OFF THE TRACK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2734, 8 August 1906, Page 71

OFF THE TRACK.

'Twas fifteen years ago to-day, when, with a

joyous heart, I left ray home in Ballarat in life to make » start ; I was off to join the shearers in that life so gay and ir^e, And tiie day I shore a hundred was a happy one to me. But until I owned a racehorse I would not be content. And on learning all tb# gambling arts myi mind w«s now intent. I have been in Bourke and Eulo, I have climbed o'er Lackma Lack, And every shed I went to I was further ofl the track. The path I should have followed is completely lost to me; I lost it many years ago, across the Tasniau Sea; Yes, lost it through my folly — I have but myself to blam<>. But here iv bonme Maori land I'll find the path again. There are hundreds searching for it, and! many that I know Who lost it just as I did, in the yeus ot long ago. But if I should regain it I will oftentimes look back, And try to help a comrade who is drifting "off the track." 'Tis easy to w-ander, aa the branch line* ara not few ; Temptation waits at every turn, -of every shade and hue. As every rone has got its thorn, each ploaeu/ra may give pain, And the chances we fail to embrace may, never come again. Mistakes are made when in our youth which lead us most astray. And often are not realised until our hair turns grey, When we axe on a cross road, it is surely brains we lack, For we travel blindly onward, getting furtbe* off the track. — The "Wandere*. Temuka, July 30.

To thos9 who oougli, and those who need Too frequently to blow Heir noses At chjreh or public meetings, heed The t-eeret that my pen discloses. No need to be a nuisance now, To man or child or maid demure. How can you stop? I'll tell you how, Dose up with woods' Great PEPPRuirnni Cube

— Mre Humphry Ward, whose new novel " Fen wick's Career," is attracting so much attention, was born at Hobart, Tasanais, where her father, Mr Thomas Anaold, the brother of Matthew Arnold and sob of the great faster <of Rugby, was holding a scholastic appointment. Mrs Warxfs experiences of colonial life, however, are faint, as she left Tasmania aa a child of five, her father haying accepted * Chair in. the Roman Catholic College, Dublin, vthkh has sinoe ceased to exist. After this Mr Arnold joiqpd the Newman Brotbeiiooil at the Oratory, Birmingham, and ♦Tentsally settled down to a literary life a* Oxford. From iier girlhood the future novelist imbibed the atmosphere of Oxford, and she was little more than a girl when she married Mr Humphry Wasd, Fellow and tutor of Brasenose College. For a period of eight yeaw 6&e continued her studies in the Bodleian Library. Her first experiment in fiction was -a little ite-rr for children entitled "MiHy and GHj, but even at that early period her mind was attracted by the questions which iuuti constantly haunted her father. Already there lay in her desk at Oxford an «atsj which had in it the germ ©f " Robert Etamere," a book destined to make, in the words of Mr Gladstone, "a ■ very sensible impression, not, however, among mere novel readers, but among those who «bare, in whatever sense, the deeper thought of the period." That was in 1888, and srnce that date the novels of Mrs Humphry Ward have attracted serious attention.— T. P. 's Weekly.

AN EXILE.

In the tragedy of misdirected genius Adah Isaacs Menken fills a pathetic role. The oldei- generation remembers her ; to the younger generation she is hardly a name.

Daughter of a Spanish Jew and a. Frenchwoman, she was born, Dolores Adios Fuertes, near Now Orleans, June 15, 1835. At the age of seven ehe made a stage appearance as a dancer. While still young she became very popular on the stage in America. At the age of about 20 years she was married to Alexander Isaacs Menken, at Galv«ston, Texas, retired from the stage, and published a volume of poeme, " Memories," over the signature of "Indigena." Divorced from her husband, she returned! to the 6tage in 1858, but by-and-bye abandoned it to enter a Cincinnati studio, where she began to etudy sculpture. In 1859 she was married to John CHeenan, the pugilist, from whom she vas divorced three years later. Twice again she was married. She died at Paris in the August of 1868. In her last yeans abe appeared as Mazeppa, one of her engagements having been at the Glasgow Theatre Royal. In 1€67 she published another voluaie of poems, "Infelicia." Here is one of her poems. It ie entitled "An Exile": — Where is the promise of my years Once written on nay hrow — Ere errors, agonies, and fears Brought with them all that speak in teara^ Ere I had sunk beneath my peers —

Where sleeps that promise now? Xaught lingers to redeem those hows.

Still, still to memory sweet; The flowers that bloomed in sunny bower* Are withered all, and Evi! towers Supreme above her sister powers

Of Sorrow and Deceit. I look along the columned years,

And see Life's riven fane Just wher-3 it fell — amid tiie jeers Of scornful lips, whose moaning sueers Forever hiss within my ears

To break the sleep of pain. I can but own my life is vain,