NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CIII, Issue 15742, 28 August 1915, Page 3

NOTES.

Mr John Masefield is fit the front-, work: 11 g as an orderly in a hospital, with all thought of the poet's pen left behind him. Ho shows in this way that the pen can he as mighty as the sword in self-sacrifice, and when the war is over he will (if spared) hare a new world of letters to conquer. There are some interesting sidelights in the recently-published Darwin letters (•"Emma- Darwin: A Century of Family l etters "), and the Cavlylcs are among the literary people who'figure therein. Charles Darwin complains of Mrs Carlyle s hysterical soi*t of. giggle.* 7 and finds her neither "quite natural nor ladylike." To William Darwin Carlyle speaks of Cardinal Newman as " : a kind, affectionate man who was much afraid of damnation, and hoped to creep into heaven under the Pope's rett'.eoats. r l hen ho added, "but- he has no occiput."' Fanny Allen is at a dinner party whereat Carlyle tells iMazzini (of whom Madame tie Sssmondi speaks with contempt as having sponsred on Italian dupes and gulled the English), that Beethoven's sonatas are like "a mass of stones, which might- have been as we'l in the quarry.'" It is stated that Sydney Smith grew "more indecorous in "jokes laughter.'' Also, that Monckton Milne=. better as Lord Tloughtni. flirted with Florence Nightingale. ' : He wished to be in love, h"t could not." So he told Sara Coleridge.