ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XXV, 20 June 1896, Page 722

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Notice to contributors.—Any letters or USS. recieoed by the Editor of the New Zealand Graphic will be immediately acknowledged in this column.

‘ Vera.’—Your letter is clear and concise, and just the sort we require. You have complied with the rule of writing only on one side of the paper. Can you manage to post so that your letter reaches me on Monday morning, or better still, Saturday night ? Our great object is to keep everything as fresh as possible, and we rely on our correspondents helping us in this.

‘ Martin S.’—We have no space or your style of poetry. Much obliged for the offer of it. ‘Jennie Lee.’ —Declined with thanks. ' Maggie Smith.’—That is. I conclude, the name by which you wish me to reply to you. We do not publish the real name of any contributor when requested not to do so. You can quite rely on this rule. Your story is exceedingly good. The characters are well drawn, the conversation is easy and natural, but the plot is intensely sad. It always seems to me there is quite enough real suffering and sadness in this world without introducing more of it than is absolutely necessary into fiction. I could imagine tender - hearted women crying over your story from start to finish. I think this, though cleverly managed by the author, is a little hard on the reader. I do not at all object to a little pathos in a story, but when your first page cripples the bright little heroine for life, destroys all her mother’s hopes and ambitions for her, and shatters her lover’s hopes of happiness for ever, and each succeeding page reveals more and more helplessness on the part of your invalid, more and more weariness on the part of the tired out and loving nurses, and more agonised waiting on the part of the unfortunate lover, it is too depressing ? Hardly a gleam of brightness crosses the paths of these people of your imagination, and yet, as I said, the story is distinctly good, and the talk of the poor creatures just what one would imagine it to be under similar deplorable circumstances. lam sorry that, owing to the fact of our having space for so few stories in The Graphic, I am unable to publish this one. Those we do select must be brighter in tone, lam therefore returning the MSS. as you request, and trust that you will soon find a purchaser for your story. ‘E.O.N.,’ Greymouth.—Your letter received.

‘Ben Lomond.’ —What curious ideas some of our would-be contributors have of writing ! Your MS. is a case in point. You begin at one corner of your paper and write crossways, so that the commencement and end of each page contain about two words in a line, the centre line having fourteen words. The effect is awkward and unpleasant. In submitting MS. to a reader, you should endeavour to make them as attractivelooking and as easily read as possible. The MS. now before me is corrected and re-corrected, and blotted and soiled until it looks as if quite a number of people had already perused it, and had generally added their own idea of spelling, grammar, and punctuation to yours. If so, you may truthfully exclaim : ‘ Save me from my friends !’ for some words which were evidently spelled in the usually approved fashion when first written have been ‘ corrected ’ wrongly. For instance, you first put ‘ Japanese,’then some unlucky idea seized you, and you put your pen through it and wrote over it, ‘Japanase;’ and another hand crossed that out and suggested ‘Japannese.’ Three or four words on a page undergo this amusing little transformation, with what result intelligent readers of this column could imagine. Had the story been worth copying, I should have sent it back to you and asked—for the sake of the long-suffering compositor—that a tidier, more readable copy should be presented to me, but as it is—well, you may have it whenever you send the necessary postage.

‘ Simplicity.’—Your letter is brief, but contains a good deal. You merely ask : ‘Do you approve of kissing ?’ The question is very vague, and embraces a variety of answers. Do I approve of kissing ? Certainly, but first I want to know whom you want to kiss ? (2) Why you want to kiss? and (3) where you want to kiss ? Because if it’s your accepted lover (1) you may kiss him ; (2) because you love each other and mother approves ; (3) but not in public. These three questions properly answered will govern nearly all kissing. If it’s a relation, all right, given in the right locality, for kissing in the public streets is most objectionable. If it’s a little child, ask yourself if you will hurt it by kissing it ? and if you are not kissing for selfish reasons, i.e., to gratify yourself (this is all No. 2). Then for the third question, ask vourself if it isn’t safer to kiss a baby’s dimpled little hand than anywhere else ? You will run less risk of conveying a cold or other infection to its sensitive little body, and your hat pins and veil or rough moustache won’t scratch its tender little face. But if you could only make up your mind to it, kissing anyone, for any reason, at anytime, is a mistake—medically speaking, of course. Are you writing an article on this subject ?

'Mr J. Izett.’ —Letter and verses received. Thanks, will attend to your wishes if possible.