LITERARY NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 78, 28 September 1918, Page 11

LITERARY NOTES.

A correspondent of the Spectator expresses regret that that journal should have admitted to its columns tho hideous neologuo "stunt." He says:—"A language is, no doubt, enriched by the introduction of new words to express new ideas or better to express existing ideas. But what can be said in favour of a word used indifferently for a newspaper agitation ; a trick flight by an airman r a one-day battle as at Messines; a campaign as on the Somme in 1916; or, in short, anything for which the speaker is too ignorant or too indolent to find an appropriate English word?" The editor of the Spectator comments thus:—"New things require new words. We would rather the language should be—may we say?—in its present experimental stage than that that 'stunt' were used loosely and variously stunted."

You may direct the average novel reader to a fresh well, but you cannot make him' drink, observes the Chronicle. He may smile faintly if he comes upon a story with a wisdom-while-you-wait like this : "A woman will sometimes forgive a mau for kissing her, but she will never forgive him if he faili to return one she has given him of her own free will." But he passes on, certainly if be be in khaki and full _of the life of action which war. carries. with it. He wants stories that have adventure, colour, "go," cheerfulness,, heroes• of whom he may say, what Mr. D. G. Phillips says in a current novel,' that "Only the few who can stand being alone, «ver a«t anywhere."

Perhaps Florence Nightingale, is Mr. Strachey's easiest • conquest in. his re-cently-published "Eminent Victorians," for the legend of her as a, sweet angel with a camp lamp could never explain her achievement as a revolutionary in nursing. There had to be stern stuff in her before she could overthrow the red-tape and bureaucracy of Crimean slays. Watch her, as Mr. Strachey watches her at Scutari:—"As she passed through the trasd^jn her plain dress, so quiet, so unassuming, <iia struck the casual observer simply as ths patten* of a perfect lady; but the keenei- eye perceived something more than that—the Berenity of high deliberation in the scope of the capacious brow, the sign of power in the dominating curve of the thin nose, arid the traces of a harsh' and dangerous temper—something , peevish, something mocking, and yet something precise—in the small and delicate mouth. There was humour in the face; but th« curiouß watcher might wonder whether it was humour of a very pleasant kind " Some of the best stories in lady Jephson's "Notes of a Nomad" are_those of Pope Leo XIDT., renowned for his wit and resource, andi one that has a sipecial interest at the present time is of the reproof given tty him to Count Herbert Bismarck. Leo XIII. had granted an interview to the Kaiser, and -was much incensed because Count Herbert Bismarck insisted on pushing his way into the audience chamber with his Imperial master. The Pope made a pointed comment on his action. "Do you know who I am?" demanded the count. "I am the great Bismarck's son." "Ah," said the Pope, "that explains, but does not [ excuse, your conduct." Mr. Chappell, the railway porter poet who wrote "The Day," in a recentlypublished book of Terse, does not altogether disdain such conventional ideas as praise of woman and wine. While the poem is obviously a literary exercise, it shows a happy recapturing .of earlier poetic models and ideas :— "Come, Bacchus, bid thy nectar flow, The balm for sad hearts .pining, For rosy dreams in wine cups glow And set soft eyes a-shining. Why dull and sad when wine makes glad The hearts of man and maid, 'too; | Fill each his cup and drink it up, And 1 plague take him afraid to." Patriotic poetry, poetny of home and simple religious thoughts, poetry that treats subjects' as diverse as a Yorkshire terrier, and the coal strike, and /th'e^ city of Bath—here is a miscellany of ideas and feelings which shows that the modern writer of verse need not strain after a subtlety which only a few will understand and fewer appreciate. Mr. Chappell's is the kind of verse that proves the average man, though he may not suspect the fact, to be a lover of poetry. ■Mr, Joseph M'Cabe's new historical novel, "The Pope's Favourite" (Hurst and Blackett), restores the rich romantic colours of the Middle Ages to the grey history of the time of the Borgias. It was Mr. Eden Phillpotta who first urged Mr. M'Cabe to undertake this interesting work. At a London club of writing men— chiefly from Fleet-street—there was an informal debate recently as to which is the most over-employed phrase of the war. Thirteen members took part in the argument; and, on the question being put] to a- vote, it was found that twelve were of the opinion, that without doubt the most overworked phrase was, "When the history of this war comes to be written." "Camouflage," although a serviceable addition to the language, is also a word that has been terribly overworked of late. Punch printed a timely protest against its use except as a military term, and then pointed the moral by thrice admitting "camouflage" as a civilian to its ■ columns, the editor leading the way. "Do,or doing, your bit," "over the top," and a few other now threadbare phrases might also bo placed on the retired list. ' • ■