LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18900, 15 January 1927, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Authors have a knack of surviving all the slings and arrows of those who think them as a class arrogant and negligible l (writes'the London correspondent of the New York "Bookman"). I see that the late Joseph Conrad—a novelist—is "■ having a monument erected in his honour in the village in which he lived, Ido not say that such a monument is precisely the sort of thing that a writer desires, but since monuments are much admired by certain sculptors and others, I suppose that we may regard this as an honour. Other authors are being honoured—or not, perhaps, so much honoured as commemorated—in a style which strikes me as rather more worthy. Tor example, the Swindon Town Council has just decided to purchase the birthplace of Richard Jefferies and preserve it in memory of him. The Council is to convert tho twelve acres of land adjoining into a pleasure park. This house, Cnate Farm, is the one in which he was living at the time when his work first bepan to attract public notice; . and although Jefferies is not nowadays read as widely as one could wish, he is bound to enjoy a revival in time.

The following paragraph, though written for London, would have been just as appropriate here: — When in tho thirteen century the Bishop of Salisbury wrote "Tho Nun's Rule," ho recommended his charges not to keep cows lest they should bo betrayed into unbecoming language when the creatures strayed. It is a pity his lordship was not consulted about the calendar; he would never have admitted the month of November, which of all months of the year causes the .greatest strain upon the' temper and the lower strata of the dictionary. The past month, which has broken all records of the barometer, may well have broken all records in the other directions. It has been a month of unparalleled dampness, dullness, and discomfort (the catalogue runs naturally to d's): and the Dominion Premiers must carry back with them an ineffaceable impression that the Empire on_ which the sun never sets lias a _ capital in which the sun never shines.

"High" (says an exchange) is an interesting instance of the economical way in which we use the same word to serve a dozen different purposes.. It can be used with quite distinct meanings—of a building, a nobleman, a fish, a'church,-, a crime, a tea, a .polish, a musical note: we can speak of high spirits, high feeding, high explosives, even (whatever it may mean). highfalutin. Surely an accommodating word! • ' :