IN BOOKLAND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 18 September 1926, Page 18

IN BOOKLAND

Lady Benson La-s written “Mainly Players: Bensonian Memories,” in which are many anecdotes of the stage and its artists/ One of these relates to an experience of Sir Frank Benson in Stratford.-upon-Avon :

I<* li.B. was given the freedom of tlie city'iii 1910. that, night the company ha messed themselves to the carriage and drew ms back to the hotel. ' It was striking 11 o’clock as we alighted. F R B °«sia.id to a .policeman' standing by : ’ “You won’t be too strict on olosino- time to-night, will you?” and he replied: “1 believe. Sir,* according to the old law, the Freedom of the City allows you to be drunk anywhere and at any time you like.”

Mr? 11 mlya,id Kipling received at the hands of tne Karl of Balfour the gbJd medaa oi me society ot Btterature lat the centenary banquet in London on July /. Replying, Mr. Kipling said: —“.Nearly, every writer secretly desires a share of immortality.' lde may get the des.re, because quite a dozen writers have achieved immortality in the last 2,500 years”’ Mr, Kipling added that, fiction was. truth's eider sister. No one jn the world knew whiait truth was until someone told a story. Fiction was the oldest of the arts and began when some man told a story .about another. It developed when another man told tales about a woman. It * * * .

In response to a challenge issued by a "contributor to the. New York Evening Post .several correspondents have forwarded verses, containing a rhyme for “month.” ‘ In ,ev<?ry case but one the rhyming word is either a lisp or a proper noun. The exception is “millionth,” which two correspondents use:

I always think as life goes past That April is a. charming month; O, would my life would only last To see, at length, my millionth. Find a rhyme on month, You. defiantly ia.sk; Of your readers scarce a. millionth; Will be tip to the task!

One correspondent forwards this with the explanation that Blorange is a range of mountains in India and that Gruntli is the holy book ol the Afghans.:,— From the Indus to the Blorange Game the rajah :ih ia month, Sucking now.and then jam.orange, / Conning all the way his Gruth'. - - An “Anecdote of Alexander. Pope” runs:— • He “lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” “There's Fame in this,” they, told ■ him: ■. \ > ~ “Rhyme with mouth.” “If that .be „tho,” lisped little Alex. 4 ‘Fame , Itli mine already: I comply at oncth!”

“Plato’s American Republic,” by Air Douglas Woodruff, is a diverting example of Sooratic irony, it contains a ’ delightful account of a lecture of Socrates to tiie Business Men’s Bunch f CUub of Hootsville, lowa, reported in the paper ■ .as 4 ‘confessedly a di&sappointment after last Aveek’s slap-up talk on personal contacts in 'business.' ’ A local minister declared that Socrates had 4 ‘secured a wide publicity for his slogan, .“Boost Knowledge,’ ” an d--the Athenian was allowed to speak : The President of the Club introduced the speaker as one Avho had. made good in his own line ,and though 'it was not their own line, they welcomed success wherever they saw it. . . . He confessed that he had not known about the visitor till the. question of tills, address was brought- up, but since then had looked up his records, and, front the reports of the debates that he had seen in the Plato publications, he had no doubt that their visitor had the best of his discussions back in Athens and had hit ia, home run every time. They welcomed hint as a. man Avho had won something, even if it was only an argument. ' (Great ! applause.)'. . . . Hootsville could fairly claim to be listening to about the; best man in his oAvn line that old Athens could send them, and that would,help them to see how Hootsville and Athens compared with one another. (Applause.)

It having been announced that Mr. Wells’s new model dill contain among its characters living people, described by their own names, moves Punch to (anticipate with a sketch oi “lave Fiction.” We rea d:— A footman rushed ;into the room : “His Grace is dead in the library—stabbed in the back!” Mademoiselle Lenglen fainted. Lord Birkenhead lit Another cigar. “Attaboy!” erfed Walter Hagen. “Stabbed in the back!’ 1 ’ said Mr: Llovd George. “One wonders where Pringle is this evening.” “Far more likely,’? .smiled Lady Oxford, “to be the work of sbiiie miscreant with party funds at his disposal” Mr. Baldwin, shaking his head slowly, tapped out his pipe, In the grate. “I’d rather see a. thousand dukes b lea,ding to death,” cried Mr. Cook, “than that one .single miner should work a second longer for a farthing less.”

“I am sorry that Dr. Watson is not here,” said Sir Arthur Conan. Doyle; “but I am sure that in this'emergency Iny friend Joynson-Hicks will not mind taking his place.” /' Sir William, came'smilingly forward. Just then the door was again, flung open and a lady's-maid rushed <jn: ’•‘.Her Grace is dead in her . boudoir—stabbed in the back!” . Mademoiselle Lenglen fainted again. Lord Birkenhead lit two cigars. “Bully !” cried Walter Hagen, The brilliant group as. if by one consent tunned to, consult Lord Balfour in this crisis. ‘“We must take these things as they come,” remarked his lord,ship blandly.

Bii‘ John Murray .has received many coriignatuliationis, upon being made a K.CCV.O. by the King.. Although the head of the great publishing house is now Sir John, the name of his firm and the name on the brass plate on, the door in Albemarle Street, which dates back to, time Sir John Murray’s grandfather .showed Byron and Walter Scott to, the door, will remain “Mr Murray.” The first John, Murray was 'in the Navy, hence, his choice of as'ship as a pictorial motto. The second. John .Murray introduced Byron and Scott in his dining-room at Albemarle Street. The third John Mui-rv published Darwin, who propounded the theory of evolution! Educated at Elton and Magdalen College, Oxford, Sir John Murray entered the finn as 'soon as he came down from the University in _1872. Despite his edueaitdon, his father made him go, into, the

packing-room and learn to pack parcels. He required him to- go into each department., so as to become intimately acquainted with every detail of the business. Among the extraordinary publishing. surprises of his career Sir John Murray regards ias some of the most noteworthy that of Mr. Gladstone’s famous' pamphlet on the Vahioan Decrees, for 140,000 copies were sold; Professor Gramb’s “Germany and England.” published on the eve of the Great. War; and “An Englishwoman’» Loye Letters.” Mrs A. : ‘Does vour husband confide bis business- troubles to you?” Mrs B.: “Yes, indeed! Every time I buy anything!”. Tommy: “Father, you bought sister a piano,' you .must buy me a pony.” Father: “What for?” , Tommy: “So that 1 can go'out when she is practising.” Constable (taking notes): “You’via lost five parcels and three bat-boxes? Anything else, ma’am?” Lady: “Yes —yes- —my husband was with me. at the time!”' Auntie: “Dicky, you mustn’t pull the cat’s tail.” _ , . Dicky: “I’m holding if. The cat is pulling!” v Mistress: “I’d like to know, Norah, what has become of all the roast beef and cake left over from yesterday?” Norah,: “Now, mum, didn’t yer never have a policeman callin’ on yer when ver was my age?” Poulterer: ‘‘So you want me to reserve a duck for Christmas, Mr. MicNah —what size will von want?” McNab. —“I’ll require a fairly large one. mon—there’ 1 ! be forty-seven of us.” Eve: “A’gy ’s going to be married again.” " ~ Jimmy:. “I didn’t even know he. had been married.” Eve: “He hasn’t, hut he’s often been going to be.” ■ Prospective Mistress: “Now, are you a real.'v good cook?” Applicant: “Oh, yes, mum, I alius goes to chapel twice on Sundays.” Lizzie (to. Emma) : “Yes, I’ve turned him down, absolutely! He told me he was connected with the movies, ffi.n then I saw him diiivin’ a ipantchnicon.