LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

The end of the year, his own eightyFix year.", and the fnrt that ho has recently published another book of poems, make it north while quoting Thomas Hardy's recently written ,: Afterwards":—

When the Present his latched its postern behind my tremulous etay, And the May month flaps itn g!ad green leaves like wing«, lV.icate-filmcd as new-spun silk, will the neighbours nay, "He was a man who used to notice such things 1 "

li it be in the dr.sk when, like ,an eyeiid'fl soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn. ■ jaier ma-,- think, •To him this must have been a .'jmiliar sight.''

It" T pass during tome nocturnal blackness, mothv and warm. When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm. But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

I:', when hearing (hat I have been stu'ed at last, thev etand at the door, Watchinjr the full-starred, heaven* that winter seee, Will this thought rise on those w«o will meet my fnco no more, 'He wa 9 one who had an eye !or *uch mysteries?"

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, And a crossing breeze cut* a pause in its otitrolliugs. Till they rise again, a« they were a new bell's boom, •'He hear* it not now, but used to notice such things.'"

From a letter to the "Observer" by the novelist, Mr Alfred Tresidder Sheppard: The suggestion in New -South Wales that a death-sign should be erected wherever a motor fatality has occurred opens the' doors to queer possibilities. In Tvrol all kinds of accidents and fatalities are depicted in colour on boards, and intensify the gloom ot that lovely though sombre land. 1 liavo seen crudely-painted pictures or tragedies through fire, fallen trees, avalanches, and broken ice. Near one inn in a verv remote part of the mountains was a small bridge over a torrent, and on the- bridge was a deathsign showing a child being tossed over tho parapet by a cow. Round the corpse relatives are often represented, and frequently angels wait above to receive the souls of the dead.

Similar pictures on our roads might suggest caution: they would certainly, while opening an entirely new field to artists, add considerable interest to a journey by car. And a fiery motor-car.

An influential committee has been formed for cue purpose of finding ways and means for erecting on a public site in London a magnificent Swedenborg' Memorial executed recently by Professor Carl Minnes. Swedenborg spent a considerable part of his life in England, died,in London in 1772, and was buried in the old Swedish church in Prince's square in the East of London. Professor Minnes's memorial (says an exchange) shows a Messenger descending from Heaven and Swedenborg kneeling in prayer, with head averted in reverential awe. to receive the message. It is a highly imagyiative conception, and though the figures, treated in simplified planes of a severely vertical tendency, are actually detaohed like isolated units, thev are linked'together by the aspiring rnythm of the design and by the suggestion of the spiritual bond.

"We shall never return to the rolling periods and the sonorousness of Gladstonian days (the "Daily Express" said recently), but the wonders of our modern tongue have been shown by two auperb .examples this week. The' first came with the unveiling of the inscription on the Abbey memorial tablet to a million dead. The second was supplied by Mr Cosgrave's remarkable letter to the Prime Minister. Both are models of their kind. There is not n false or an ill-chosen word in either. They convey great meanings simply and wonderfully. Nothing beyond that need bo asked of the spoken or written word."

Here is the first of the "two aup«rb examples" referred to above, the war tablet dedicated to the million dead of the British Empire, in the nave of Westminster Abbey.. The tablet is a stone slp.b, inscribed with the following words: —

''To the glory of God <\ud to ib« memory of one million dead ol the British Empire, who fell in the Great War, 1914-1910. They died in every quartet of the earth and on au its teas, and their graves are made sure for them by their Inn. The main host He buried in the land of our Allies of the war, who have Bet aside their resting-places in honour for ever."

Here, too, is the concluding portion of President Cosgrave's letter to Mr Baldwin:—

"It is well known throughout Ireland that I, and at leant one other member of the Executive Council, were actively engaged in the hostilities which occurred in Dublin in April of 1916 while ihe Great War was in progtpaa; and in which a number of casualties occurred on both sides. Ido not wish —nor could it serve any purpose now—to discuss the circumstances of that time, but a considerable amount of feeling was naturally aroused and bitter words were spoken. Among our cititens we number not a few who lost near relatives during the fighting then. So far ae those who were killed among my companions are concerned, time and subsequent happy developments have almost completely cicatrised the wounds, but I know that there are cititena of ours who on that occasion lost brothers and sons who were serving in the British Amy, and there still remains among them—and not unnaturally—a feeling of, I shall not say, bitterness, but rather of pain. For these I fear lest the personal presence at this ceremonial, in memory of their beloved ones, of one to whom they attribute responsibility for their bereavement, should reopen wounds that are not yet quite healed. It is so easy to hurt and bo difficult to heal. I have therefore thought it better to ask Mr O'Higgins, to whom no similar objection exists, and who, in fact, loet a brother in the Great War, to represent me at the ceremony."