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Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 19

NOTES

Miss Beatrix Potter’s famous ‘ Tale of Peter Rabbit ’ has been translated into German under the title of ‘ Die Gesohiehte des Peterchen Hase.’ A special characteristic of contemporary literature, Mr Harold J. Laski thinks, is great competence in technique and a barrenness of general ideas. Said to be the last man who remembered—or kenned—John Peel, Mr Thomas James has died at Caldbeck, Cumberland, aged ninety-two. John Peel died in 1864. Shelley’s former home, The White House, at the foot of the Capuan mountains, near Spezia, is being restored by its present owner. He intends to make it exactly as it was when Shelley lived there. Mr hid ward Berwick, known in the United States as the “ Literary Parmer,” because he often read a book while ploughing, has died in Caljfornia. aged ninety-one. He was a friend of Kobert Louis Stevenson. A world-wide appeal is to be made for a million shillings to found a Dickens Institute, near the novelist’s home at ITigham, Kent. The scheme includes the erection of a number of buildings, with residental quarters, surrounded by grounds giving facilities for games of all kinds. . Mrs Phcebe Haggard, author of the novel entitled ‘ Red Macaw,’ is a niece of the late Sir Henry Rider Haggard, who wrote ‘ King Solomon’s Mines and many other popular romances. She was bom in the East indies, where her father was in the Consular service. Her husband, who is also her first cousin, manages coffee and cotton estates in Brazil. , Mr A. J. Hamilton Jenkin, author of 1 Cornish Homes and Customs,’ is married to a daughter of Mr W. W. Jacobs. He w’as born at Redruth, the Cornish mining town, where his family have lived for 200 years. He was educated at Clifton College and at University College, Oxford. He has written several books on Cornwall and the Cornish people. Miss Vivyan Eyles, who was married recently to Signor Mario Praz, professor of Italian at Manchester University, is a member of a literary family; her mother writea under the name of Leonora Eyles, her sister, Miss Merle Eyles, is the author of several books, and her step-father, Mr D. L. Murray, is represented by ‘ Trumpeter, Sohnd l’ ‘ The English Family Robinson,’ and other novels. George Henry Lewes and George Eliot 1 used often to see (writes Dr G. C. Williamson, in ‘ Memoirs in Miniature ’), and on one occasion remember how thrilled 1 was by her playing on her grand piano at Witley certain compositions of Bach, Chopin, and Liszt with magnificent accomplishment and superb expression. Few people remember what a brilliant pianist George Eliot was. It has been given to but few to hear her at her best. Her playing was suddenly recalled to my memory years later when in Rumania, in the privacy of her own boudoir, Carmen Sylva played with equally touching expression one of the series by Chopin that I had heard years ago at Witley.

William Meyer-Foerster, who lias died in Berlin at the age of seventytwo, was the author of the play, ‘ Old Heidelberg.’ Since its first production over thirty years ago, it has been staged in twenty-two different countries, in many languages, including Chinese, Japanese, and Afrikaans. The author himself never saw his play, for his sight began to fail during the first rehearsals, and soon he became totally blind. Lewis Carroll constantly visited Dr Williamson’s house to see the children. He preferred to come to a house unexpectedly, and declined to come if lie was invited in formal fashion, or if he thought that ho was' likely to meet other people. “ I remember well on one occasion when he was expected,” says Dr Williamson, “ lie caught sight of persons who were unknown to him at the window as lie entered, and he turned tail and retreated, greatly to my children’s disappointment. He gave a fine copy of the first edition of ‘Alice in Wonderland ’ to my girl. At that time it was, of course, not regarded ns a work of considerable intrinsic value, as a first edition, but it was highly cherished by the children.”