NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 20, 18 May 1922, Page 26

NOTES

“Alice Riordan” In a few weeks from, now our present serial, When We Were Boys, will end and we will present our readers with Alice Riordan , a charming novel which is sure to be read with delight in Catholic homes. In the great novel which is now drawing to a close, William O’Brien told us the story of the Irish people at home a generation ago, and his book was interesting reading in the light of events during the past few years. It told of the dauntless Irish spirit of freedom that century after century inspired the young men of Ireland to make an effort to win back for their country the rights of which she had been robbed by force and fraud: it was a story of the days of cruel laws and bad landlords, and the reading of it throws more real light on the Ireland of that time than volumes of dry history books. Our new serial brings us to new scenes. It deals with the Irish race - beyond the seas, with the Irish in exile, far from their own dear land; and it treats mainly of their fidelity to religion in spite of temptation and trial. True to Ireland and true to the Faith of Our Fathers, the children of St. Patrick have ever been. In all history there is nothing to compare with their undying loyalty to both, and we pray that in the future their record may be as. glorious as in the past. Alice Riordan is a beautiful story and *at the same time a very eloquent tribute to the Irish love of the Faith. Vers Libre Some American writers with no ear for rhythm tried to write verse. They turned out prose that was not even good prose, but as it was arranged in lines, more or less of the same length, they said it was poetry. It was pointed out to them that poetry ought to follow certain well-defined rules and regulations in order not to be disqualified by the stewards for running off the course. The Americans said that these rules were all right for old-fashioned poets, but that they had introduced a new sort of go-as-you-please verse and that they were going to defy the stewards and take the consequences. One of them, who had gone to school, invented a new name for their poetry, calling it Vers Libre, which is the French for Go-As-You-Please Verse. As there were many writers who cherished hatred against editors who refused to consider their efforts, the new movement met with so much support that notice had to be taken of it. In fact such a crowd entered for the new events that the newspapers which always follow the crowd began to recognise the Go-As-You-Please versifiers and to pretend that they saw something in what they wrote. Also a number of people who take poetry on trust and only read it because they have an idea that it ought to be'read, took up Vers Libre (which now became a recognised English term) and pretended that they enjoyed it. Hence it seems to have come to stay, and the only way of escape from it is to run away into the Bush. Here are a few samples of “great poetry” (so we are told) in the Go-As-You-Please manner: “Death sends a radiogram every day: When I want you I’ll drop in— then one day he comes with a master-key and lets himself in and says:. We’ll go now.” “Galoots fat with too much, galoots lean with too little, galoots millions and millions, snousel and snicker on, plug your exhausts, hunt your snacks of fat and lean, grab off ours.” If you can admire that you are in the way of becoming a Vers-Librist. If you cannot, drop American poetry and get back to eld Shakspere.

“We” . ~ y An American writer says the readers of a paper are often puzzled to know what manner of being is hidden behind the editorial “we.” The episcopal “we” connotes dignity, learning, eloquence, and virtue, or v at any rate it ought to but the editorial pronoun is a much vaguer symbol and may, according to the taste of the reader, stand for a penny-in-theslbt machine, for a gramophone, or for a parrot. In the case of a professedly comic paper there will be a mental picture of an editor as benign as Father Christmas; if the paper be an ordinary follow-my-leader propaganda organ, the picture may be that of a bland person without a conscience and quite content to do what he is told and in the manner desired, for the sake of his pay* —or shall we call it salary ? A certain editor received a pen-and-ink sketch of what a reader thought he was like in the flesh, and it depicted a very solemn-looking person, with a revolver on his table and a flag that was evidently meant, as far as black and white could go, to represent three colors—it was not within a mile of the mark. However, it does seem that the “we” adds mystery to the matter, and perhaps that is why it is retained. Another reason may be that it is something in common between bishops who are respectable people and editors who have not in latter , days covered themselves with glory. So that for the present, at any rate, knights of the quill, or of the typewriter, or of the scissors-and-paste will go on hiding themselves behind the protective pronoun, much as ostriches, might imagine they hide themselves when they stick their heads in the sand. As a matter of fact we do not know whether ostriches do so or not, but it does not make much difference to anybody. One Sympathiser It is consoling to find out for certain that there is one man in the world who is able to sympathise with editors. We do not think there are two. The man in question is one who changed the editorial “we” for the episcopal. More than one editor has done this, but not all of them have remembered in the days of their old age the hardships that beset their earlier path. In the memoirs of Bishop Waitz, who was once editor of the Brixen Chronicle, we read the following words: “The work of a journalist is sometimes deemed as of little importance. There are those who read the newspapers only to speak in criticism and arrogance of them. It were good for such people if they would become editors for only half a year. They have no understanding of what an editor must know and do. A great responsibility attaches to the editing of a newspaper, because its influence is so widespread and impprtant. “It is a thing of bitterness for an editor to devote care and diligence to the writing, of an article only to see it ignored or censured or attacked. I understand why editors grow old in their youth and have diseases typical of their calling— trouble and apoplexy as the consequence of their activities. There is hardly another kind of work which so strains the heart and the nerves as that of an editor.” He understood. And once again, tout comprendre c’est tout jmrdonner.