DUNEDIN BURNS CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 3154, 26 August 1914, Page 3

DUNEDIN BURNS CLUB.

' A “WALTER SCOTT” EVENING. The Art Gallery Hall was filled to overflowing on the 19th, when the usual monthly musical entertainment was given by the i members of the Dunedin Burns Club, lh® 1 essentially martial tone of the Scottish songs, which at a time like the present was even mors sharply accentuated than usual, produced a stirring effect, and lent an atmosphere thoroughly in keeping with the present patriotic spirit. The prolific writings of Sir Waiter Scott were drawn on for the whole of the programme, and a brief and comprehensive sketch of the great author was given by Mr G. L. Denniston. Mr John Loudon (president) occupied the chair, and in some brief introductory remarks referred to the fact that Great Britain had recently been driven into the vortex, of a great war for which he hoped her arms would, as so often in the past, emerge victorious.—(Applause.) Such a war necessarily entailed a great deal of suffering and distress, and the committee of the club had decided at its last meeting to vote £25 of its funds towards relief purposes. As a j further mark of the loyalty of the Burns-j Club, ho thought they should all stand and 1 sing the National Anthem. This request was heartily responded to. Mr Denniston, in the course of a brief address on Sir Walter Scott, succeeded in conveying to those present an excellent idea of the character of this celebrated writer and the quality of the works that have rendered his name famous. While expressing his frank admiration for Scott’s genius, his judgment was by no means blinded by that factor, and, though his praise was never fulsome, he touched gracefully the outstanding merits of Scott’s immortal romances and scarcely less immortal poems. The speaker stated that of Scott, as of few literary men of genius, it could safely be asserted that both as man and as author he was without reproach. Looked at from whatever standpoint, he commanded whole-hearted admiration and affection. Through the medium of Lockhart’s life and his own diary his familiar and much-loved figure could be seen daily in the streets of Edinburgh. He could be followed through the days of his prosperity and fame and honour to those dark times in his life when he struggled as no man of letters ever strove to pay off the immense burden and obligations that had fallen on his shoulders, mainly through the errors and follies of other men. They could think of him as the man who taugnt the world what Scotland was and is, its history and its loyalty, and who had painted in joyous colours the beauty of its lakes and mountains and rivers. And, finally, they could see him hastening home from the Continent to die in his beloved home—Abbotsford. Continuing, the speaker asked how Scott stood to-day as an author who was read. The generation to which he belonged read him eagerly and with delight, but he feared that Scott was neglected by the rising generation, which regarded him as prosy and tedibus. He could assign no better reason than that this was not a romantic, but a utilitarian, age, and he deplored the fact This great author first won fame as a poet, but it was as a novelist that he became best known and most greatly loved and admired. Mr Denniston then proceeded to refer briefly to several well-known incidents in some of Scott’s most famous works and to deal with the more characteristic phases of his writings. A number of personal touches were then added to the picture, and the speaker made a closing reference to that pathetic period of Scott’s life when, under the painful pressure of what he regarded as a debt of honour, ho wrote novel after novel with his very heart’s blood, and almost rucceeded in the great task which fine had undertaken. —(Applause.)