SO OLD, SO FRAGILE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 77, 27 September 1924, Page 17

SO OLD, SO FRAGILE

Grandmother Is so old, so fragile, But she will not occupy The niche we set apart for her. We placed it high And put plucked flowers before it. We wanted hor to look like a happy ending, Peaceful and lovely In a lacy fichu, A cap with lappets' And a prune-coloured falling gown. But »he defies ancestor worship. She hears hoof beats, Starts to the trumpet, Shares our restlessness. ■' We fear for her, co old and brittle, " But she would Tather be stepped on, Broken into bits, ' And blown off in a wind Than sit still in a shrine. Should grandmother ever die, I think there would be sneezing in Nirvana. I cannot think hi^ dust would settle. —Kiitlieiine W. M'Cluskey. From "A Book of Relations."

, A copy of Burns's poems, Kilniarnock (1786), measuring 8 3-16 in by 4Jin, in green morocco, which had belonged to Professor John Chiene, of Edinburgh, was recently sold at Sotheby's, London, to Messrs. Quaritch for £512. Save for one or two printing defects, it was a clean and soiihd copy. The first edition (I860) of 0. li. Dodgson's "Alices Adventures in Wonderland" continue to bo highly valued. The copy in original boards sold at the same sale had 30 corrections and two or three emendations in the writing of the author. It fetched no less than £99. Till a few years ago one-third of that figure was regarded an high fof all Biivo cscogtiouaj copi.es,