LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 19

LITERARY NOTES

_ The authorities of the Bodleian some time ago made a careful examination of the Oxford copy of the first Shakespeare folio, and from the comparative wear and tear of the leaves, they came to the conclusion that in the years immediately befor the Civil War the play which made the greatest appeal to Oxford students waa "Borneo and Juliet." The next five plays in the order of popularity on the same basis of evidence were: "Julius Caesar," "The Tempest," ."Henry IV " (Part I.), "Macbeth" and

Patriok Mac Gill, the navvy novelist, was born in Donegal, and knows by bitter experience the life he depicted in "Children of the Dead End" and in "The Ratpit." At the age of ten he hired out to a neighbouring farmer as a scarecrow. Four years later he went to Scotland as one of a gang of migratory labourers. Later, -he worked as a section hand and as a coal-trimmer on a coasting steamar. At nineteen he published a book of verse at his own expense and hawked it from house to house. He served in the trenches in the war, and turned out some remarkably realistic literary work as a result. Mrs: Mac Gill is also a novelist.

There is a good story in the Grierson biography of the. great soldier's absorption in his profession. He was asked on some occasion whether he was not lonely. "Lonelyj?" he cried, "lonely with the Army List to read." But that can be matched in politics. It used" to be said that Lord Rosebery at the Foreign Office lunched regularly off "a biscuit and a Blue Book, and that Sir Herbert Samuel • devoured Blue Books while waiting for his train on the Underground. Dilke boasted that he read Blue Books for pleasure, and, in letters, there was the monumental saying of Buckle: "One of the most interesting dictionaries I have ever read."

'. A remarkable feature of modfcrn crime, according to Captain J. C. Goodwin in his "Sidelights on Criminal Matters." in its boldness. It is often committed in broad daylight and openly, the crimnal being apparently engaged in lawful occupation. A workman entered a provincial Police Court while the Magistrates were sitting, bowed gravely to the chairman of the bench, and removed, as if for repairs, a valuable clock from the wall. A bank Clerk, carrying £16,000 in a bag, was overtaken by an apparently breathless man, well- dressed, and without a hat, who said, handing- over a paper, "The manager wants you to take this message, and I am to take the bag back." And the clerk handed over the bag.

When barely eight years old Mme. Sarah Grand, the novelist, taught in a Sunday school at Ballycastle, Co. Mayo. This interesting fact Mme. Grand, who is Mayoress of Bath, related at a church meeting over which she presided in her official capacity. She said that in those early days she happened-to be not at all a model scholar. In fact, there was talk of suspending her for insubordination. But her teacher had the foresight to recognise that the best course to take was to make her feel a sense of responsibility. The experiment was accordingly tried of making her a teacher, and she was given a class of twelve other small children, being told to teach them" all she knew about religion. She repeated to the members of the class all the Bible stories she had been taught, imitating her own teacher and embroidering- the stories from her own imagination "to make them a little more picturesque v "The experiment had the desired effect," Mme. Grand said with a smile, "and they had no more trouble with me^afterwards. It made me feel that it rested with me to keep, the other children in order, and it did inspire me with responsibility."-

' Another example of ignorance in high places," states the "Manchester Guardian," "was Lord' Randolph Churchill. Once when Irving was acting Hamlet in Dublin a message was brought that a son of the Lord Lieutenant (the Duke of Marlborough) would like to see him Lord Randolph, already M.P. for Woodstock, and father of Winston, came, in, and after a few'compliments went off into general conversation. Presently Irving told him that he must now say good-bye, as he'was nearly due on the stage for the next act. Lord Randolph asked: What occurs in the next act?' Irving explained-that the young lady he had seen in the former part of the piece got into more trouble. 'Dear me,' Lord Randolph said, 'this is very sad. Will you tell me how' it all ends?' Irving entering into the spirit of the thine! told him that in- the fifth act most of the characters would be found lying on the stage, stuck with swords or disposed of by poison, and Lord Randolph seemed to think this a very interesting condition of things. As he was going he said : 1, am not much of a playgoer, and in point of fact I have never seen a play of Shakespeare's before nor have I read one. 1 But he 'saw 'Hamlet' three nights in succession, and a little later at dinner at the Vice-Regal Lodge told Irving that he had since read four other plays, and had to thank him for as great a boon as ever one man conferred on another. Sir Edward Russell is the authority for this story "

Anatole France's "The Bloom of Lifa" is an intimate book of self-revelation The author, writes thus of his-boyhood: "1 was not at all a good-look"ing youth, and, what was still more unfortunate I lacked conßdence. That seriously handicapped me with women. I was tremendously in love with the beautiful ones, that is to say the really feminine women, but their proximity threw me into such perturbation that all my faculties forsook me. The result was that 1 could only get on with the ugly ones; and them I could nof endure. 1 For 1 judged that a woman's cardinal sin was not to be good-looking. I observed that many young men who did not como up to me got on better and'were more popular v, society than I. I was very cut up about it, but, even then, I ,had sense enough not to be unduly gur. pnaed. ... I g i vo thanlsa to the

gods for having decreed that I should be born poor. Poverty was a beneficent mother to me and showed me the true value of the things one needs in life, which, without her, I should never have known. Forbearing to lay upon me the burden of luxury, she dedicated my days to the service of Art and Beauty. ,She preserved me from folly and kept me in good heart. Poverty is like the angel of Jacob; compelling those she loves to wrestle with her in the darkness, and when they come forth into the light, bruised though they be, the blood courses more swiftly in their veins, their loins are suppler, their arms more strong. Having had but a meagre share in-this world's goods, I have loved Life for herself, I. have loved her unveiled, in that nakedness that is so po tent to terrify and to charm."

Speaking from a long acquaintance with Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Colson Kernahan testifies that, he detected in him neither much vanity nor a desire to pose. On the other hand, he knows of. many instances of his kindliness and his fidelity to old friends. He liked to know what people were thinking about him, and sometimes by inquiring got an answer which amused him. The following is an instance:—

"Northcliffe once said to me, 'What are they saying of me in the literary clubs, and up and down Fleet street?' 'Telling a ridiculous story about you having fourteen brothers, all in the business," I replied. 'What is it?' he asked. 'That you were coming down your stairs in Tudor street one dark afternoon before the lights were on, and when a man, who was comimr up. lurched clumsily against you, and you told him he should be more careful, he replied, 'All right, Alfred.' 'You address me as Alfred ! What is your name? I think you must have been drinking,' you are supposed to have said, to received the reply, 'I know it is a bit dark on these stairs to;day, but don't you know me, | Alfred? I am your fourteenth and youngest brother, Plantasenet, just down from_ Oxford to take over the interviewitic job for •'Answers. l " "U. 5.," who is only fiva years of age,' has b&en honoured by the "Mornini? Post" with the acceptance of this poem": "PANSIES." "Oh dont you love the pansis . there drest in culors brite theve fases just like puses perhaps thae see at mte all tho fairis dansing in the moonshine brite," —(Copyrite.) In a tract on "Metaphor," Mr. A. Clutton Brock supplies a list of some very hardworked acquaintances -.—The lap of luxury, Part and parcel, A sea of troubles, Beyond the pale, The Battle of life, Theath-warrant of, Parrot cries The sex-war, Tottering thrones, A trail of glory. Bulldog tenacity, A charnelhouse. The proud prerogative, Smiling through your tears, A straight fight The fires of martyrdom, The school of We, Branches of the same deadly Upas Tree, Turning a deaf ear to, The flower of our manhood, Written in letters of fire, stemming the tide, Big with possibilities, A place in the sun, A spark of manhood, To dry up the founts of pity Hunger stalking -through the land,' A death grip, Round pegs (or men) in square holes, The lamp of sacrifice, The silver lining, Winning all along the line Casting in .her lot with, The fruits of victory, Bubbling over with confidencej V v"mln& on the .wall, The sickle of death, \The. crucible of, Grinding the faces of the poor, The scroll of fame. ,:

Mr. Eiohard Gurle, in "Into the East" (Macmillan), has chosen to write the reC°j d °f, what h^s sP°nsor> Joseph Conrad, calls our changing curiosities "growing more subtle among the vanishing' mysteries of the earth." In this world of "magic shadow-shapes" Mr." Curie held fast to his primary object of study and preoccupation, Man, whether brown or white. And Mr. Curls is sensible of the enormous pressure from the West to which the brown man has been subjected. He has come to the conclusion that -"the East is weary of the West, weary of its logic, weary of Hs tutelage. It has accepted from us asmattering of political idealism, but merely, so to speak, as a basis of argument. Easterners don't appreciate in the slightest many of our most cherished illusions, but we can only approach them tnrough our own standards, and they can only obtain their wishes by pretending to aim at the goal of these standards. W e talk to them of freedom and they reply: 'Well, give us freedom, but the only freedom they want is freedom from us. Words do not have a universally equal significance. What the Oriental really wants ia a return to some sinuous Eastern mode of life where the order of things is fixed,within and chaotic .without "

The following extract* from Kipling's latest work, "The Irish Guards in the Great War," are thoroughly characteristic of the writer:—"Dawn brought dirty white' desolation across yellow mud plted witih- elalte-opftjured water-holes, and confused by senseless grey and black lines and curled tangles of wire. ■■• There was nothing to see, except—almost pearlcoloured Tinder their mud-dyed holmete— t&e tense pre-oceupied faces of men moving with wide spaces between their platoons to water-floored cellars and shelters chillier ■ even, than ths graveliko trench they had left. alw a ys with the consciousness that they were watched by invisible eyes,' which presently would choose certain of them to be killed. . . . The unpredictable incidence of death or wounds was a mystery that gave the Irish full rein for sombre speculation. Half an hour's furious bombardment, with trenches blowing in by lengths at a time, would end in no more than extra fatigues for the disgusted working parties that had to repair damage. On another day of still peace, one sudden light shell might mangle every man in a'bay, and smear the duckboards with blood and horrors. A night patrol, pinned down by a German flare, where they sprawled in the corn, and machine-gunned till their listening comrades gave up all hope, would tumble back at last into their own trenches unscathed, while far back in some sheltered corner the skied bullet, falling from a mile and a half away, would send a man. to his account so silently that. till, the body slid off the estaminet bench, his neighbours never guessed."

Lawn Tennis Experiences," by the champion of France. Henri ' Cochet, is one of the outstanding features! of this wt^'" i/'"^""?8^ Magazine"' (from Whitcombe and Tombs), and full-page illustrations help the text. An instructive article.by .M. Owston-Booth, showing how remote localities are realised for the settings of cinema plays, is also fully ffllusftratcd i n this number. How a performing sea lion acted when he broke Joose and raided a fish market is described—a. true story, and one that children will delight in. Domford Yates continues the romantic story of Valeric French. Short and complete stories by <Jwen Oliver (about Treasure Island), K. R. G. Browne (tellinjj o f a bright and unusual love adventure), C. Kennett (a dfiinty French romance), Ottwoll •Bums (a- rough-life yarn of Circle City), and A. M'Burrage (a cricket yarn) occupy most of the paper and they are fully illustrated. The pases of the "Windsor are;crammed with interesting and .qntsrtaimiia reading. The "Editor's Scrap Book" contains a number of humorous items.