Answers to Correspondents

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 25 May 1922, Page 17

Answers to Correspondents

W. S. — Dante is asleep there’s no necessity for trying to turn his slumbers into a. nightmare. The opening burst would probably have that effect —and we love the poet: 0, soul that guided Dante’s pen, ’ / If thou immortal art, dost sleep? Wilt wake no more in hearts of men The soul of words that makes or weep, Or laugh, or smiling him that reads! We are able to read seven or eight languages but we confess that we cannot identify this one. Solemnly we advise you thus: for the present, the fire is the proper place for your irons. Mrs. C. O’S. (No address given).-Surely you are not angry because we try to keep on smiling! Don’t let the P;.P.A. get on your mind like that. Think of the borer in the walls or the bad harvest, or all the war has done for us, or some similar pleasant topic. A) hy worry if you are convinced that the Anglicans and the Anabaptists and the Seventh Day Adventists and the Methodists and the Dickeyi tes are rushing into one another’s arms? It is the proper thing for them to do as they are all more or loss Protestants: as like as “the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady,” of whom Kipling sings somewhere or other. As long as these people are on one side of the fence and we on the other we need not worry. Now admit that you would get a shock if you were told that Air. Alassey had taken to visiting the Tablet office and passing by the P.P.A. office in Dunedin. There is a fitness in things as they are, and as long as nothing happens to prevent the celestial orbs from choiring to the youngeyed chernbins, why worry? Unbiassed. —Fair sir, yon do us wrong in that you assert we have no time for the Now Zealand daily papers. We delight to inform you that as far as we know there is an honorable exception among them. The Christchurch Dress is conducted by a gentleman: that stands out in its pages. ,

F. F. —“Father Front” was the pen-name of Rev. Sylvester Mahoney, a native of Cork. He wrote “The Bells of Shandon” and contributed a great many articles to reviews and periodicals. He used to torment Tom Moore by producing (as the original) a Latin, Greek, French, or Italian translation of the Irish bard’s latest poems. He had a marvellous facility for rhyming in foreign languages. Among his best efforts in this direction are: “Tes Blarnias bai Hylai”; “Di Blarnei i Boschi” ; “Lesbia Semper Mine et Tnde” ; “La Nnit Avant d’etre Pendu”, giving “the Groves of Blarney” in Greek and Italian; “Lesbia Hath a. Beaming Eye” in Latin ; and “The Night Before Larry was Stretched” in French. “Father Front” was buried under the shadow of Shandon belfry, near the bells he loved. S. —The Dublin Leader was recently taken to task for saying that Irish is a hard language. But wo agree with the Ljeader that it is. Speaking from our own experience it is far more difficult than French, German, nr Italian. It is not too difficult to learn to read it with pleasure, but we believe the only way to learn the spoken language is by going for a few months to a. Gaelic district. The pronunciation is a holy terror. The verbs are puzzling. The declensions try the memory. And even scholars cannot agree about the spelling. Sacerdos.- —Duns Scotus is claimed by England, Scotland, and Ireland. There'is no conclusive evidence in favor of any one of the three claims. The best argument for his •nationality ’is the entry in the catalogue of the library at Assisi, under the year 1381, which describes him as de prorineia. Hibernian. One Saturday night about 15 years ago the writer of this note found his tomb in the Minoriten Kircho in Cologne. On it was the epigraph: Scotia, vie, genvit, Anglia vie tcniiit, Colonia . me habet. Incidentally, in going from church to church in search of the tomb the writer was deeply impressed by the . great numbers of men kneeling round the confessionals. 0 si sic omnes I :