People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 10 March 1910, Page 388

People We Hear About

, T , , For * he recent official' entry of the Bishop of Volterra Utaiy; when taking possession of his diocese a hymn was m forty-six languages by Canon Angelo VolterraM, c LX+i 1 J U flf+ n phllologist - , The hymn, or rather psalm .consists of fifteen verses, and has been composed in imitation of the psalms of David. u in imiia ■ . Mi. J. Cathcart Wason, whose return as parliamentary representative for Orkney and Shetland was cabled last week, is one of two brothers who sat in the last parLfthaV ... I® T re , PreSeats - the most northerly constituency stitnent? tlSlsleS a i lld i S ? greab favorite with his constituents. When he lands from the steamer, as all must „ a b ° at > he does not wait for the little craft to be pulled up high and dry on the beach, but just puts his leg over the gunwale and wades stolidly through the surf On shore he strides from one group of fishermen to anS ’ i U <u W b( ?? ts ’ and you hear a constant succesaol v ° f ,, Ho ° S a wP ye, • Sandy ? ’ ‘ Aweel, Andra; hoo of 6 the men^ ay fhus it is he has secured the devotion 1? Louise Imogen Guiney, a convert to the Catholic 1 aith, and only child of General Guiney, may now be regarded as America’s greatest woman poet. She has been a resident of Oxford for the last seven years. Miss Guiney s first book (says the Westminster Gazette) was issued a quarter of a century ago, and nearly a dozen volumes were published in the United States. Besides oi iginal and editorial —including monograms on Robert Emmet and Hurrell Iroude, and selected poems of J. C. Mangan, Matthew Arnold, and others—Miss Guiney has since 1901 been pursuing her study of English poetry of the eventeenth century and particularly in connection with the definite edition of the poems of Henry Vaughan, which she has for long had in preparaion. Miss Guinev was born in Boston, U.S.A., in 1861. , y Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton, the essayist, is said to be as interesting and original a personality as he is a writer. He laughs loud, listens well, scolds vociferously, and praises enthusiastically; he is abnormally stout and extremely absent-minded, eccentric, and independent. One who has observed him closely writes: —‘ Walking down Fleet street some day, you may meet a form whose vastness blots out the heavens. Great waves of hair surge fro'm under the soft, wide-brimmed hat. He pauses in the midst of the pavement to read the book in his hand; and a cascade ot laughter, descending from the head-notes to the middle voice, gushes out on the listening air. He looks up adjusts his pince-nez, observes that he is not in a cab remembers that he ought to be in a cab, turns and hails a cab. Ihe vehicle sinks down under the unusual burden and rolls heavily away. It carries Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Mr. Chesterton is the most picturesque figure in the landscape of literary London, He is like a visitor out of some fairy tale, a legend in the flesh, a survival of the childhood of the world, ytfost of us are the creatures of our time, thinking its Droughts, wearing- its clothes rejoicing in -its chains. _ . . He is a wayfarer from’ the ages, stopping at, the inn of life, warming himself at the fire, and making the rafters ring with his jolly laughter.’ Young King Albert of Belgium will help to reduce still further the average age among the crowned heads of the world. Young kings and new kings now loom large hi the public eye. Five/years ago the average age among the sovereigns was fifty-one; to-day it is only forty-five During these five years no less than eight monarchs have made way for younger men at the behest of revolution or of the powei that laughs at revolutions and. monarchs alike. In that period two kings have sprung up where ’ there were no kings before—in Norway and in Bulgaria, hive years ago the dean among the sovereigns was Christian IX. of Denmark, with his eighty-six years, and the youngest was Alfonso of Spain, with his eighteen years ■To-day the head of the line is held by Francis Joseph of Austria, who next August will be eighty, and the rear is brought up by Pu Yi, Emperor of China, who was four last mouth. Oldest among the new men, those, that is, who Have given up their easy rest for a crown during the last five years, is the new Sultan of Turkey, who is sixtyfive., After him come Frederick of Denmark, sixty-three-Gustaf of Sweden, fifty-one; Ferdinand of Bulgaria, fortyeight: Haakon of Norway, thirty-seven; Chok Yi of Korea thirty-five; Albert of Belgium, thirty-four; Manuel of Portugal, twenty; the boy Shah of Persia and the infant Emperor of China. With the youthful galaxy still belong Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who is twenty-nine and Alfonso XIII., who is twenty-three. - ’