LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 19, 22 January 1921, Page 15

LITERARY NOTES

In two boolc3 lately published by Methuen there is the same story. In the delightful " Verena In the Midst," by E. V. Lucas, it appears in this way: " A travelling friend tells me that outside tho gate qf the Misericoi'dia in Osaka, Japan, is. the notice, the meaning of which is clear after a moment's examination—-' The Sisters, of/ tho Misericordin harbour every kir^ of disease, and have nil respect for religion.'" Li the "Life and Latter* of Lady Dotothv Nevill" the story is thus related : " Una of thu institutions is Rome wishing to proclaim

fits toleration, had the following appeal posted up at its entrance, ' Appele td the Charitable. The Brothers,- so called of Pity, solicit alms for tho Hospital. They harbour all kinds of diseases, and have no respect for Religion." | . •

Judge Athwley-Jones, in proposing the toast of " Literature* and the Press," at tho annual dinner of the London Readers' Pension Fund, remarked that he did not know why the press was divorced from \ literature. He always looked with horror on the ghastly presentations on a railway bookstall. K,e preferred the books of the past, and sometimes thought it would bs a- good thing if many of our authors " ca'ed canny."

Owing to the generosity of American delegates to the recent All-Friends' Conference in London, tlra MS. Journal of the first Quaker, George Fox, has come into possession of the Society of Friends.

Harold Bell Wright, popular novelist, is said to have endured a life of toil and privation. H© had contended .with not only poverty, hut ill-health.. Born in 1872, he had been- one of four boys, only" two of wliom survived. Left motherless at the age of ten, this boy, shy but proud, was. early sent forth to' do battle with the world. He had some talent as a painter, and it,.was toward, an artistic career that his first ambition' was directed. Lacking the means to study under a master, he was forced to turn his'ability to such humble channels as decorating arid house-painting. While in the little quarry town of Grafton, Ohio, he had been converted to the doctrines of Christianity, and his imagination fired by the possibilities of reformation in that field, he resolved to abandon paintinjf and become a minister. With this end in view he—at tha age of twenty—entered the preparatory department of Hiram College. He had no means whatever, and was forced to labour after; hours to subsist.

A young American poet for whom a future is prophesied is William Alexander Percy. The sample given of his work has a rare quality, worthy of being widely known. It is called "Overtones": — "I heard a bird at break of day. Sing from the autumn trees, A song so mystical and. calm, So full of certainties. No man, I think, could listen long Except upon his knees. ' Yet thii was but a simple bird, Alone, among dead trees."

0. Henry was a master of the short story, and it is appropriate that the 0. Henry Memorial Committee should give prizes for short stories. The best American short story of "1919 they judged to be Mks Margaret Prescott Montague's "England to America;" which (to quote her American publisher) is "a perfect tribute to the dogged and unstinted courage of English hearts—an unforgettable picture of an English family that had given all, and was making a last and tenderly beautiful sacrifice for an American boy." - This interesting study of England in the war, as a sympathetic American woman saw us, has just been published in England, with an"introduction by John Drinkwater.

Matthew Tate, the.. "Pitman's Poet," recently died at Blyth, Northumberland, at the age of 84. He was one of the founders of the Miners' Union. In his younger days, says the Daily Chronicle, Tate made great personal sacrifices to acquire knowledge. When he was seven years old his parents were evicted^during a strike, and were reduced to begging for food,and shelter. Tate himself began work as a. "trapper-boy" in the Cr'amlington.pit when a child of 11, and worked 14-hour shirts for a wage of lOd a da.y. He continued work in the pits —chiefly as hewer—until his 76th year. As secretary for the; Cramlington miners he drew up the original regulation forbidding hewers to descend tho pits before, two in the morning, and regarded this as the first step towards shorter hours in the Northern mines/ His taste for literature Was fostered on Scott's "Waverley .Novels." He began writing verses at 17, and in later years poems of his wers accepted by Queen Alexandra and Mr. Gladstone. Tate has been aptly described by Father, Dromgoole, in a preface to the booklet, "Stray Blossoms".: "Whether it be friendship, patriotism, or love of Nature and his own kind; whether his song breathed hatred of oppression, soorn of •'vice, or admiration of virtue, he sang from the overflowing fulness of his heart." Tate died in a cottage, which he had occupied rent free for many years, through the generosity of the late Lord Ridley. The following is an example of his verse : 0, Reaper, turn thy scythe aside, Kill not the pretty flower That blossoms there in all its pride, Child of Summer's hour! How mild, and yet how sweet it blooms, So lovely, yet so low; . It"fills the air withWeet perfumes— Then let the wild flower grow. r

"John o' London" recalls a very curious example of an opigram in Sir George Rose's "Record of a Oase." It originated in the request of a law-reporter who, when called away from the court, asked Mr. Rose to make a note of anything important th»t might occur in his absence. On hie return he found the following in his notebook:— , Mr. Lcjcb,made a speech Ansrry, neat, and wrong; / Mr. Hart;.on the other part, W«s learned, dull, and long; Mr. Trower spoke for an hour, And then Bat down quite hot; , Mr. 801 l spoke vory well Though nobody knew about what) Mr. P»rk©r made the c»se darker, • •..W!JJ on,' w*s <Jark enough without; • Mr. Cooko cited a book, And the Chancellor said, "I doubt." The Chancellor was Lord Eldon, and "I doubt" was his favourite expression. Mr. Leach afterwards became Master of the Rolls ■ *nd Mr. Hart Vice-Chancellor of liciand. , The peouliaritips of all of the men named are faithfully recorded. When this epigram beoame publio it was repeated overywhere, and -soon came round to Eldon, who a fow weeks later dismissed a case which Rose had argued vory earnestly before him with the waggish remark. "The judgment must- be agajnst your clients; «nd here, Mr. Rose, the Chancellor does not doubt."