. Mrs Morris Ls survived by her two daughters.

The charge of plagiarism is one which few writers evade, either during their lives or posthumously. Plagiarism is a dreadful word, an accusation before which the offending scribe should, according to popular ideas, shrivel up with shame. But is it, after all, such a dreadful thing ? Shakespeare, to mention only ono of the great old writers, borrowed his materials from wherever he could get them, going ou that safe principle of Moliere's, "Jo preuds mon biou oil jo Ie trouvo." And of how many great writers cannot the same be said: j Sir John Sandys, a great English scholar, recently went to the trouble, in a lecture beforo the Royal Society of Literature, of showing the sources from which Milton derived his "Lycidas." It was Theocritus, lor instance, he pointed out, who first gave name to Amaryllis, and "the tangles of Neaera's hair" were not unknown to Virgil. Virgilian, too/the laurels and the myrtles of "Lycidas," phrases 6iich as '-who would not sing for Lycidas" and "the genius of the shore," and the sunset scene closing tho poem. From Horace, too, and Ovid, and Tacitus —to whom thc lecturer attributed "that last infirmity of noble minds" —Milton took some or other inspiration. Passing on, he found Dante drawn upon for the two keys of St. Peter, while Castiglione, a Jjatin poet of tho Renaissance, had a lament in which 'two frieuds who fed the same flock" occurred, and Amalteo, an Italian of tho same period, wrote a poem entitled "Lycidas," and began his "Corydon" as Milton began his elegy, with "Yet once more." In Shakespeare, the lecturer found several sources of Milton's phrases, notably "pale primroses that die unmarried," in the "iWnter's Tale." which very clearly accounts for "the rathe primrose that forsaken dies." Last of all, but startlingly, was mentioned Phineas Fletcher, a Cambridge poet, who not only sang of Comus, but wrote, "Tomorrow shall ye feast in pastures new." Some of these, Sir John Sandj-s agreed, can be regarded only as possible sources of "Lycidas," but somo are, probable, and some are certain. The justification of plagiarism in such a case is not far to seek. With the unicspirea writer it would bo simply a matter of "scissors and paste"; tho writer of genius, on the other hand, takes his material, assimilntcs it, as it-were,, and makes it something peculiarly and indestructibly his own.

We havo all heard a lot nf : Futurism and Cubism, and other ultra-modern art movements, but so far we have had little opportunity of examining the works of their exponents at first hand. Such an opportunity will bo afforded by the publication shortly of the "Cubist Poems" of Max W T eber, a distinguished AmWicah post-impressionist painter-poet. Max Weber is of Russian descent; he is a disciple'of Matisse, and has been greatly influenced, it is said, by early Egyptian art. Here in advance, is a sample* of his poetic work, a characteristically Futuristic. romance of a picture-show.

I WONDER. Many men, many women, Xoung and old. pcop;c. I sat Kith them guziog With thera 1 iaujhed at th« picturo story i JVow.the St. Manas in Venice, and goadoitß. J\ow soanca of industry in Arabia, A picture story ended. • * Mauy Bat, men and women gazed And laughed, and now absoroed. A tragedy; leats of bravery And now thc hio of tho lieJla-tcrr* Another story ended. Waive orchestral strains And sho paraed out. I aat, 1 watched, I laughed As all did laugh audi watch tho etory. Though ni> mare was I alone. She was with, mc. She whom I never had ecen, But tha one glance of her waa a breath of Paradise. She. whom I never had known She who hud goneMhrce stories since. She of a multitude who then passed out, She had left mo a vision and perfume of love. But ono glimpse of her I had And saw tho sun shine an eternity And my yeain for her, Now my yearn is pain. Who :'s eho? Whero is alia? Why can't che be mine? If ehe but knew, I wonder, If ehe but felt, would ahe come to mc? Another story ended. A now tune played, The people come and go, She had long s.nce gone, And I 6:« her passing- out Another flower of lov© I emell Tho memory of her face and form I kiss Where is oho now? Will she evoT return ? Who is ehe? My yearn is greater And my heart aches. Whero is she? Who is sho? I love, I lov&I

If she but knew, I wonder, At love's chasm I evtnd, Whcio :s she ? Who is Bhe? If sho but knew, I wonder.