LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18129, 19 July 1924, Page 11

LITERARY GOSSIP

The second volume of the "Book of the Queen's . Doll's House" deals exclusively with the library, and Mr E. V. Lucas, who has compiled it, asks proudly how many London residence* even in Berkeley square or Park Jane, have a library consisting of 200 books, written in their author's own hands, and a collection of 700 water-colours by living artists. The invitations to contribute were sent out by Princess Marie Louise, and most of the recipients, the "Daily. Telegraph" reports, "took fire" at once. . . Mr Belloc sent "Peter and Paul: a Moral Tale," in his grim, sardonic, style; and Mr Mai Beerbohm described how, by exercising his will power and by determining to be tiny he reduced himself in suae to six inches in stature and dodged round to install himself in the Doll's House the moment he heard of. its construction. "It is all perfectly delightful," he says; "Lutyens hefc never done" anything better" And I like the ininmates very much —all so quiet, eo decent, so mindful of their own business." Settled down in the library, he was just beginning a tragical poem to the Queen, when he heard gigantic footsteps, and the Comptroller of the Household swooped down, caught him, and threw him out. . . . Sir James Barrie contributes a whimsical autobiography :

At six 'twas thus I wrote my name, James Barrie. At twelve it was not quite the «ame, James M. Barrin. At twenty thus, with a caress, James M. Barrie. At thirty I admired it less, Jas. M. Barrie. At forty-five it was so, J. M. Barrie. And soon I think the M will go, J. Barrie. I,' Envoi. One tear for twenty's youthful swank, And then the name becomes a blank. It should' be. explained that the "caress" and "swank" referred to cannot be produced in type. They are curly, corkscrew flourishes on the; capital letters. "We owe much, that is discreditable to the later comic dramatists of Greece,. W. L. Courtney tells us in a notice of the latest edition of "Sappho." Amongst other items we owe it to them that Sappho bears a name of scorn, that Socrates is regarded as a muddle-headed philosopher, and that Aspasia is held to belong : to : the unEleasant type of most undesirable highrows. The women naturally come m for the most scandalous reports. in the eyes of a comic dramatist, who, like Habbakuk, is "capable of everything, '' Pericles.'s Nearest friend , and. the poetess of Lesbos —Aspasia and Sappho—are worthy of all reprobation as no better than they should be, and dangerous corrupters of public morality. If the comic dramatist can : treat so enlightened a. thinker as Socrates in the fashion which Aristophanes adopts in one of the best-known of his dramas, we need not be surprised that women of the higher education/should be selected as fit objects of satire andall kinds of hurtful innuendos. As mahv as six comedies were composed of which Sappho was the heroine, and two which dealt with the poetess's fictitious lover, Phaon. To base an estimate of character on such scurrilous material is obviously out- of the question, especially if evidence of this kind runs counter to what we know from other and better sources. Sappho was called "the poetess" in the same, way that Homer was called "the poet," and higher encomium could no further go.

Mr Courtney goes on: And now let us come back to jriß. Tory, and the little it tells us about Sappho's life and character; We have oeen that she has been traduced in current gossip, and that the comic dramatists are responsible for the vilfication of her career. We have also been told by Ovid of an infatuation of Sappho for Phabn, and for its sequel at the Leucadian rock, from which the poetess is said to have hurled herself into the sea. Phaon seems to be a' wholly imaginary personnge, and there is little or no reason, for introducing him into the romance, especially as the victim of his fascination, seems to have lived-some little time after the episode—long, enough, at all events, to be described in, one of the fragments as "getting old." With Ailcanis, ■ one of hfer. contemporaries, she was updoubtedly intimate, as they had a common interest in poetry: yet she would not allow the intimacy -to-be too. close, even with.him, and on one occasion gravely rebuked him for his want of frankness. If we are to judge by the-fragments, Sappho would appear to be a proud womnn, who had a proper respect for herself and her posi* tion—for instance; slie criticised with' no little bitterness the conduct of her brother in Earpt, because, he had lowered the family standard in'bis as-| rtonafcirtn with, the notorious courtesan Rhodopis. - •

"Vespers," Mr A. A. Milne's', contribution to the Oneens Doll's House .]j»»rary. will dolicht old .-wd young alike. We quote these stanzas: Little boy kree's nt the foot of the bed; TVootvs on the lifUo hard*? 'ittV ?old head. Hrshl Hush! Whi'per who dares I Christopher Bobin is saying hfs prayers. i"!od V.eFS Mummy! I know that's right— Wasn't it fun in the- both to-night? • . The cold's bo . cold and the hot's, so ' hot— Oh! God bless quite forgot. Ohi Thank you, God', far a. lovely day; And what is the other I have to say? I've said "Bless Daddy," en what can it bo? Oh! now I remember it! God bless nie. . In the "International Book Review" B;irrett H. Clark writes an interesting account of his conversations with various ..European authors concerning American literature. ''Upton'..(Sinclair and Jack London of course are the outstanding figures, although it appears that Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson nnd Waldo Frank luive also begun to penetrate. On being nsked why Jack London is so much read, especially in Russia, "Gorky replied that Russians read Jack liondon and O. Henry for the same reason as Americans read Dostoovsky. namely, because they nr© the antithesis of the Russian spirit. He declared that American winters were teaching: Russians to l>elieve in the future and to abandon their favourite doctrine of salvation through suffering.