A LITERARY CORNER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8740, 23 May 1914, Page 9

A LITERARY CORNER.

MEMORIAE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD. Rural districts have the longest Oiemoncs, and there arc few infiabi-i tauts of tho sleepy uuic buliolk town who cannot toll you tho lile story of.' Edward Fitz Gerald (writes the Moodbridge correspondent of tho London “Standard'';. East Anglia is rich in it.s associations with tho great men of tlio past. 'l’wclvo miles to tho south of Woodbridge lies the Constable Go unify , where tho painter chose tho scones that ho immortalised —exchanging Uio products of his art .sometimes lor a receipted tradesman's account. But Fitz Gerald's pen —in tho Mow Work! and tho Old—is far better known than tho painter’s finish, and many of tho -simple folk whoso .cottages dot this pleasant countryside cherish as their most precious posscsliion a copy of tho “Omar Khayyam” • —the masto.•piece of tho man who passed so many years of his life in jVVdodhridge. In those days ho was unknown to tho outside world, though Tennyson and Thackeray admired and appreciated his work to tho full; but since Edward Fitz Gerald died many buildings around hero have become the Mecca for visiting Americans. A tablet on tho uninteresting looking stono house on tho Market Hill records that tho poet lodged thorn, while a winding lane will lead yon past to Boul'ge Churchyard, when ho lies under tho ah a do of a rose tree—grown from tho very rose that blossoms above Omar Khayyam’s resting place in far away Nais'hapur. On ynnr way you will pass FarUngayc Hull—that most beautiful of old Suffolk farmhouses, which was tenanted by Fitz Gerald for •seven years. Near by' is Rrcdliold House, tho jioet’s birthplace, and Little Grange, his last home. A Fit IKXD OF FITZGERALD. I chatted to-day with Mr .Tohn Loder, a local magistrate and lifelong friend of Edward Fitz Gerald. Mr Loder, who is o ghty-eight, is one of tho most..remarkable old men living, and *lio celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday by going for a swim "in the North Sea. “I was only fourteen when first I met Fitz Gerald,” he said. “Ho used'to walk over from Boulgo Cottage with his friend Mr Crahbe —- tho son of tho poet—and I would listen to him talking to my father. As I grow up wo became more and more intimate, and latterly I visited him •three times a week and more. Fitz--1 Gerald pever saw newspapers, and it was through mo that he learned of the doings of tho .outside world. Ono clay 1 ‘ read in tho press that Thackeray was dead. In theevening I wont down to tho ‘Quarter Dock,' near tho almshouses, which was his favourite walk. X told him that his friend had passed away, and then left him to his thoughts, for it was obvious that •the sad tidings came as a great blow to him. Tall and dark, Fitzgerald resembled a Spanish grandee aa * lie

paced along, wearing a red boating cloak. Perhaps ho had Spanish blood in him —it was a fancy of mino that ho was descended from someone who was wreaked in the Armada.

“Ho was comfortably situated. He wrote entirely for his own gratifica-, tion, and lie did not- want to ho bothered by the outside world. Hisl work was little appreciated while he 1 ’was alive. I think ho wa.s disappoint- 1 cd with the reception of tho few copies ho had printed of the ‘Omar.’ Indeed, bo never breathed the word ‘Omar’ to me. For all that lie was always writing, and used temporarily to blind .himself’with overwork. “Fitzgerald was a very reserved' man, and could not bear being spoken I to in tho street. Of an extremely (outspoken nature, ho once .snubbed [Tennyson. Ho did not like something that tho latter wrote, so he suggested that Tennyson should compose something more suited to his 'pen! Jf there was ono person ho (really liked it wtas Posh, the boatman, 'who is, I believe, still living. Posh 'was to him a little god, and ho was ‘extremely fond of tho river, where he 'would cruise in his yacht .Scandal. iOnco while reading Tacitus on hoard he became so engrossed in tho classic that ho got knocked overboard by tho boom* However, ho escaped with a ■ducking “Ho was a most simple-living man, and ate practically nothing. Indeed, an occasional bun was enough to keep that brilliant brain active. Every Christmas tho Master of Trinity College sent him somo Trinity ale, and he would get .some oysters in that wo might havo a little supper. THE LONG BILL. “As for his other literary activities ho once intended to publish a revised version of ‘Suffolk Words and Phrases,’ but nothing over came of his idea. He was a painstaking man, and while the ‘Little Grange’ was being built ho kept continually altering tlie design. First ho had one thing done, and then another; finally, perhaps, rejecting botln When the bill for the work came in ho nrado a groat fuss about tho cost. Afterwards ho always called the builder ‘the little bird with tho long bill.’ ” Here is an unpublished anecdote, which shows that tho poet was both sympathetic and practical. It was told me by Airs Welton, who now lives at FarUngaye Hall. “Once my parents lived opposite to the house on tho Market Hill, where ho lodged,” she .said. “Looking out of his window one day, ho watched the nurse ‘feeding’ a s'ster of mine in tho nursery. Instead of giving the bread and milk co tho babv the nurse was liberally helping herself to spoonfuls of the food. Fitz Gerald was exceedingly annoyed, and sent ■the following message to my' mother: ‘I think Airs Welton ought to know that the nurse is eating tho baby’s bread and milk.’ ’’ V the ideal' figure. It is possible for every woman to have a figure more closely approximating to the Greek ideal. This is the idea suggested by Diana Watts (Mrs Roger Watts) in her book, tho

“ Renaissance of tho Greek Ideal ” •W illmm Heinoinann ). Tho secret, she says, consists in a icondition of tho muscles totally difItVnt from any realised by athletes sinco tho time of the ancient Greeks, a condition of tension, which transforms dead weight into a living force. This 'made the Greek as different from tho modern human being as a stretched (rubber band from a slack ono. Tho laws of balance must bo carefully •studied by ail who aspire to the Greek .’ideal of perfection. The feet, being Itho most important factor in that art, (must receive careful training. It is, for instance, wrong to turn tho toes (outward; the Greek child was made to (stand on the inside of tho foot with tha (toes planted in a straight lino with the (heel. There aro two other important points (which have to be mastered—the cultivation of the muscles into such a condition that the maximum amount of acJtivity is possible, and the mastering of jtho laws of balance, so that the activity may be controlled with the (smallest expenditure of force. Not 1 (how to develop tho muscles, but how to learn to transform their condition at will is the lesson that has to bo mastered. Mrs Watts, in a series of photographs, explains the process. When it is mastered, slioi claims, a modern woman will not only havo an ideal figure, but she will be extraordinarily insensitive to fatigue, and will acquire a beautiful precision of movement, only seen in those whose muscles are under jierfect command. LEONARDO DA VINCI’S WORKS.

Artists and connoisseurs will welcome tho news that the publication of a national edition of Leonardo da Vinci’s designs and manuscripts in twenty volumes is about to be undertaken by the Italian Government. It is estimated that the total number of these designs and manuscripts amounts to more than 6000 folios, of which number 4000 are in this country, and the commissioners appointed by the Italian Government havo just completed the work of photographing these. An official at the British Museum informed a “ Standard ” representative that tho largest collection of Da Vinci’s drawings is to he found in the royal library at Windsor, but some are also to be found at Oxford. Three other manuscripts arc at South Kensington, one in tho British Museum, and) one at Holkham Hall. The only-undisputed portrait of Leonardo da Vinci is in the royal library at Turin—a drawing by himself in red chalk.

THE “ PALL MALL MAGAZINE ” MAJORITY.

The May issue of the “ Pall Mall Magazine” marks tho “coming-of-age” pf the publication, and Mr Albert Kinross, who has been associated with it since its birth, contributes an article full of reminiscences of these twenty-; one years. “ The earliest numbers cfl the magazine,” he writes, “ are speci-j ally memorable, covering as they do a period when onr lions, young and old,l were in full practice. Here first ap-;

pear Swinburne's poem, ‘ Astrophel,' and Rudyard Kipling's ‘ Bobs ’ ; hero is wbrk by Gcorgo Meredith and Thomas Hardy; anti all through we encounter Mr Zangwill at his best in those brilliant pages which he contributed under the general heading ‘ Without Prejudiced Kvery one ol these authors retains his'freshness ; tho half-dozen of Mr Kipling's poems found here (including that masterpiece ‘Tor to Admire ’) are as vivid to-day as when they first delighted ns; and 1 seem to catch a foreshadowing of the Boy Scout movement— certainly the moot hopeful thing of this century—-as I turn again to those virile" pages wherein the world first made acquaintance with George Meredith’s ‘ Lord Ormon. ana His Aminta.’ ”