LITERARY GOSSIP FROM LONDON.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15917, 2 June 1917, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP FROM LONDON.

(l"EOM A SPECIAL CORUESroXDENT.)

LONDON, March 31

Many of the friends of Major Sir Ronald Ross, tho famous scientist and poet, who had not happened to call upon him- for somo time, have been rather surprised, upon doing so, to find that his in Cavendish squaro is now the temporary homo of a new branch of the American Consulate in London that deals with matters relating to passports and with tho "registration" of Americans in London. A negro porter opens the door, and within ono discovers a typically Transatlantic atmosphere of ,r hustle."

Sir Ronald - lloss, of course, is thd man who made tho epoch-making discovery that malaria is bred by mosquitoes. Th© letters after his namo number 34,. and ho is Professor of Tropical Sanitation at tho University of Liverpool and PJhysician for Tropical Disease at King's College Hospital. Also a poot of real gifts, a series "of "readings" from whose works was recently held at Sir William Lever's house in Hampstead. One.of the "interpreters," on this occasion, was Sir Ronald himself, who reads with a remarkable sense of musical notation. One would hardly think that malaria, and poetry would mix well, but Sir Ronald Ross says that his principal poetic work, "la Exile," was written while ho was in tho tropics making investigations ' into maflariatdiseases. Ono of tho most striking passages in th© poem, he added, was composed tho day after ho had discovered accidentally'the germ of malaria!

John Masefield, t]ie_ poet, who, over sinco tho war began, has done valuable Red Cross work in tho field, has now joined the fighting forces, and' is "Hon. 2nd Lieutenant Masefield." He is in the Railway Transport, and his present address is "Somewhere in franco." The' author of. "Tho Widow in th& Bye iStreet" was for many months a hospital orderly on the Western front,, and also went to tho Dardanelles with a hospital bargo equipped entirely with- subscriptions collcctcdi by himself. His little book, entitled "Gallipoli," is one of tho most vivid bits of description that have been penned during the war.

Hall Caine has been in more or less indifferent health j'or some time. Ho hag been working in London of lato, and' is Jiving, he told mo yesterday, "on top of Hajnpstead Hills," on© of the highest parts of the metropolitan district, which ho finds decidedjy frigid, and not conducive to recovering from bronchial troubles, to which ho is something of a martyr. Meanwhile ho is at work on another novel, "which lias religion for its motif, and has completed, h© said, about fifteen chapters. He looks more like Shakespeare every day! Tho latest of /many authors to be bereaved by the war is "George Egerton," tho • novelist and playwright, whoso only son, aged nineteen, has just been killed in action. The first word she got from him when, at a little over eighteen, ho volunteered for active service, was, "Mother. I have joined the 'Suicidos' Battalion.' " Ho meant the machine-gun section. It was while in charge of his gun that ho was struck bv a fragment of a German shell and killed.

In private life "George Egerton," whoso novels and plays include "Discords?," "Flies in -Amber," and th Q English version of Henry Bataille's drama, "Tho Attack," is Mrs Golding Bright. Her previous life has not been placid, by any means. Born in Melbourne, she was in a eamo at Taurapga during the Maori War. After this, she went in a sailing ship to visit her mother's uncle, Don George Bynon (this in 1866), and arrive-.! during the famous bombardment of tho town by a Spanish fleet. Since then she has been in most of the European countries and four times to the United States, where she has done quit© a lot of work. She was intended, she toils me, for an artist. but private affairs prevented the course of study that had beo;i jwanneJ. came as an afterthought Georgo Egerton," one of tho foremost literary figures of tho nineties, nas many amusing things Xo say of contemporaries, especially Moore. When she met Mr Moore at Oastlebar ho was dressed a la Bunthorno, m black velvet coat and smallclothes, and wearing an azalea in his buttonhole. Ho had verv red hair and spoke caressingiv of'the "trame beauty of death by the rope." Ono of ibe most. entertaining items of a recent "Myths of the War" dinner at the Lyceum Club in Piccadilly was a speech by Dr. G. W. Kimmins, Chief Inspector of the Education Department of the London County Council, who gave us a lot of irresistibly funny extracts from essays on various phases of tho war written bv children ranging from 11 to 14 in the London schools.

Ono of them, a boy| wrote:—"Our soldiers are bravely to overthrow the wicked Kaiser and the Black Prince." Another, a girl, declared:— "he war was caused by the murder of an Australian princo and princess." Another little damsel observed:—"Wo

all regret that Lord Nelson has been killed and still more that he fell a victim to the Germans!" On B boy wroto:—"This war is the greatest calamity that ono could have wished for." And a girl announced: — "Our men in .the trenches havo nothing to do, so wo send them magazines. Another described tho war as "worse than tho battlo of Waterloo;" Children who wero in Zeppelin raids were asked to write essays describing them, and some of these made diverting reading. Ono girl wrpto: —"I sleep with my sister, and when tho bombs began dropping I stretched out my hand and found the seat next to me vacant. Then my mother ran upstairs and told me to come down to the kitchen at once. I got up, but felt cold, so I went back to bod again. Then my mother camo up again and carricd mc downstairs bodily. - 'When wo reached the kitchen I found it filled with our acquaintances. I said. 'What is the meaning of all this cxcitcment?' and they replied, 'The Zeppelins have come!' And I said, 'You don't mean to tell mc so!" Another girl wrote, "When the raid began I ran downstairs. hotly pursued by my father and mother."

E. Temple Thnrston. whoso new novel, •'Enchantment," a story of Ireland, is about to be published, has been working for some timo in one "»f the departments of tho Foreign Office. Alfred Sutro.- author of "The "Walls of Jericho," is there too. Thurston told me the other day that the most popular of all his novels, "Tho City of Beaiitiftil Nonsense," has now passed through fifty editions.